L’ALGERIE ANTI-FRANCAISE
(…may stir up the dregs of a former bitter colonial divorce)

The Islamist militants who attacked and kidnapped a group of expatriate workers from a half dozen countries ( including several Americans), from one of Algeria’s major gas production facilities in the southeast region bordering with Libya, Niger, and Mali, appear to have acted as revenge for France’s unilateral decision to apply military intervention with both air and ground troop resources, to aid the beleaguered Mali government against the Islamists rampaging through the northern parts of that country.

While this may have been a useful action in the short run, for France, it may prove not to be a good thing for it in the near future because that action may stir up the dregs of a former bitter colonial divorce which, in terms of ferocity of bloodletting and length of conflict, rivaled anything it experienced in Indo-China. And it took several decades for the bitterness of that conflict to be subdued before both sides could resume relatively civil relations with each other.

In many respects the French-Algerian war resembled our own Civil War rather than a typical war of independence from colonial rule. That’s because Algeria had long been made a –Department- of metropolitan France, and its population citizens of it (which may explain why the bulk of the Muslim population living in France today is Algerian). Thus, the mutual violence and atrocities of those times were extreme by any standards. Those who were of French-Algerian extraction were absolutely determined that the country remain…l’Algerie Francaise!…while the Nativists just as adamantly raged for Independence, resorting to guerilla tactics similar to those of the Mau Mau in Kenya and the Viet Cong in Indo-China, which the French then countered with their SAS and death-squad militia operations. And despite a half century since those dreadful times, the memories of them still linger on.

But ultimately the –Grand Charles- (DeGaulle) declared enough was enough and unilaterally told the Algerians…Go! Be Independent!…with the consequences of that unilateral decision making unintended waves of reaction. For France, it faced an eruption of near-mutiny by some of its elite military, of which the SAS units were the primary movers… going rogue and eventually becoming the hard core of those later international “wild geese” mercenaries for hire in so many other conflicts of the post-colonial world; and, having one of the most favored Armored divisions of its Army of that time, seriously consider launching a blitzkrieg type charge on Paris from its bases in occupied Germany, to attempt a coup d’etat. Fortunately,  pride in its motto – Honor Rather Than Honors – overcame their emotions, and sanity prevailed…but it was a very near thing, and NATO’s defense plans for Western Europe were briefly put in jeopardy.

For their part, the Algerians weren’t too thrilled about that decision either, because independence left them in economic and political limbo for many years, taking several decades for all of that to go away. Even so, it is still handicapped by the effects of that abrupt transition to being a fully sovereign national state (and one of the few in North Africa having hardly benefitted from the events of the Arab Spring).

Now, because of another unilateral decision by a French president, this situation threatens to have some very negative consequences, not just for Algeria and France by dredging up memories of all those bad times, but regionally as well. And complicating the problem is the multi-national composition of the hostages increasing the number of parties which will certainly became involved because of that. Algerian counter-measures against the militants holding those hostages may have freed some, though gotten others killed, including some of those militants, but it is evident that French and other countries’ involvement will not be a brief one…and a force presence may end up having to stay for a much longer time than expected.

It’s obvious from all this that militant Islamists connected with al Qaeda will go to any lengths to try and establish some kind of secure base from which to launch whatever schemes they might have to impose their will …where they will. Saharan Africa is as perfect a place as any for that, since its area is vast, its terrain and environment are difficult, and, nearly empty of people. Compounding that, al Qaeda appears to have morphed into a very loose conglomerate of like minded individuals, formed into cells, operating globally on an opportunistic basis, reacting to any situation or policy that offends one of its local affiliates. Thus, having such a secure base from which to launch back-up support for these anywhere in the world…poses a serious threat to the world community. But because of its diversity in composition and motivations, it makes effective counter-measures problematic. One might more accurately compare it to a malignant viral infection, using religion as its carrier, whose constant mutations make it difficult to develop an effective anti-biotic against it.

Which leaves us with the bleak option of considering it only as covens of rabid creatures…a menace not just to their co-religionists but to the rest of the global community as well…and thus to be treated accordingly.

CENTURION