Marla_Singer
United in diversity
Sincerly, I think the things are worse in Iraq than medias show them. The number of wounded soldiers isn't said, we don't know how many iraqis are getting killed in ambush/riots/fights. The country is into Anarchy. I really wonder how it could be possible to avoid an Algeria or Lebanon kind of evolution.
If you don't know about Algeria and Lebanon, here's a short story.
Algeria 1950's : 15 million people including 2 million of pieds noirs ("french" people). Actually, the pieds noirs was the wealthy minority. Even if in 1958, all algerians got the french citizenship, there were severe ethnic cleansings between "indigenous people" (official term of that time) and the pieds noirs. Just to be accurate, I must add that the pieds noirs were in Algeria since the 1820's... so they weren't newcomers. I must say that because it's the main difference between Iraq and Algeria. Moreover, it explains also why it wasn't that easy for France to drop Algeria. Now, I'll talk about common points that conflict had with Iraq.
The FLN (algerian independantists) started a campaign of terror in the mid 50's. They were invisible and there was an ommerta making people remaining silent about them. They weren't liked by the population at the beginning... but terrorism were continuing to increase mainly against the pieds noirs. The French government started to answer back during the sadly famous battle of Algiers. Actually, French troops had to come in each houses to get informations about the "terrorists". Repression had been awful and that's how civilians started to support increasingly the independantists. At the end, the situation were uncontrollable... dirty things happened in each sides of the conflicts. Once the Independance had been given, the FLN did huge massacre against the pieds noirs and the harkis (algerian soldiers fighting for France). Actually, we're talking about thousands of harkis being killed. One of the darkest chapter in French History.
Now about Lebanon. It's been actually a preemptive war made by Israel against the Hezbollah. People from Lebanon were actually glad to see Israelis at the beginning... but things started to get tenser and tenser. At the end, same story : even if (like France in Algeria) Israel was technically controlling the country, the violence were so high that Israel had to retreat.
Two different conflict, Algeria and Lebanon, two victories of bombers and guerillas against conventional armies. Now.... how do you see the future in Iraq ?
If you don't know about Algeria and Lebanon, here's a short story.
Algeria 1950's : 15 million people including 2 million of pieds noirs ("french" people). Actually, the pieds noirs was the wealthy minority. Even if in 1958, all algerians got the french citizenship, there were severe ethnic cleansings between "indigenous people" (official term of that time) and the pieds noirs. Just to be accurate, I must add that the pieds noirs were in Algeria since the 1820's... so they weren't newcomers. I must say that because it's the main difference between Iraq and Algeria. Moreover, it explains also why it wasn't that easy for France to drop Algeria. Now, I'll talk about common points that conflict had with Iraq.
The FLN (algerian independantists) started a campaign of terror in the mid 50's. They were invisible and there was an ommerta making people remaining silent about them. They weren't liked by the population at the beginning... but terrorism were continuing to increase mainly against the pieds noirs. The French government started to answer back during the sadly famous battle of Algiers. Actually, French troops had to come in each houses to get informations about the "terrorists". Repression had been awful and that's how civilians started to support increasingly the independantists. At the end, the situation were uncontrollable... dirty things happened in each sides of the conflicts. Once the Independance had been given, the FLN did huge massacre against the pieds noirs and the harkis (algerian soldiers fighting for France). Actually, we're talking about thousands of harkis being killed. One of the darkest chapter in French History.
Now about Lebanon. It's been actually a preemptive war made by Israel against the Hezbollah. People from Lebanon were actually glad to see Israelis at the beginning... but things started to get tenser and tenser. At the end, same story : even if (like France in Algeria) Israel was technically controlling the country, the violence were so high that Israel had to retreat.
Two different conflict, Algeria and Lebanon, two victories of bombers and guerillas against conventional armies. Now.... how do you see the future in Iraq ?
