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The Battle of the Casbah: Terrorism and Counterterrorism in Algeria 1955-1957 | 
 enlarge | Author: General Paul Aussaresses
Publisher: Enigma Books
Category: Book
List Price: $17.00
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Rating:  18 reviews
Sales Rank: 160030
Media: Paperback
Pages: 206
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 6 x 0.6
ISBN: 1929631308
Dewey Decimal Number: 327
EAN: 9781929631308
ASIN: 1929631308
Publication Date: February 1, 2004
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Condition: BRAND NEW
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Product Description
No French army officer had ever spoken out in such detail. Many in the goverment, including Francois Mitterrand the future president of France knew and approved of tortured and summary executions in Alegia. This book is particulary relevant to the current national debate on terrorism.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 13 more reviews...
A Good Solider's Account September 23, 2003
Andrew Platek (New York, New York United States)
21 out of 25 found this review helpful
This book is an important contribution to the English language literature on the French-Algerian War. However, the book's importance goes beyond adding to the historical record of France's occupation of Algeria. The subject of terrorism and how to deal with it became immeasurably more important for Americans after 9/11. This book provides a glimpse of one possible way to deal with terrorism - the fight fire with fire way. Aussaressess recounts how he helped set up and execute an anti-terrorist operation in Algiers. He unapologetically tells how he used nightly raids, torture, imprisonment and summary executions to break the back of the FLN in Algeirs during 1955-57 (The movie "Battle of Algiers" is a riveting account of this struggle).
In short, this is a good solider's account of the war. As valuable as this perspective is (and it is very valuable), it is narrow and demands some responses. First, the book fails to provide a context for the war (For context, I recommend reading Alistair Horne's "A Savage War of Peace"). Aussaressess begins with the massacre at Phillipeville but there were atrocities on all sides. This war was an [mass] of violence and hatred. Second, there is a number of moral responses I have to Aussaressess's statements in the book. The one I find most appalling is that Aussaressess believes that he and his intelligence officers were restoring "law and order". I guess as an attorney I find this claim most alarming. I might be more accurate to say that Aussaressess was restoring a kind of order but it was hardly lawful. Suspects were picked up in nightly raids, tortured and summarily executed if they were believed to be terrorists. In most thinkers idea of law, there is the concept of equity: fairness and accountability. Our system has rights and procedures to preserve some accuracy in outcomes and prevent the abuse of power. Aussaressess claims he never executed an innocent person. This is just too incredible to accept. Even in our system, innocent people are wrongly convicted and, police and prosecutors allow their judgments to be skewed by their egos or trying to preserve face. One can only imagine how many innocents were picked up and tortured and killed - which in the end probably caused more problems for the French in Algeria. As effective as Aussaressess was in eradicating a network of terrorists in Algeirs in 1957, France still lost Algeria. The Algerians did not lose heart because of the methods Aussressess employed. Moreover, French public opinion concerning the war turned negative upon revelations of torture.
How to crush an insurgency the Nazi Prison Guard Way November 5, 2004
Kevin Clark
18 out of 20 found this review helpful
The author served as the lead military intelligence officer for the French Army unit fighting in Algiers in 1957. The matter-of-fact, unapologetic tone of the atrocities he committed to win the battle struck me as one of the most chilling accounts I've ever read. By his own admission, he and the organization he led killed 3000 and tortured 25000 during the Battle of Algiers.
Those who tout this book as a tactical manual for winning the war on terror clearly overlook several major problems. First, the FLN, while it had tens of thousands of supporters in Algiers, had nowhere close to 25000 operatives in Algiers. That means that for every terrorist captured, the French tortured a handful of fence-sitters, passive supporters, or non-participants. Secondly, though they were poorly treated, the Arabs were, in fact, French citizens and Algeria was deemed an integral part of France -- just as Michigan with its large Arab population is part of the United States. The actions of the French Army almost completely alienated the very population they were trying to pacify and include in their empire. I would hope that if Al Qaeda established cells in Detroit, we would not employ the same tactics there that the French did in Algiers. Thirdly, while the author may have the psychological make-up of a Nazi Prison guard, most soldiers do not. Many of them struggled to come to grips with their actions for the rest of their lives. It's hard enough to deal with killing without also becoming a torturer.
Most importantly, the French lost the war. While you would never guess it by the outcome, French society initially almost unanimously supported retention of Algeria in the empire-- even some of the Communists. Torture completely fractured support for the war in France and around the world. Those same torturers, confronted with the fact that they might lose the war after leaping into a moral abyss, mutinied not once but twice. DeGaulle ultimately decided he had to get the French Army out of Algeria before it destroyed itself and all of France.
That said, the book provides valuable insight into the mindset of one particular school of counterinsurgency doctrine -- a failed school. This isn't to suggest that terrorists should be coddled; ultimately, we will have to kill most. As the fallout from Abu Gharab suggests, however, this isn't the way.
Kevin Clark
MAJ, US Army
US Mission Iraq
 An Interesting Memoir, But Limited In Scope November 22, 2002
Matthew P. Arsenault (SW Michigan)
11 out of 17 found this review helpful
I originally purchased the book with the hopes of learning more about the French occupation of Algeria. I was not looking to read the memoir of an assassin and torturer. Although the book did not provide much in the way of history, it did provoke much thought about terrorism, colonization, and to what lengths a nation is willing to go in order to crush terrorism...or rebellion (depending on one's definition). During the 1950's, numerous North African nations were granted independence from colonial rule, but France maintained a hard-line in regards to Algeria. After Tunisia was granted independence, nationalists throughout Algeria began to attack French citizens, properties, and government troops in the hopes of securing their own freedom. General Aussaresses was given the task of stopping the attacks on French citizens living in Algeria, and subsequently destroy the nationalists as an entity. The majority of the book discusses how Aussaresses developed a program of executions, assassinations, and torture in order to stop the FLN. He discusses how his secret mission was hidden from the majority of the French populous and even from some major government officials. Then, the book abruptly ends, with out giving the reader a real conclusion. There is no real explanation as to what occurred following the departure of Aussaresses, or what happened to Algeria as a nation. Certainly an epilogue would have been appreciated. Nevertheless, the book did provide food for thought. How does a nation fight terrorism? It would seem that Aussaresses would argue that we fight terror with terror. Kidnapping and summary executions solve the dilemma, Aussaresses would say. But with the use of these tactics, a different dilemma arises. Who is the terrorist when both parties act so similarly?
 Should be titled: "Diary of a fascist" July 29, 2003
9 out of 17 found this review helpful
Only in "The Rape of Nanking" have I read a tale of such remorseless killing. The author personally tortured, hung, and shot numerous people, and the disturbing thing about it was how casual he was in doing so. Considering that he fought the Nazis in WWII with the French resistance, it's surprising how much he seems to have become like them (and how much the French occupation of Algeria looked like the German occupation of France). As for the book as a whole, it's well written and provides an important perspective on the conflict given his key role in it. It also provides a little bit of historic background about how the French experience in Vietnam, the rise of Arab nationalism etc. helped fuel the conflict. But all in all it's a pretty distasteful book (and that's from a person who's read lots of war chronicles).
Model For The Current Struggle Against Muslim Radicals May 22, 2004
Michael W. Kennedy (Dallas, TX United States)
7 out of 22 found this review helpful
This could have been a stunning book, written by a major player in the Battle of Algiers. Instead, it is a poorly written memoir with little literary value. Perhaps the translator is at fault or the author, Paul Aussaressess, is just a hack writer. But the writing is choppy, desultory, in a word, bad. Having said all that, I must say The Battle of the Casbah is an object lesson for the fight against modern Muslim terrorists. Why? BECAUSE THE FRENCH WON THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS! This books shows how they won that battle. To a world fifty years removed from that conflict the idea of torture and summary executions and forgetting civil rights may seem harsh. But when confronted with stone cold killer terrorists who blow up restaurants and kill women and children the remedy MUST be extra-legal or civilization is the loser. I recommend this book to anyone involved on the front lines against those Mulim extremists who seek the deaths of Christians and the fall of the West. There is only one way we can win this war and the model is right here: The Battle of the Casbah.
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