Algeria To End 19-Year Old State of Emergency

The wave of unrest sweeping the Arab states has unnerved Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.   Obviously trying to forestall a democratic uprising in his land, Bouteflika has announced he'll be ending his 19-year old state of emergency and extend more political freedoms.

Bouteflika said the government should adopt new measures to promote job creation, a nod to the problem of unemployment which is particularly acute among young Algerians and helped trigger the uprising that ousted the president in neighbouring Tunisia.

The Algerian president also instructed that national television and radio stations -- which are controlled by the state and broadcast almost no voices of dissent -- give airtime to all political parties.

"  It is a step in the right direction,"  Algerian political analyst Mohamed Lagab said of the proposed changes. "  (It) shows that Bouteflika has understood how fragile the situation is."

 ...The state of emergency was introduced in 1992, soon after the authorities annulled a parliamentary election which a radical Islamist party was poised to win.

That led to nearly two decades of armed conflict between Islamist insurgents and security forces which killed an estimated 200,000 people and from which the country, a major oil and gas producer, is still emerging.

Just in case you were wondering, Bouteflika is indeed a geezer, 73-years old, and he's on his third term in what was supposed to be an indefinite run as Algeria's strongman president.

Oh, This is Precious

"Going to war without France

is like going duck hunting

without your accordion"

Remember when "Dysfunctional Don" Rumsfeld uttered that insult to France when it refused to join Bush's insane invasion of Iraq? America and Americans turned on France, calling them "surrender monkeys" and renaming french fries "freedom fries." What a pack of sphincters!

The Christian Science Monitor reports that George w. Bush and his followers are now scrambling to learn everything they can about fighting insurgencies the French style. They're lapping up the lessons of what the French did right in Algeria:

"The Pentagon held a screening in 2003 of "The Battle of Algiers," a movie about French troops winning control of the Algerian capital. President Bush says that he recently read Alistair Horne's authoritative history on the war, "A Savage War of Peace." And last fall, Christopher Harmon, who teaches a course on the Algerian war at the Marine Corps University (MCU) in Washington, lectured marines in Iraq about the Algerian model."

"Many steps taken in Algeria offer valuable lessons for Iraq ...but not all are applicable. The Algerian and Iraqi insurgencies are different as are the French and American military forces and their strategic goals. The French went in with an overwhelming force determined to permanently control Algeria. Some 500,000 French soldiers occupied a country of 9 million Algerians and were aided by skilled Algerian soldiers called harkis. In Iraq there are roughly 150,000 troops in a country of about 26 million where efforts to train strong, nationalist-minded Iraqi security forces have had spotty results.

"Sealing off the borders is a lesson "the US has totally been unable to use ... this is one of the problems of going in with the small force [former US Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld chose. This is something the French didn't make a mistake on," says Christopher Harmon, who teaches a course on the Algerian war at the Marine Corps University (MCU) in Washington .

Now, just to recap. What did the French do right in Algeria? They went in with 500,000 soldiers for a country of 9-million. Wait a minute, what about Canada in Kandahar? What have we got? Oh yeah, a combat group of 1,000 foot soldiers. Maybe Harper and Hillier could borrow that book when George finishes with it. No forget it, we'll be out of there by 2009.