Why should readers be deprived of the intriguing tales that didn\u2019t quite make it, the \u201cback of the notebook\u201d stories of past months? And since Algeria is in the news, take the case of the Algerian Mourad Dhina, executive director of Al-Karama (\u201cdignity\u201d in Arabic), a Swiss NGO researching human rights violations in the Arab world; he\u2019s also founder of the Rashad movement, a group of former Algerian journalists, officials and ex-diplomats who want to rid their country of the Bouteflika regime (above) and its military supporters.<\/p>\n
Living in Switzerland, Mourad encouraged the Swiss to question Khaled Nezzar, one of the top generals who overthrew the Benjadid government in 1992, cancelled elections. A civil war with Islamists followed the coup, in which Algerian goons tortured and executed thousands of their opponents.<\/p>\n
Mourad and his Rashad group, which even has an office in Paris, wanted to overthrow Bouteflika in democratic legislative elections last May but \u2013 bingo \u2013 on a routine trip to Paris in January, he was arrested at Orly because the Algerian authorities had accused him of \u201cterrorist acts\u201d in Zurich and wanted him extradited to Algiers. The Swiss, it seems, were quite unaware of these \u201cacts\u201d \u2013 Mourad\u2019s wife and children are Swiss citizens \u2013 and so, it seems, were the French. But they banged Mourad up in La Sant\u00e9 prison, the very jail in which those well-known Algerian FLN troublemakers of half a century ago \u2013 Ben Bella, Ait Ahmed and Boudiaf \u2013 were imprisoned.<\/p>\n
Of course, Mourad could play no part in the May elections, and old Bouteflika \u2013 he of the side-combed hair and health problems resolved by Paris doctors \u2013 won with a handsome majority. And Mourad? Well, surprise, surprise, the French judiciary freed him two months after those all-important elections, deciding \u2013 it took this august body all of seven months, remember \u2013 that the Algerian warrant was \u201cill-founded\u201d. And Franco-Algerian relations were said to be improving.<\/p>\n
Pentagon folly<\/b><\/p>\n
Just a year ago, the Pentagon produced its restricted file on \u201cSpecial Forces Unconventional Warfare\u201d \u2013 missions to overthrow governments \u201cin the absence of overt or eventual hostilities by the sponsor [sic]\u201d. Among the tactics: \u201cUSG [US government] agencies co-ordinate with allied government-in-exile or resistance leadership for desired US support\u201d, \u201cSF [Special Forces] team organises, trains and equips resistance cadre. Emphasis is on developing infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for the locals, \u201ckey to transitioning from growing discontent to insurrection is the perception by a significant portion of the population that they have nothing to lose by revolting and the belief that they can succeed. In addition, there must be a spark that triggers insurrection, such as a catalysing event that ignites popular support against the government power\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Resistance movements should operate within \u201cethnic ghettoes\u2026 within sympathetically densely populated urban areas. These areas often create safe havens that HN [host nation] forces are unwilling or unable to access.\u201d And the resistance will need \u201cmoral or political support in the international forum [sic] \u2026 resources, such as money, weapons, food, advisers, and training; sanctuary, such as secure training sites, operational bases over a border, or protection from extradition.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now let\u2019s apply the above to Syria. The \u201csponsor\u201d (the US) wants to keep out of the battle, the Syrian \u201cgovernment-in-exile\u201d has already been chosen, all FSA propaganda (YouTube videos etc) suggest constant victories on the part of the resistance. The \u201cspark\u201d was the torture of children by government forces in Deraa, the \u201cethnic ghettoes\u201d \u2013 for which read sectarian ghettoes \u2013 are Sunni areas of Aleppo, Homs, Hama and the suburbs of Damascus.<\/p>\n
The international \u201cmoral and political support\u201d comes from Obama, Cameron et al, the money and weapons from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, \u201csanctuary\u201d over the border is in Turkey and Lebanon. Oh yes, and \u201cUW [unconventional warfare] operations may involve HA [humanitarian assistance] to benefit populations sympathetic \u2026 to a particular UW effort.\u201d In other words, bread for those who support the resistance, starvation for the rest.<\/p>\n
But let\u2019s be fair. Any similarity or parallel with Syria this past two years is unintended.<\/p>\n
The many faces Bashar al-Assad<\/b><\/p>\n
Combing anew through the Wikileaks files on Syria, I am struck by a conversation Bashar al-Assad enjoyed with US senators in 2009. Those were the days when the president was Bashar-the-Good, a possible \u2018partner for peace\u2019, still two years away from the uprising in which the West (and a lot of Syrians) decided he was Bashar-the-Terrible.\u00a0 The good senators, needless to say, were beating the drum for peace with Israel, a break in Syria\u2019s relations with Iran, etc.<\/p>\n
Bashar was too shrewd to buy this line. He wanted a fact-based treaty before real peace. Here are his thoughts, in the words of a US diplomat:\u00a0 \u201cAsad (sic) likened the process to how a doctor should treat cancer. Condemnations and mutual recriminations might be self-satisfying, but the cancer still grows unless the doctor is able to treat the root illness.\u201d\u00a0 And one wonders \u2013 let us speak the truth \u2013 if Assad remembers this advice.<\/p>\n
Lessons for today from an old handbook<\/b><\/p>\n
It sits in my Beirut bookcase, very politically incorrect, deadly serious, Murray\u2019s 1892 \u201cHandbook for Travellers in Syria and Palestine\u201d. This is Ottoman-travel, where it\u2019s quicker to sail from Beirut to the northern city of Tripoli than go by road.\u00a0 Damascus\u2019s Ommayad mosque \u201cseems only second rate\u201d and \u201cthe dogs of Damascus, like those of other Oriental towns\u2026 are exceedingly useful in discharging the functions of scavengers\u2026\u201d\u00a0 At Hama, Murray records that \u201cthe inhabitants are proud and haughty Moslems, fanatical and ignorant in the extreme.\u201d As for Aleppo, the city is \u201cnotorious for a peculiar and unpleasant complaint, known by the name of the \u2018Aleppo Button\u2019, a small red, hard tubercle, which\u2026forms a scab, which, falling off, leaves an indelible mark.\u201d\u00a0 Any safer today, I wonder?<\/p>\n