Hands off my freedom-fighters

When reading Christopher Hitchens these days, one learns to ignore the sarcasm and bile (which apparently seems worth quite a lot on the lecture circuit) and focus instead on the more revealing incidental remarks. As we look back on our past posts about these -- a very non-apropos Heart of Darkness reference, the usage "Iraqis and Kurds," the description of Hamas as anti-Zionist, and a very G&Ts at the Club tone -- we see a weird mix of colonial attraction and repulsion on Hitch's part. Into this mix consider an odd Algerian sidenote in his latest Slate article:

Nor can [al Qaeda and affiliates] claim, as actual guerrilla movements like the Algerian FLN have done in the past, to be the future representatives of their countries or peoples. In Afghanistan and Iraq, they sought to destroy the electoral process that alone can confer true legitimacy, and they are in many, if not most, cases not even citizens of the countries concerned.

Hitch has tried this particular trick before, approving of the FLN's 1990s crackdown on electorally-potent Islamic radicals, notwithstanding that the viciousness of that battle seems to have been the cauldron from which even more virulent radicalism emerged. He also seemed annoyed at the deployment of The Battle of Algiers to show the obstacles likely to be faced by the US in Iraq. So Hitch feels a little sense of ownership about the one-time freedom fighters in Algeria and doesn't want that cachet in any way diluted.

And what of this supposed contrast between the nihilist al Qaeda and the constructive FLN? In fact, the FLN exhibits the classic cycle of terrorism, moving from atrocities and feuds with fellow groups to, yes, disruption of elections, to negotiations with the governing power and, perish the thought, victory:

[via Wikipedia] Frantz Fanon, a psychiatrist from Martinique who became the FLN's leading political theorist, provided a sophisticated intellectual justification for the use of violence in achieving national liberation ... An important watershed in the War of Independence was the massacre of civilians by the FLN near the town of Philippeville in August 1955 ...

At first, the revolutionary forces targeted only Muslim officials of the colonial regime; later, they coerced or killed even those civilians who simply refused to support them. Moreover, during the first two years of the conflict, the guerrillas killed about 6,000 Muslims and 1,000 Europeans ...

the revolutionaries' coercive tactics suggested that they had not as yet inspired the bulk of the Muslim people to revolt against French colonial rule. Gradually, however, the FLN/ALN gained control in certain sectors of the Aurès, the Kabylie, and other mountainous areas around Constantine and south of Algiers and Oran ...

De Gaulle immediately appointed a committee to draft a new constitution for France's Fifth Republic, which would be declared early the next year, with which Algeria would be associated but of which it would not form an integral part. Muslims, including women, were registered for the first time with Europeans on a common electoral roll to participate in a referendum to be held on the new constitution in September 1958 ...

ALN commandos committed numerous acts of sabotage in France in August, and the FLN mounted a desperate campaign of terror in Algeria to intimidate Muslims into boycotting the referendum. Despite threats of reprisal, however, 80 percent of the Muslim electorate turned out to vote in September, and of these 96 percent approved the constitution.

And all this time, one can imagine the equivalents of Hitch talking about how the FLN hates freedom, hates elections, hates France, and how it would be unthinkable to negotiate with terrorists.

UPDATE 27 JUNE: The Algeria meme migrates to the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal (free, reg. req'd):

Insurgencies that have prevailed in history -- Algeria, China, Cuba -- have all [unlike Iraq] had a large base of popular support ...