Status Updates From 'A Savage War of Peace: Alg...

despite the flinch-inducing preference to exonerate the French, i AM learning about a subject of which i knew little. "A Savage War of Peace" gets recommended a lot for a reason.

(although. my copy's front cover proclaims: "on the reading list of the Bush administration's top military brass!" and, like. i don't think that's a commendation that aged well. you know?)

(2/2) false equivalences. "here's what the French did for Algeria that maybe didn't work: [a list of twenty-one geneva convention violations]. but it wasn't all bad! The French did good for Algeria too. They boosted the economy and introduced European agriculture :)"

like. alistair. buddy. these things are not on the same level.

so i'm five hours into a 30hr audiobook and, like. i understand that in 1973, this was considered a balanced, unbiased accounting of the Algerian war for independence, but with my twenty-first century hindsight, my bias alarm keeps clammoring. written by an englishman who, by his own confession, only visited the area twice, it's FULL of (1/2)