When I first watched The
Battle for Algiers in late 2005, I had just returned from my third deployment from leading a tank platoon to serving on a Special Forces staff. At the time, I thought that I knew a lot about combat. I had done the high intensity fights of the Thunder Runs, I was immersed into the indirect methods of Foreign Internal Defense (FID), but I still had no idea about how to comprehend the chaos of failure in Iraq much less any understanding on how to preceed.
Watching Battle for Algiers, I thought the lessons were simple. If, on the tactical level, one is too aggressive with violence, population control measures, and, in the most aggregious failings, resorting to torture, then one is apt to win the battle but lose the war. This film was regarded as the best comprehensive, neutral film of its genre. That's what I walked away with.
Going back to Iraq in 2006 changed everything for me. As the situation deteriorated into a civil war, we forced very violent measures to attempt to regain control and force arbitration. With exception to torture, my actions were reminiscent to LTC Mathieu. In some ways, I was much more violent than his paratroopers. I returned to the United States to continue studying these type of conflicts at the post-graduate level. I wondered about the disconnect between my thoughts of the theory versus my actions in practice.
Finally, I realized the gap. The neutrality of the movie became it's biggest failure. There is no such thing as a neutral narrative. What is missing is the French counter-guerrilla effort was doomed to fail because ultimately, colonialism is doomed to fail. The military effort is extraneous to this discussion. The actions of the French paratroopers could only prolonge or shorten the length of the conflict. They could not influence the outcome. The native Algerians simply wanted their own independence.
Restrepo falls into a similar trap. The lack of context fails to inform the viewer of the overarching struggles in the nearly nine-year old conflict. Through ommision, the producers show a tragic failure to understand insurgency theory. While the film depicts the war for the soldier, it fails to capture the essence of the fight. In doing so, it fails on a very deep fundamental level.
Bookmarks