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Chapter VI, Reading 7 "Does Torture Work?" Algeria during the 1950s is often cited as an example of torture having been effective in thwarting terrorists. Bruce Hoffman, writing in the Atlantic Monthly in 2002, described it as underscoring "how the intelligence requirements of counter-terrorism can suddenly take precedence over democratic ideals." As Hoffman acknowledges, however, the use of torture by the French in Algeria was at least strategically[...] counterproductive. Its sheer brutality alienated the native Algerian Muslim community. Hitherto mostly passive or apathetic, that community was now driven into the arms of the FLN [National liberation Front], swelling the organization's ranks and increasing its popular support. Public opinion in France was similarly outraged, weakening support for the continuing struggle and creating profound fissures in French military-civil relations. The army's achievement ... was therefore bought at the cost of eventual political defeat. Five years after victory in Algiers the French withdrew from Algeria and granted the country its independence.16 In this essay to appear in his Torture and Democracy, political science professor Darius M. Rejali explains in more detail why, contrary to the opinions of its defenders, torture in Algeria simply didn't work. Torture apologists point to one powerful example to counter all the arguments against torture: the Battle of Algiers. In 1956, the Algerian FLN (National Liberation Front) began a terrorist bombing campaign in Algiers, the capital of Algeria, killing many innocent civilians. In 1957, Gen. Jacques Massu and the French government began a counterinsurgency campaign in Algiers using torture. As English military theorist Brian Crozier put it, "By such ruthless methods, Massu smashed the FLN organization in Algiers and re-established unchallenged French authority. And he did the job in seven months-from March to mid-October." It is hard to argue with success. Here were professional torturers who produced consistently reliable information in a short time. Itwas a breathtaking military victory against terrorism by a democracy that used torture. Yet the French won by applying overwhelming force in an extremely constrained space, not by superior intelligence gathered through torture. As noted war historian John Keegan said in his recent study of military intelligence ("Intelligence in War: Knowledge of the Enemy from Napoleon to Al-Qaeda"), "it is force, not fraud or forethought, that counts" in modern wars. The real significance of the Battle ofAlgiers, however, is the startling justification of torture by a democratic state. Algerian archives are now open, and many French torturers wrote their autobiographies in the 1990s. 256 Chapter VI The story they tell will not comfort generals who tell self-serving stories of torture's success. In fact, the battle shows the devastating consequences of torture for any democracy foolish enough to institutionalize it. Torture by the French failed miserably in VietnamP and the French could never entirely secure the Algerian countryside, so either torture really did not work or there was some additional factor that made the difference in Algiers. Among many torture apologists, only Gen. Massu, with characteristic frankness, identified the additional factor. In Vietnam, Massu said, the French posts were riddled with informants. Whatever the French found by torture, the Vietnamese opposition knew immediately. And long distances separated the posts. In Algiers, the casbah was a small space that could be cordoned off, and a determined settler population backed the army. The army was not riddled with informants, and the FLN never knew what the army was doing. And the French had an awesomely efficient informant system of their own. Massu took a census in the casbah and issued identity cards for the entire population. He ordered soldiers to paint numbers on each block of the casbah, and each block had a warden-usually a trustworthy Algerian -who reported all suspicious activities. Every morning, hooded informants controlled the exits to identify any suspects as they tried to leave. The FLN helped the French by calling a general strike, which revealed all its sympathizers. What made the difference for the French in Algiers was not torture, but the accurate intelligence obtained through public cooperation and informants. In fact, no rank-and-file soldier has related a tale of how he personally, through timely interrogation, produced decisive information that stopped a ticking bomb. "As the pain of interrogation began," observed torturer Jean-Pierre Vittori, "they talked abundantly, citing the names of the dead or militants on the run, indicating locations ofold hiding places in which we didn't find anything but some documents without interest." Detainees also provided...

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