To the EU, Milosevic's trial in The Hague will conveniently serve as a much-needed vindication. The embarrassing Kosovo blunder calls for a moral fig leaf, and this is it. Now, if Milosevic's methods in the repression of insurgent guerillas are justiciable in the World Court, moral principle should have a few French nationals sent to The Hague for similar---and likely worse---war crimes, based on recent and not so recent disclosures of events that politicians thought forgotten or safely hidden.

About a month ago, a much-decorated, eighty-three-year-old retired French general delivered a serious blow to Gallic moral smugness with embarrassing revelations about the 1954--1962 Algerian war. A hero of WW 2 Resistance, Gen. Aussaresses, who holds the highest rank in the Légion d'Honneur, was a major in charge of Services Spéciaux in Algiers from January to June 1957. He convincingly argues in his recently published book that, from 1957 to the end of the conflict in 1962, torture was systematically employed as a method of counter-terrorism with full knowledge and approval of the French government. The general further asserts that torture became institutionalized with the creation by the end of 1957 of two organizations, the Centre de Coordination Interarmées (CCI) and the Détachements Opérationnels de Protection (DOPs). In spite of the historical evidence, many politicians still claim that torture was a military initiative never endorsed by the government. But what is the evidence? Well, in January 1957, the then-socialist government gave Gen. Massu and his 10th Airborne Division the mission with full police powers to stop by "any means necessary" the terror wreaked on Algiers by the insurgents. From the Indochina experience of urban guerilla warfare, everyone knew at the time what "any means necessary" entailed. Massu didn't like the job, but the situation was desperate. Mutilated bodies found daily where they could not be missed and homemade bombs going off anywhere anytime in the city put enough pressure on the general to accept his orders. As the dismantlement of terrorist networks required aggressive intelligence gathering, Massu called on Maj. Aussaresses for that purpose. Aussaresses's department of Services Spéciaux soon obtained results and Massu's "Battle of Algiers" restored order in the city within nine months. In his book, Aussaresses matter-of-factly declares that, yes, his organization used torture and assassination, which he considers repugnant but necessary ingredients in an effective fight against terrorism. He affirms that government officials in Paris and Algiers knew and condoned the practice. In particular, the Minister of Justice knew, because he was receiving regular progress reports from Algiers and had an emissary at Massu's headquarters for the duration of the operation. The Minister of justice was then one François Mitterrand, later to become president of France, icon of the left, and source of national pride. 

In a letter to the daily Le Monde where he responds to accusations of cynicism, Aussaresses tells of his reluctance to take on his six-month "dirty" assignment and of his relief when he was allowed to return to his regiment in June 1957. Yes, torture worked, and that is why he used it. He doesn't repent because that would be reneging on what he saw then as his duty, a fact that the passing of time and belatedly expressed regrets cannot change. While he wouldn't advise young officers to follow in his footsteps, he thinks of his career as righteous.

These comments have stirred a storm of condemnations. The press and some human rights organizations have demanded that the general be put on trial. President Chirac has ordered that he be stripped of his Cross of Légion d'Honneur. Some politicians still insist that the government did not know. Mr. Chirac, who served in Algeria as a second lieutenant and then held an administrative position in Algiers, denies the widespread use of torture. This deeply puzzles many of my French connections who at the time were drafted into the "dirty war." They say that they and another two-and-a-half million comrades who did their time there knew very well what was going on. They told me of the secretive, sinister DOPs and their death squads, and the CCI offices that shuffled suspects within an organized chain of torture chambers. Too many people knew, and communications between Algiers and Paris were too good for the many politicians who set policies and gave orders to claim ignorance. They had deliberately chosen to conduct a dirty, insurrectional colonial war that could not be fought without "all means necessary." 

If the general is to be dragged to the World Court, he shouldn't go alone. To be sure, other retired generals will be the preferred targets of self-righteous politicos eager to toot their moral superiority. While Mr. Guy Mollet, socialist Prime Minister of 1957 France, and his friend Mitterrand can no longer get the justice they deserve, quite a few of their associates and successors are still alive and well enough to accompany Aussaresses to the Hague. My bet is that they won't. Save for a few items so far kept secret, the general's revelations add little to published accounts of the Algerian war. For example, in his 1971 four-part "La Guerre d'Algérie," journalist and former draftee Yves Courrière devotes a few pages to the Services Spéciaux and "Maj. O," a pseudonym for Aussaresses whose name could not be legally mentioned at the time. Yet, in nearly four decades, no inquiry has sought to delineate the politicians' responsibilities in the "dirty war." 

And there is an interesting hitch. Whereas international law has no statute of limitations for war crimes, French laws enacted shortly after the Algerian war have granted a blanket amnesty for war crimes committed by both sides.

Mr. Chirac, who made pompous statements about justice and such at the news of Milosevic's extradition, should not be so sanctimonious. There is good cause for international justice to stick its nose into French international shenanigans---more on that later---but my bet is that it will not happen. The World Court is pretty much under EU control where EU affairs are concerned, and, so far, France is one of the more influential members of the organization. 

Now, let's talk about the United States president who ordered the bombing of civilian Serbs without declaration of war. Yes, the one who gets fat fees for giving insipid speeches on his European tour. Just kidding?