Taki ticked off
Sir: Taki is quite incorrect at various points in his sweeping revision of the history of modern guerrilla movements, on which he bases his opinion that ‘insurgencies have a tendency to wear out their enemy and eventually prevail’ (High life, 11 October).
First, the Communist Hukbalahap movement in the Philippines was defeated in the 1950s and the claims of upstart groups to have continued its depredations in later decades are absurd. Second, the FLN, which was victorious over the French, fought in Algeria, not Tunisia as stated by Taki. Third, the ‘Vietnam-style Tet offensive’ which Taki predicts may happen in Kabul is now widely understood to have been a failure for the Vietnamese communists, notwithstanding the mendacious American media which, not unlike its abominable generation of successors, insisted on reporting to the detriment of Western forces on the ground.
It is somewhat amazing that Taki seems to have forgotten that the Greek communist guerrilla movement of 1946–49 ended in a thorough defeat of the subversives.
Stephen Schwartz
Centre for Islamic Pluralism, Washington, DC
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