Because of the slowness of communications in the 1950s and 1960s, it took a year or more for the message of abuses perpetrated in Algeria to sink in. Now, with the Internet and al-Jazeera, one set of photos from Abu Ghraib is enough to inflame hatred across the Islamic world against the West, providing excuse for all the beheadings and atrocities carried out by al-Qaeda. From the Inquisition to the Gestapo and the "Battle of Algiers," history teaches us that, in the production of reliable intelligence, regardless of the moral issue, torture is counter-productive.

XREF: Connects to modern intelligence debates and the Abu Ghraib scandal; the historical loop from Algeria to Iraq mirrors recurring counterinsurgency failures.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 52