Thread: "The General in his Labyrinth"

I'm temporarily hijacking this forum for my own personal reasons -- since I am a native speaker of English. Sorry in advance.

I recently encountered (AGAIN) this phrase: "The General in his Labyrinth". I'm trying to figure out what it's alluding to/why it's used. I first saw it as the title of a New Yorker article about President Musharraf of Pakistan. I thought this was simply something the author came up with. Then this weekend it was used AGAIN as a title (by a different author) about the former leader Jaruzelski of Poland. I googled a bit, and came up with nothing except that this was the title of a book by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Can anyone shed some light on this? Is it a reference to a character in the Marquez novel? Something else?

I believe it does come from "El general en su laberinto". I don't know how the author came up with the idea though.

Then I suppose you should just read the book, Бармалей Such a famous author should be respected!
If you're trying to take a shortcut, then you're a cheater :P

P.S. Don't ask me whether I have read the book myself