Critique

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technology multiplier

1. relationship between power and technology
2. geography was not helping

look at this book as a history but as a military history

1. it is meticulous in constructing a coherrent history of the events
2. it is straight forward
3. there is consistency of message

Insurgency

1. mountains
2. depopulation
3. force the kurds to fight run or starve

themes

1. the ambiguity created by Iranian allegations of employment of WMD
2. arms race - this is why it is historically significant - the same theme is being played out in Iran
3. special interests at play - fueling the war for its own gain - a war of exhaustion - parallel with China and Sudan
4. Demonstration effect and symbolic politics - not just in Kurdistand but in Iran

the significance of the use of Chemical weapons

1. so Regina just covered the event that was the war.
2. now i am going to focus on the consequence which was the insurgency
3. but i'm not going to just describe the insurgency
4. i'm going to analyze the mechanisms…

look at this book as a history but as a military history

1. it is meticulous in constructing a coherrent history of the events
2. it is straight forward
3. there is consistency of message

implications for today's world

1. WMD's are a trend in the middle east
2. it starts with Isreal on to Iraq and now on to Iran
3. this is a giant arms race
4. and we seen in Hallabja the human costs

lot's of animosity toward the kurds

1. an important question is: Would WMD have been used if the Iranians had not been present in Hallabja?
2. would gas have been palatable if there was no ambiguity about Iranian use of WMD.
3. Gas was a unconventional but not the entire plan to route the insurgency
4. anafal campaign involved a brutal screening program (a lot of desert executions)
5. Insurgency's are a battle for the minds of people
6. an insurgency is not defeated by simply eliminating militant insurgents
7. popular control over the civilian population has to be reinstated as well as neutralizing the militants
8. gas demonstration effect was essential for this

Hiltermann

• over-emphasis on US role in facilitating the Chemical Warfare attacks by Iraq makes it difficult to fully appreciate the complicity of the western world especially Europe's role
• Making a sharp distinction between the use of Chemical Warfare on Kurdish insurgents on the one hand and the Iranian Military on the other exaggerates the degree to which Iraq violated the Just War Theory concept of disporpotionality.
• The author's avoidance of the comparison between the Bombing Hiroshima and the Chemical warfare attacks by Iraq leads to an impoverished understanding of the motives Iraq may have had for employing chemical warfare.

over-emphasis on US role in facilitating the Chemical Warfare attacks by Iraq makes it difficult to fully appreciate the complicity of the western world especially Europe's role

• sins of omission, sins of commission
• Joost's condemnation of american complicity
• comes close to legalistic direct implication of US involvement in the Gassing of the Kurds
• whereas Germany specifically but Europeans more generally are implicated in sins of commission
• Joost glosses over German shipments of chemical warfare ingredients to Iraq
• he discusses german involvement only in the context of american intelligence foreknowledge of
• while it is likely that Joost was choosing his own battles in focusing on the most dominant power in the international order
• more balance is needed and more blame should be shared to fully appreciate the complicity of the western world
• In addition, focusing on the US short circuits the debate as to which sin (omission or commission) was more responsible for facilitating the iraqi use of chemical weapons

Making a sharp distinction between the use of Chemical Warfare on Kurdish insurgents on the one hand and the Iranian Military on the other exaggerates the degree to which Iraq violated the Just War Theory concept of disporpotionality.

• the Iran factor
• Joost draw to stark a distinction between Gas attacks on the Kurds and Gas attacks on the iranians
• Joost suggests that the targeting of civilians was some how more reprehensible than the employment of chemical warfare on Iranian troops.
• He states that this is because of the disproportionality of a chemical warfare attack to insurgent activity was some how greater
• Joost takes for granted that the insurgents were operating singlehandedly
• In fact Iranian involvement with Kurdish insurgent groups was wide spread
• though Iranian involvement does not justify in any way the use of chemical weapons which are widely agreed to be unacceptable in any context.
• Iranian involvement does reduce the disproportionally of the Iraqi response
• does the blurred lines between the kurdish insurgency and iranian incursions into Iraqi territory alter the legalistic framework?
• the legal definitions of war are different depending on if the Iraqi's thought they were fighting civilians or an invasion force with large numbers of local sympathizers

The author's avoidance of the comparison between the Bombing Hiroshima and the Chemical warfare attacks by Iraq leads to an impoverished understanding of the motives Iraq may have had for employing chemical warfare.* Assuming that winning an insurgencies necessitates the target of innocent civilians

• while one can make a sophisticated analogy between the two events, Joost only pays lip service to the Hiroshima bombing comparing the long term consequences of the brutality
• in actuality,
• whereas casualties estimates for the invasion of Japan were upwards of five million only 400, 000 people died in the short term and 1 million more argubly in the long term
• A tenuous analogy can be made for the use of Gas by the Iraqi state.
• Joost presents a lot of evidence that would seem to support such a notion
• he throughly explores the demonstration factor that it caused.
• The demonstration effect was remarkably effective at causing voluntary migrations from kurdish villages which short circuited (inexpensively)
• It also demoralized people's will to fight by inspiring a unique form of terror which made people feel powerless and defenseless against the attack
• the very threat of using such a weapon of Iranian cities was enough to end the Iran Iraq war
• That said while it was not necessary for Joost to take a stance in affirming or questioning this debate.
• Such an obvious comparison in light of the evidence presented was a glaring hole in the analysis
• Gas produced a unique kind of terror which strengthened the demonstration factor that led to evacuations, was an effective use of available resources to crush an insurgency while preoccupied with an interstate conflict.