Iraq's 1988 Poison Gas Attack on the Kurds

Iraq's 1988 Poison Gas Attack on the Kurds is presented as one of the gravest atrocities committed by Saddam Hussein, and as a test of whether states apply their condemnation of political violence consistently. Chomsky emphasizes that the United States had supported Saddam Hussein when the attack took place, making the episode a pointed counterexample to accounts that reserve the language of terrorism for adversaries alone.

The attack and its political context

Chomsky identifies the gassing of the Kurds in 1988 as among Saddam Hussein's worst atrocities. He places it within a broader record of Western support: the United States and the United Kingdom backed Saddam Hussein during the 1980s, including in the period when he committed these crimes and afterward. The passage does not supply operational details of the attack; its focus is on the political relationship surrounding it and on what that relationship reveals about selective condemnation.

The attack also figures in Chomsky's account of how people in the Middle East understood United States policy toward Iraq. He argues that the preceding decade of American policy had devastated Iraqi society while strengthening Saddam Hussein's power. For audiences across the region, he says, the contrast between that policy and later American claims was difficult to ignore—even among people wary of Osama bin Laden, whose radio message addressed the region. In this account, the 1988 attack was part of the history that made such claims resonate.

Support and selective condemnation

Chomsky invokes the attack to challenge the idea that Western support for Saddam Hussein can be separated from his record of violence. The United States and the United Kingdom, he writes, aided an ally who was committing some of his worst atrocities, including the gassing of the Kurds. The juxtaposition is central: the conduct was condemned as an atrocity, yet the perpetrator received substantial support from governments that later presented themselves as opponents of terrorism.

This example belongs to a wider argument about political labels. Chomsky distinguishes terrorism as defined in official United States documents—the calculated use or threat of violence for political, religious, or ideological ends—from the propagandistic practice of applying the term principally to violence by enemies. Under the literal definition, he argues, responsibility cannot be assessed by asking only whether the perpetrator is an opponent. The Kurdish attack therefore serves as evidence in his demand for a consistent standard, rather than as an isolated account of battlefield events.

A measure of responsibility

For Chomsky, naming crimes also raises the question of accountability. He notes that calling an act a crime requires identifying its perpetrators and holding them responsible, a process that depends on tangible evidence and can lead to politically uncomfortable questions. His broader point is that responsibility should not disappear when the alleged perpetrator is an ally, or when a crime occurs within a policy framework supported by powerful states.

The attack's lasting significance in the discussion is thus relational and argumentative: it connects Saddam Hussein's violence against Kurds to Western support for his government, and tests whether the rhetoric of counterterrorism can withstand scrutiny when applied to friendly states and their clients. Chomsky's conclusion is a principle of consistency. If terrorism is judged by the nature of the act rather than by the identity of the person committing it, the same standards must apply to allies as to adversaries.