Kurdish Genocide Op-Ed and Political Cartoon
For this project there was a list of different genocides that we could choose from. After we chose one of the genocides we researched it in two ways, the first time generally and the second time a more specific topic about he genocide. Once we finished doing research we then had to write an Op-Ed about he specific topic chosen and we had to draw a political cartoon to go along with our thesis for the Op-Ed.
During this unit I have grown greatly as a cartoonist with the techniques that I have learned. When I look back at my first cartoon I realize that I didn't use any of the cartooning techniques that we were taught about recently. When I look at my current cartoon I see that I used symbolism the most, whereas in my first cartoon I didn't know any of the techniques so I didn't use any.
This is one of the hardest pieces of writing that I have had to do because it was a technique that I had never had to use before. Whenever I have done writing before I have never had to use this type of writing and learning a new type of writing is difficult to do in a short amount of time. It is also difficult for me to write and have a specific limit to how much I can write.
During this unit I have grown greatly as a cartoonist with the techniques that I have learned. When I look back at my first cartoon I realize that I didn't use any of the cartooning techniques that we were taught about recently. When I look at my current cartoon I see that I used symbolism the most, whereas in my first cartoon I didn't know any of the techniques so I didn't use any.
This is one of the hardest pieces of writing that I have had to do because it was a technique that I had never had to use before. Whenever I have done writing before I have never had to use this type of writing and learning a new type of writing is difficult to do in a short amount of time. It is also difficult for me to write and have a specific limit to how much I can write.
Op-Ed
Over the past decade or two there has typically been a war in the Middle East or in surrounding areas. This being said, it wasn’t something unexpected that genocide occurred. This isn’t saying that the Kurdish Genocide only happened because of the war, there was tension between countries even before the war had broken out between Iraq and Iran. The Iraq-Iran war started in 1980 and lasted until 1988. During this time there was fighting between the two countries and they kept bringing more people into the fight.
The ways of justice that were used were not the correct way to approach the situation. When you kill someone who killed many other people, that isn’t a punishment; that is doing the same thing to him as he did to others and it gives him an easy way out. He isn’t punished for what he did, he is only killed.
The war between Iraq and Iran started because of a long dispute over the border and the location of each other’s land. During the war the Kurdish people chose to fight with Iran and not Iraq, which made tensions even higher between the countries. During the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, the Iraqi regime implemented anti-Kurdish policies and a de-facto civil war broke out. Iraq was for the most part condemned by the international community for this, but they were never actually punished for oppressing the Kurdish people by using measures such as mass murder to kill hundreds of thousands of civilians.
There was a man widely referred to as “Chemical Ali” who did a large part of the killing and he was hung. He didn’t get justice as someone should. Killing the person just give them an easy way out of a situation that they should be punished for, just like in this situation. He was given that name because of his role in gassing tens of thousands of Kurdish people between 1987 and 1988 (Sinan). The Iraqis thought that “the trial once had captivated Iraqis and was seen as an opportunity to disclose the nation’s violent past fully in the name of national reconciliation,” (Sinan).
The genocide against the Kurdish people was widely referred to as the “Anfal” Campaign, which means “Spoils of War.” During the “Anfal” Campaign there were a total of eight campaigns between February and September of 1988. Most of these attacks were against smaller towns in the Kurdish areas of Iraq. Three of them took place in the same area, the Mountain Valleys of Shaqlawa and Rawandus and those lasted a total of three months. Most others lasted for around a month, a few were shorter, but a few were also longer.
While listening to stories you start to hear what happened from a survivor’s point of view. “’People started screaming and we ran to the shelter, along with neighbors and friends,’ Kamaran recounted. ‘We wanted to leave the city but Iraqi military used intelligence tactics. At the beginning, they launched napalm bombs to keep people inside their houses and shelter’ (Haider)” This story makes you understand the horrors that they went through when they were being attacked, even though they weren’t part of anything, they were only civilians.
The largest chemical attacks targeted at a civilian populated area was on March 16, 1988 on the town of Halabja when gas from warplanes resulted in over 5,000 dead and left 10,000 injured (KRG). The result of attacks like this left the civilians that lived with similar stories to Kamaran’s. They all had a similar experience with the attacks. About 2,000 people that lived fled to Southeast Turkey in order to escape the chemical attacks on their home in Iraqi Kurdistan in 1988, only to get attacked by yet another poisoning attempt (KRG).
This genocide is a genocide that isn’t typically recognized all that much. It wasn’t particularly long and it wasn’t something that you heard about on really any news source regularly because there is always a focus on internal issues within a country before there is a worry about another country. This means that you don’t always know what is happening outside of your country because you are being sheltered by your own news from the outside world.
All of these attacks may not have happened if that war had never started in the first place. These attacks also may have been different if a war hadn’t happened. Instead of giving people the trial that they needed to seek justice for the Kurdish community they just killed them, giving them an easy way out, just like with “Chemical Ali.” Proper justice was never given to the perpetrators and the war made the genocide much more war oriented with the attacks than most other genocides.
The war between Iraq and Iran turned out to bring out more than just a war, but also genocide. It definitely wasn’t intentional, but there are always side effects to things such as war. They may typically be small in the scheme of everything, but they can also be large, like in this case it being genocide. Don’t get me wrong, the war wasn’t the first and final thing to start the genocide. There had been hostility between the different groups of people before the war, but when the wrong decision was made in the eyes of the Iraqis, they decided to do something irrational to solve it.
Sources
Sinan, Omar. "Iraq to Hang "Chemical Ali"." Tampa Bay Times. N.p., 25 June 2007. Web. 24 Jan. 2013. www.sptimes.com/2007/06/25/Worldandnation/Iraq_to_hang__Chemica.shtml
Haider, Kamaran. "Kurdish genocide in Iraq: Survivors tell their stories." Kurdish genocide in Iraq: Survivors tell their stories. IBTimesTV. IBT, UK: 28 Jan. 2013. Television.
"KRG UK Representation London."UK.KRG. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Jan. 2013. <uk.krg.org/genocide/pages/page.aspx?lngnr=12&smap=170000&pnr=48>.
The ways of justice that were used were not the correct way to approach the situation. When you kill someone who killed many other people, that isn’t a punishment; that is doing the same thing to him as he did to others and it gives him an easy way out. He isn’t punished for what he did, he is only killed.
The war between Iraq and Iran started because of a long dispute over the border and the location of each other’s land. During the war the Kurdish people chose to fight with Iran and not Iraq, which made tensions even higher between the countries. During the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, the Iraqi regime implemented anti-Kurdish policies and a de-facto civil war broke out. Iraq was for the most part condemned by the international community for this, but they were never actually punished for oppressing the Kurdish people by using measures such as mass murder to kill hundreds of thousands of civilians.
There was a man widely referred to as “Chemical Ali” who did a large part of the killing and he was hung. He didn’t get justice as someone should. Killing the person just give them an easy way out of a situation that they should be punished for, just like in this situation. He was given that name because of his role in gassing tens of thousands of Kurdish people between 1987 and 1988 (Sinan). The Iraqis thought that “the trial once had captivated Iraqis and was seen as an opportunity to disclose the nation’s violent past fully in the name of national reconciliation,” (Sinan).
The genocide against the Kurdish people was widely referred to as the “Anfal” Campaign, which means “Spoils of War.” During the “Anfal” Campaign there were a total of eight campaigns between February and September of 1988. Most of these attacks were against smaller towns in the Kurdish areas of Iraq. Three of them took place in the same area, the Mountain Valleys of Shaqlawa and Rawandus and those lasted a total of three months. Most others lasted for around a month, a few were shorter, but a few were also longer.
While listening to stories you start to hear what happened from a survivor’s point of view. “’People started screaming and we ran to the shelter, along with neighbors and friends,’ Kamaran recounted. ‘We wanted to leave the city but Iraqi military used intelligence tactics. At the beginning, they launched napalm bombs to keep people inside their houses and shelter’ (Haider)” This story makes you understand the horrors that they went through when they were being attacked, even though they weren’t part of anything, they were only civilians.
The largest chemical attacks targeted at a civilian populated area was on March 16, 1988 on the town of Halabja when gas from warplanes resulted in over 5,000 dead and left 10,000 injured (KRG). The result of attacks like this left the civilians that lived with similar stories to Kamaran’s. They all had a similar experience with the attacks. About 2,000 people that lived fled to Southeast Turkey in order to escape the chemical attacks on their home in Iraqi Kurdistan in 1988, only to get attacked by yet another poisoning attempt (KRG).
This genocide is a genocide that isn’t typically recognized all that much. It wasn’t particularly long and it wasn’t something that you heard about on really any news source regularly because there is always a focus on internal issues within a country before there is a worry about another country. This means that you don’t always know what is happening outside of your country because you are being sheltered by your own news from the outside world.
All of these attacks may not have happened if that war had never started in the first place. These attacks also may have been different if a war hadn’t happened. Instead of giving people the trial that they needed to seek justice for the Kurdish community they just killed them, giving them an easy way out, just like with “Chemical Ali.” Proper justice was never given to the perpetrators and the war made the genocide much more war oriented with the attacks than most other genocides.
The war between Iraq and Iran turned out to bring out more than just a war, but also genocide. It definitely wasn’t intentional, but there are always side effects to things such as war. They may typically be small in the scheme of everything, but they can also be large, like in this case it being genocide. Don’t get me wrong, the war wasn’t the first and final thing to start the genocide. There had been hostility between the different groups of people before the war, but when the wrong decision was made in the eyes of the Iraqis, they decided to do something irrational to solve it.
Sources
Sinan, Omar. "Iraq to Hang "Chemical Ali"." Tampa Bay Times. N.p., 25 June 2007. Web. 24 Jan. 2013. www.sptimes.com/2007/06/25/Worldandnation/Iraq_to_hang__Chemica.shtml
Haider, Kamaran. "Kurdish genocide in Iraq: Survivors tell their stories." Kurdish genocide in Iraq: Survivors tell their stories. IBTimesTV. IBT, UK: 28 Jan. 2013. Television.
"KRG UK Representation London."UK.KRG. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Jan. 2013. <uk.krg.org/genocide/pages/page.aspx?lngnr=12&smap=170000&pnr=48>.