Guilio Douhet's Theory of Air Power
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Having achieved command of the air, pilots would then destroy the enemy's will to resist by conducting aerial bombing on his cities, industrial centres and civilian population. It was thought that civilians were not prepared for the effects of war and the bombing of population centres would create panic among the people.
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In the 1920s Britain bombed Kurds and Arabs in Iraq when they rebelled against Britain's attempts to control them.
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Winston Churchill, the colonial secretary at the time, believed that gas could be used effectively against the Kurds and Iraqis (as well as against other peoples in the Empire): 'I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favour of using poison gas against uncivilised tribes.'
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Wing-Commander Sir Arthur Harris, later Bomber Harris, head of wartime Bomber Command, was happy to emphasise that 'The Arab and Kurd now know what real bombing means in casualties and damage. Within forty-five minutes a full-size village can be practically wiped out and a third of its inhabitants killed or injured.' It was an easy matter to bomb and machine-gun the tribespeople, because they had no means of defence or retaliation. Iraq and Kurdistan were also used as testing grounds for new weapons; devices specifically developed by the Air Ministry for use against tribal villages.
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