Tal Afar, Iraq

Socialist Worker Online has a story about the battle in Tal Afar, Iraq. They actually lay out the objective features in straight forward detail. Over twice as many Iraqi forces as Americans, and months of prep work to assure that innocent civilians have ample opportunity to avoid the battle while Sunni Baathist thugs and Foreign Jihadist killers don’t. Civilians leaving prior to combat are provided food, water, housing and medical aid.

Iron Fist in Tal Afar: The U.S. therefore began preparing for a new onslaught on Tal Afar in July, building 80 miles of berms, or blockades, to restrict movement into and out of the city. According to CNN, the operation, known as “Operation Restoring Rights,” involved 4,000 U.S. and coalition forces and roughly 8,000 Iraqi soldiers and police in the Nineveh province, where Tal Afar is located.

Those who were allowed to leave were “screened” as possible insurgents in U.S.-run camps before receiving food and water. According to press accounts, there at least 100,000 refugees--a crisis that led the Turkish Red Crescent, the Muslim equivalent of the Red Cross, to dispatch emergency aid across the borders.

In the Socialist view of the world, a slow developing effort to bring safety and elective rule to a major city is really a doomed attempt to install a puppet government and prevent the minority Sunni population from effectively organizing political opposition to a new constitution. A constitution imposed upon the remnants of Saddam Hussein’s crime syndicate by the millions of Iraqi’s who were not afraid to vote.

While the U.S. military aims in Tal Afar are unlikely to be met, Washington at least hopes for some near-term political gains by pushing Iraqi troops to the fore and giving its puppet government the illusion of power. … The U.S. blitz on Tal Afar will also disrupt efforts by the Sunni population in Nineveh province from mobilizing for a “no” vote in the October 15 referendum on the new constitution.

Socialist Worker Online ends their story with hundreds of thousands of refugees in the desert while a savage American attack is inflicted upon Tal Afar. Bill Roggio writing at The Fourth Rail picks up the story line.

Continuing Ops in Tal Afar: Coalition forces continue mop-up operations in Tal Afar. … About 20,000 of the city's population fled during the fighting, contrary to the stories of a mass exodus of civilians. Reconstruction efforts have been taking place in the city in conjunction with the fighting, with local Iraqis participating in the efforts to provide for jobs and ownership.

al Qaeda's predicament is as follows: It cannot take and hold territory, thus it is unable to project real power. To remain relevant in Iraq and to erode the will of the American public, it must conduct mass casualty attacks. But these attacks increasing alienate the Iraqi citizens, even sympathetic Sunnis and members of the insurgency. That the media cannot or will not recognize al Qaeda's dilemma is stunning, to say the least.

The American lead liberation of Iraq from criminal tyranny and the simultaneous dismantling of the operational structure of al Qaeda’s murderous religious jihad is probably the most humane military operation in history. IT IS STILL WAR, with all that is sickening and painful in human conflict, but the only people dreaming of fireballs incinerating millions are the islamofascists and their socialist supporters.