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09/14/2005:

"Tal Afar; crackdown in the Sunni Heartland"

by Mike Whitney
The siege of Tal Afar follows a familiar pattern of brutal American incursions into densely populated areas under the pretense of fighting terrorism. It is a ritual that is repeated endlessly despite the dismal results. The Pentagon seems to prefer these grand displays of military strength to anything that might produce a political solution. It brings to mind the old saw, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again; expecting a different result." This appears to be the guiding principle of the Defense Dept. with Tal Afar serving as the most recent example.

In the present case, a city of 250,000 has been almost entirely evacuated following weeks of artillery bombardment, aerial bombing raids, downed power-lines and water-system, and house-to-house searches.

Ho-hum. Such paltry events never even reach the front page of American newspapers where the ceremony of American suffering is the only topic of interest.

The remaining occupants of the city have reported the killing and maiming of innocent women and children, the use of chemical weapons, and the predictable destruction of Mosques and holy sites. In Tal Afar the Pentagon's "Hearts and Minds" program seems to be running at high-gear.

There was no doubt that Donald Rumsfeld would use the cover of Hurricane Katrina to mount a massive attack in Iraq, and he didn't disappoint. The military conducted a 10,000 man invasion only to find that the city had been abandoned and that the Iraqi resistance had slipped away without incident. Not one foreign fighter was captured during the siege despite claims that the city was a haven for foreign terrorists.

Colonel Greg Reilly told Al Jazeera that the resistance "went into hiding, avoiding us. That's why there's no fighting..They are not putting up a fight".
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