Thomas Wictor

In Syria, Russia decided to once again test so-called American resolve. On June 16, 2016, Russian aircraft dropped cluster munitions on US-backed rebels in al-Tanf.

The bombers were the Su-34 Fullback.

To protect the rebels, the US scrambled two F/A-18 Super Hornet fighters from an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean. The US pilots contacted the Russians by radio and ordered them away. When the American jets were engaged in midair refueling, the Russians came back and bombed al-Tanf a second time.

American military officials are surprised, puzzled, and frustrated. When they called their Russian military counterparts, nobody picked up the phone.

Every joke about collectivist weakness is now reality. US officials express bewilderment as to the motivations of Vladimir Putin. This is what historian Victor Davis Hanson calls the “therapeutic view” of geopolitics: All conflict is the result of misunderstandings. We will “dialogue” with the Russians until they explain why they did such a hurtful thing.

The Arab League doesn’t indulge in such deadly foolishness. They reacted to Putin almost immediately. My guess is that the Russians will not interfere again for a while.

American posturing

In 2007, Barack Obama announced that he would transform America into a servile, silly, confused, irrelevant country. He followed through. The president has a European mindset. Regardless of the issue, European leaders have a pathological need to differentiate themselves from Americans. Barack Obama planned to differentiate his America from the one that existed before.

The great superiority that Arab cultures have over the west is that the “world community” is not a factor. Therefore Arab leaders never ask themselves, “What would Norway do?”

Nationalism is beneficial. Collectivism is suicide. Because of global peer pressure, the US is now unable to make good decisions. We’ve become a forty-five-year-old TV ad for Coca Cola.

Stupid idea then, stupid idea now. There’s no such thing as “global citizenship.” Some nations—some cultures—are horrible.

They have death camps. They build shrines to cigarette butts that were once between the greasy lips of their mass-murdering leaders. They abduct attractive girls and deliver them to the dictator. He uses them sexually until he’s bored. Then he kills them with flamethrowers or antiaircraft cannons while his minions cheer.

American diplomats tell us that if we just try a little harder, we can convince the mass murders to become good global citizens.

Arab League leaders know that this is a childish fantasy.

Not an American response

On June 22, 2016, the Islamic State released a video claiming that it had used a roadside bomb to destroy a Russian armored tow truck in Syria. Three Russian soldiers were said to have died.

First the video.

Russia’s response is entirely truthful.

The Islamic State didn’t carry out the attack. It was the Arab League. There’s no doubt whatsoever that this was an air strike, not a roadside bomb. And it killed many more than three soldiers.

That vehicle is the Kamaz-63501 AT artillery tow truck. They don’t drive around by themselves; they tow howitzers. Below is the tow truck and the 152mm 2A65 Msta-B howitzer in Syria.

Counting the crews of the gun and the truck, at least eleven soldiers died.

Now let’s look at the evidence.

Arab League “dialogue”

This is an impact crater from a high-explosive aerial munition.

The crater is shallow and tidy. Below is a real roadside bomb crater.

In the Islamic State video, the shallow crater is full of truck parts. If the explosive force had come from under the road, the crater would be empty. The reason that the crater is full of truck parts is that the explosive force came from above. It was an aerial munition.

The truck is absolutely peppered with tiny holes from steel fragments.

It’s the classic signature of high-explosive aerial munitions. I’m guessing that the aircraft used something similar to the Israeli MPR-500, which has a casing designed to fragment in a predetermined pattern of tiny steel squares.

But those Russian soldiers experienced all sorts of other hell before they left the planet.

Serious, unlike the American approach

This was another ambush. After the aircraft bombed the truck, commandos blew in the armored windshield.

All the glass fell into the cab.

Everybody was killed. There’s evidence of a second strike.

And here’s a hole from a cannon round.

Finally, the scene is littered with empty cartridge cases from 5.56mm rifle rounds.

Russia carried out two unprovoked air strikes with cluster munitions, so the Arab League responded in kind. There were no survivors from the Russian truck and howitzer crews. The commandos left the bodies on the road, allowing the Islamic State to come out of their rat holes and take the cell phones. Then the Syrians collected the bodies.

But there’s no doubt that this was an air strike. A western nation is not responsible. Only the Arab League has the fortitude to go toe-to-toe with Vladimir Putin.

The ambush took place four days after the Russians bombed al-Tanf.

And guess what?

How strange! No more Russian attacks on the people we support in Syria. It’s a shame that Russian soldiers had to die, but war is a hard taskmaster.

American failure

In the Pentagon briefing above, British Army Major General Doug Chalmers—Deputy Commander of Strategy and Sustainment, Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve—says that the Iraqis are liberating Fallujah much faster and much more effectively than expected.

The US trained the Iraqis for about eight years, and then the security forces collapsed multiple times in 2014 and 2015. I blamed the Iraqis, but now I realize that I was wrong. Therefore I need to tell the Iraqis that I’m sorry. Please accept my apology. This was our fault, not yours.

Western culture is now devoted to fostering dependency. All western advocacy groups have a vested interest in the problem never being solved. Our governments want to put everyone on welfare, and we have what are called “helicopter parents” who hover over their children forever.

Since the parents are always there to rescue, the child never grows up.

I’m not saying that Iraqis are children; I’m saying that we treated Iraqis as children. We didn’t want Iraqis to become self-sufficient. Our intention was to have a massive, permanent military and diplomatic presence in Iraq. The best way to ensure that we kept Iraq in our sphere of influence was to make sure that the nation could never defend itself.

Now do you see why I tell you that you can trust the Saudis? They’re helping Iraqis become everything we claimed to want. The Arab League is trying create a region in which the people themselves choose their own destinies.

That goal will be achieved.