Thomas Wictor

I know I should be able to distance myself from the avalanche of transparent lies that slams into me daily. The reason I can’t is that it plays on my worst paranoia, that everyone on the planet has been body snatched. This frustration-and-horror-induced crankiness is getting worse with age.

My brother Tim and I are investors. Every single day, we’re reminded of how people are seduced by fear. Our stock market is incredibly volatile because most investors are perverse. The more money they earn, the more unhappy and insecure they feel. They tend to be extremely ungrateful. I learned this when I was a music journalist in Los Angeles for ten years. The richer the celebrity, the more unpleasant, bitter, demanding, and uninformed.

That was the entertainment industry I experienced twenty years ago. Now there’s no dividing line between Hollywood and Washington.

The US isn’t running out of bombs

I don’t know who started this stupid rumor. It’s total fiction.

Through 15 months of airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, the U.S. Air Force has dropped more than 22,000 munitions, a number that has led the service to increase the funding needed to replenish its stocks of missiles and bombs. But Pentagon officials downplayed the notion that the Air Force is running out of munitions as a result of a higher rate of air operations.

“We’re in the business of killing terrorists and business is good,” said Deborah Lee James, the Secretary of the Air Force. “We need to replenish our munitions stock. Weapons take years to produce from the day the contract is assigned until they roll off the production line.”

“While we get Overseas Contingency money to fight wars, the ability to get the munition to the war fighter could be late to need,” said James. “We can’t afford this kind of risk.”

That figure of 22,286 munitions includes the weapons used by the entire air component of Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve.

Those are the munitions expended by sixty nations.

Back to the ABC News piece.

Congress has approved an Air Force request for $400 million in additional funding for fiscal year 2015 to replenish stockpiles of Hellfire missiles and precision bombs that are being used against ISIS, according to Major Melissa Milner, an Air Force spokesperson.

While Air Force officials declined to provide exact figures, they said the current use rate will not significantly impact its current global stockpiles of precision guided bombs and Hellfire missiles.

So we’re good. Stop blathering about it.

The Saudis did not bomb a medical tent in Yemen

The worst liars out there are Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), otherwise known as Doctors Without Borders. They have yet to tell the truth about the war in Yemen. Their press releases debunk themselves.

An airstrike carried out by the Saudi-led coalition has hit a clinic in southern Yemen run by MSF, wounding nine people, including two MSF staff.

According to local sources, at 11:20 on 2 December, three airstrikes targeted a park in Taiz city’s Al Houban district, 2 km from MSF’s clinic. The MSF team immediately evacuated the clinic and informed the Saudi-led coalition that their jet planes were mounting an attack nearby. The clinic itself came under attack. The wounded, two of them with critical injuries, were transferred to Al Qaidah and Al Resalah hospitals. MSF supports both hospitals in treating war-wounded patients.

There was a bombing two kilometers away. The tent was immediately evacuated, and the Coalition was contacted. Then I guess MSF ran back inside the tent with its patients, and the Coalition dropped a firecracker, because this is the standard mobile or tent clinic that these deranged weirdos use.

How do you suppose that would stand up to a high-explosive 500 lb (227 kg) bomb? MSF said they evacuated the tent when the bombing started two kilometers away. End of story.

Since there are no photos or videos of the damage, and since there were no deaths, this is a pathetic lie. If a genuine explosion occurred, it was the result of the Houthis firing a mortar round. MSF then decided that accusing the Coalition of war crimes would be fake but accurate.

Several nations are fighting the Islamic State on the ground

Stop bitching about how nobody’s doing anything. As Americans we’re used to bizarre, endless buildups to war.

“You do that one more time, and I’ll—”

“Why, I oughtta—”

“Use of chemical weapons is a red line.”

“The military option is still on the table.”

Crankiness.

See, what we’ve done is allow other nations to impose a code on us, even though they themselves don’t follow it. They go to war secretly, without warning, and they lie about it.

This Kurdish special operator is wearing more national insignia than I’ve ever seen on one person.

That’s because he’s not a Kurd. He’s a Spaniard. The red arrows show the Spanish flag, like that on the shoulder of the machine gunner below.

The Spanish commando who helped recapture Sinjar is wearing a whole store’s worth of Kurdish insignia because he almost certainly doesn’t speak the language well. If he misunderstood what someone yelled at him, it could be deadly.

Here are Kurdish special operators intercepting a truckload of explosives being smuggled by Islamic State terrorists.

Why did the guy inspecting the truck mime what he found? Is he a mute?

No. He’s an Argentinian commando. His weapon is a variant of the FMK-3 submachine gun.

The Argentinians don’t export it, and I’ve never seen that model before. Israel and Argentina pretend that they have a strained relationship, but it’s theater. The Israeli and Argentinian military establishments are close; since Israel is doing favors for Argentina, in return Argentina is doing favors for Israel’s allies the Kurds. Plus it’s in Argentina’s interests to be friends with future superpower Kurdistan.

These two men marked by red arrows are not Kurds.

They have no national or rank insignia, and they have the military haircuts that Kurds don’t like. Judging by their age, I’m guessing that they’re brigadier generals, men who can command brigades—4000 or more troops—in combined-arms assaults. They know how to use infantry, special forces, armor, artillery, and air power together.

It’s clear that they’re advising the Kurds; I’m sure that they’re from the same country as the special forces and aircraft that took part in the operation. The second man has his own radio for communicating directly with troops. You can see the antenna in his left breast pocket.

Who are these two men? My gut tells me that they’re Spanish.

Of all the videos on YouTube that showcase Spanish military capabilities, the one below has the least-repulsive music. Spain has very well-trained and equipped armed forces that fought terrorists in Afghanistan for almost ten years. The Spanish were given the hugely dangerous job of being the Quick Reaction Force. That’s how good they are.

Stop putting music to videos about the military. It makes me want to throw up.

Crankiness. I told you.