Thomas Wictor

For whatever reason I began studying military issues when I was about seven. It was an odd choice for me, since I hate violence. When I saw my first plucked turkey, I became hysterical. My mother had to throw it away and give us peanut-butter sandwiches for Thanksgiving dinner. But studying war was useful in that it inured me to the notion of shattered expectations. One thing I remember from very early on is that when the Beatles’ song “Magical Mystery Tour” came out in 1968, American soldiers in Vietnam thought it was one of the most sinister things they’d ever heard.

A “tour of duty” is the time you spend in combat or a hostile environment. Because of copyright issues, I can’t embed the song, but that’s okay. I hate it. The lyrics are indeed very sinister.

The magical mystery tour is coming to take you away
Coming to take you away
The magical mystery tour is dying to take you away
Dying to take you away, take you today

It reminds me of a nursery rhyme my aunt sang to me when I was a child: “Oranges and Lemons.” This is how it ends.

Here comes a candle to light you to bed,
And here comes a chopper to chop off your head!

I slept soundly after that. This guy didn’t enter my dreams at all.

My father’s side of the family is German. Children were to be seen and not allowed to ever have a moment’s peace. A terrified child was a happy child.

Magical videos that mean much

This is said to be a video of an American AC-130 gunship engaging Islamic State terrorists near Sarrin, Syria, on April 27, 2015, or May 7, 2015.

In the daytime part of the video, an MT-LB armored personnel carrier (APC) deposits a five-man fire team. Those have to be special operators. You can hear that they’re unleashing a storm of bullets as the gunner on the APC supports them with his machine gun. I’m sure they have close air support as well. Those men are mopping up after air strikes.

Kurdish YPG and YPJ militia, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), and the Kurdish Peshmerga assaulted Sarrin on March 17, which resulted in a stalemate that was resolved with a second assault on June 18, 2015. By July 27, the Kurds and the FSA were in control of Sarrin. This consolidated the hold on the city of Kobane.

The US began providing air support for the Syrian rebels and the Kurds on October 10, 2014. The AC-130 gunship has been used several times. This is an incredibly destructive aircraft.

It has a 25mm Gatling-style cannon, a 40mm cannon, and a 105mm howitzer sticking out of the side. Each weapon is computer controlled for accuracy. The AC-130 flies what’s called a “pylon turn” around the target.

This maneuver allows the target to remain under the guns as long as the aircraft has ammunition. The motto of AC-130 crews is, “You can run, but you’ll just die tired.”

So: There’s a problem with the video of what we’re told is an AC-130 firing in support of the Kurds and the FSA outside Sarrin.

You can clearly hear TWO cannons firing. The rate of fire means that it would have to be the 40mm gun, but no AC-130 has two 40mm guns.

In the video below, you’ll see all the weapons on an AC-130 being fired. Listen to the 40mm gun at 1:39 to 2:29 and from 3:18 to 3:40.

In the Sarrin video, the galloping, irregular ba-dam, ba-dam, ba-dam, ba-dam indicates two cannons firing out of sync. There’s no American gunship with two 40mm cannons.

We used to have the AC-130A, which was armed with two 40mm cannons (the ones with the flash hiders on the muzzles painted red).

The last AC-130 with two 40mm cannons was retired in 1995. Look how pristine that AC-130A is in the video above. We had nineteen of them; I think it’s pretty clear that we gave at least one to our Arab allies. There’s absolutely no doubt that two cannons were fired in the Sarrin video.

Another magical video

This one shows YPG and YPJ militia in action. It has two very important sections.

At 2:49, militia members advance under the cover of a gigantic fusilade.

If you listen carefully, you can hear that most of it is three-round bursts: ga-ga-gak, ga-ga-gak, ga-ga-gak.

That means the people covering them were using American rifles from the M-16 family, almost certainly the M-4 carbine.

The AK-47s that the Kurds use can’t fire three-round bursts. Therefore I’m saying that Arab special operators covered the militia as they ran. Special operators unload huge amounts of bullets. I’ve never heard a Kurdish militia firing so many rounds.

And finally there’s this: an armored vehicle (red arrow) that was idling.

When the camera pulls back, the vehicle is censored.

Judging by the color, shape, and camouflage pattern, I think it’s a United Arab Emirates Leclerc main battle tank.

The UAE won’t discuss the colors of its military equipment, but photos indicate that armored vehicles have two camouflage patterns. One is tan and brown.

The other is gray and olive.

Guess who used to paint their tanks gray?

As I always say, this is supposition. I can’t prove anything. However, you have your own eyes and ears.

The video of the “American AC-130” engaging the Islamic State outside Sarrin shows that the gunship fired two cannons. No American gunship has two 40mm cannons. It was either an AC-130A that we gifted to our Arab allies, or somebody has built a completely new gunship.

When the Kurdish militia advanced on the double, someone covered them with three-round bursts, indicating that the shooters were not using AK-47s.

The armored vehicle behind the trees was censored. If the intention was to obscure only the dead terrorist, they wouldn’t have blurred out half the screen.

I’m talking about this because if I can see it, so can Iran. Besides, nobody can keep up with the Arab League. I’d written about the UAE Air Tractor AT-802i, which Aviation Group 18 used as a part of Special Operations Command.

Well, while nobody was looking, the UAE donated six of their AT-802i’s to Jordan and gave the rest to Yemen. For free. And they trained the Yemeni pilots to carry out their own combat missions. The video is cut off at the end, so be prepared.

The UAE replaced its state-of-the-art AT-802i’s with state-of-the-arter IOMAX Archangels. “Wizzo” means “weapon systems officer” (WSO).

The new Middle East arrived in late 2008, when Israel and the Arab League made peace, and everybody started training for the Big Cleanup. Once the region is stable, we’ll have a brand-new world.

Now can you see why I’m so optimistic?