Thomas Wictor

It’s annoying to have to wade through swamps of manure in order to find the truth. This evening I had a conversation with my brother Tim about doublethink, a term coined by George Orwell in his dystopian masterpiece Nineteen Eighty-four. Doublethink is the ability to accept two mutually contradictory beliefs. It’s part of newspeak, the language invented by the English Socialist Party to prevent citizens from being able to even conceive of ideas not allowed by the government.

The three doublespeak slogans.

War is Peace

Freedom is Slavery

Ignorance is Strength

It sure appears that the press has become the propaganda wing of Big Brother, the Party leader.

In the modern world, what terrifies people most is not belonging. If you have no tribe, you’re a threat, a monster.

I have no tribe. Though I’m glad to be an American, I don’t feel kinship with most of my fellow citizens. They’re far too alien. Take the current #BlackLivesMatters movement. This is a perfect example of doublethink. We’re told that American blacks are so fragile and marginalized that the entire nation must hang its head in shame while also waiving all standards of behavior for these poor, helpless former slaves who were released from their chains yesterday afternoon.

Well, all of social media is full of videos like this.

Black lives don’t seem to matter to many American blacks. Why am I supposed to feel ashamed, when not a single person in that video is expressing horror, mortification, or self-consciousness?

Are these your idea of victims?

The press wants us to regard strapping young men and women as defenseless. However, the very same journalists give coverage to videos of the very same people beating the absolute crap out of each other and having fun while doing so.

I can’t get on the crazy-train with the press. If others are willing to scramble their brains just so that they’ll be liked, that’s great. Count me out.

Today I also went looking for news about the Yemen war. It’s almost impossible to find verifiable accounts of what’s going on. Here’s a perfect example of doublethink.

There must be “proper investigations” to ensure that Saudi Arabia has not breached international humanitarian law in the war in Yemen, according to Britain’s foreign secretary, who said that shipments of UK-supplied weapons would be halted if the Saudis fell foul of those probes.

Philip Hammond’s comments came as Britain is being urged to halt the supply of weapons to Riyadh in the light of evidence that civilians are being killed in Saudi-led attacks on rebel forces in Yemen.

Amnesty International has warned that “damning evidence of war crimes” highlights the urgent need for an independent investigation of violations and for the suspension of transfer of arms used in the attacks.

For one thing, the Geneva Conventions do not forbid the killing of civilians in war. They forbid the indiscriminate killing of noncombatant civilians.

The civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the object of attack. Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited.

3. Civilians shall enjoy the protection afforded by this Section, unless and for such time as they take a direct part in hostilities.

4. Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited. Indiscriminate attacks are:

(a) those which are not directed at a specific military objective;

(b) those which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective; or

(c) those which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by this Protocol; and consequently, in each such case, are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction.

Journalists claim that the Saudi-led Coalition in Yemen is waging indiscriminate war on the civilian population. To bolster that argument, the press uses a report by Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) titled State of Crisis: Explosive Weapons in Yemen. The report instantly debunks itself and virtually every news story out there. It includes a graph that I extended outward to September 28, 2015.

By matching dates with points on the graph, I proved that the Houthis and their allies are responsible for the overwhelming number of civilian deaths. Reporters could’ve done that, but instead they buried the reality under several layers of fantasy.

The head of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) air force on Wednesday dismissed charges that Arab coalition air power caused regular civilian casualties in Yemen’s war, saying warplanes used precision weapons and raids needed multiple approvals…

In an interview with Reuters at the Dubai Airshow, Major-General Ibrahim Nasser Al Alawi said coalition planes had complete command of the skies and so could focus their efforts on supporting ground forces fighting the Houthis.

“As an air power player in the allied forces we are running almost 98 percent precision (weapons) and with small calibers, especially when it comes to civilian areas like cities,” he said, in a rare public comment by a senior coalition officer.

“I can say there are three to four different layers for approving these targets, just to make sure that civilians (are unharmed) – and going with a small caliber you are really controlling collateral damage.”

Journalists refuse to inform themselves on how weapons are utilized. There’s literally no reason in the world for the Coalition to indiscriminately target civilians. It accomplishes nothing while risking the lives of pilots. The view that war is just carpet bombing is based on stupid slogans from a long-dead era.

Almost the entire global press has misreported the Yemen war, claiming that the Saudis are doing most of the fighting and having a hard time. Both are lies, as Major-General Ibrahim Nasser Al Alawi points out.

The whole airspace belongs to the allied forces…so militarily I don’t think you can ask much more than that. Now it is up to the Yemenis to recapture their cities like the capital Sanaa or Sadaa and practice their government.

Nearly all of the ground troops are Yemeni. Several nations have sent small units of special forces, but altogether they number fewer than 10,000. I learned today that Mauritania has sent troops. It’s a battalion of 500; although the Mauritanian Army is only 15,000 strong, it has at least five units of special forces.

1er Bataillon de Commandos Parachutistes (1er BCP)

2eme Bataillon de Commandos Parachutistes (2eme BCP)

Bataillon de la Securite Presidentielle (BASEP)

Bataillon Special d’Intervention (BSI)

Group Special d Intervention (GSI)

The Mauritanians underwent several weeks of training before being deployed to Yemen. Like Senegalese, Mauritanians are experts in counterterrorism. They’ve been trained for years by the US and France, and they use the Embraer EMB 314 Super Tucano, a Brazilian descendant of the legendary North American P-51 Mustang.

It’s purpose-built for counterinsurgency (COIN).

And after two months of fierce ground combat, Qatar suffered its first death, a soldier named Mohammed Hamed Suleiman. Qatar sent 1000 special forces, 200 main battle tanks, and 30 Apache helicopter gunships to Yemen. The fact that only one soldier has been killed in two months is a testimony to the great skill of the Arab forces.

Don’t fall prey to doublethink. All will be well. It’s the press that’s nonfunctional. Much of the world is in fact improving.

Journalists hate improvement. They’re ghouls who thrive on misery.