Thomas Wictor

I never tell people how to think or feel. Everyone has to figure things out for themselves. However, I personally never believed that all Muslims are untrustworthy. I didn’t think that the Middle East would change as rapidly as it is, but I knew that someday things would be different. Now, we’re seeing a full-tilt transformation called a preference cascade.

Here’s how it works: Two people have an idea that appeals to four people each. Suddenly there are eight. These eight share their notions with four each, and they become thirty-two. Then 128. Then 512. And so on.

Spectacular accomplishment is one of the things that have allowed this to happen.

Preference for stability

There are several types of troublemakers: Power-swine who support destruction as a tool that will never impact them directly.

Primitive tribal fanatics who wish destruction on those they hate.

Nihilists who wish destruction on everyone and everything they can’t have.

And narcissists who use destruction as a way to make themselves feel significant.

Those who are capable of human feelings and who recognize the tenuousness of their existence tend to reject the infliction of suffering. Gratitude for who you are and what you have leads inevitably to empathy and altruism.

Another element was needed to trigger the Middle Eastern preference cascade.

Military excellence.

Preference for peace

Muslim Arabs aren’t children. They don’t need safe spaces or participation awards.

However, the troubled modern history of Muslim Arabs hasn’t provided much for the cultures to call their own. They needed something pure and unblemished. Now they have it, in the form of the best soldiers who ever lived.

This took a long time to achieve. Thousands of men and women were involved in the process, and the ethos and awareness gradually filtered down to receptive members of the population.

Middle Eastern Arabs are unabashedly patriotic. Being close-knit societies, they know much more about their armed forces than westerners do about their own. Over the past fifteen years or so, it’s become apparent that Arab armed forces are magnificently skilled. This has allowed for a widespread mindset of confidence and pragmatism.

Confident, pragmatic people always opt for peace. It’s an axiom.

Preference for success

I’ll post this video again, because it’s the only one in existence that shows a complete operation by Arab League strategic special operators. It took place at Handarat Camp, north of Aleppo, Syria, on May 12, 2o16.

What you’re seeing is about 100 Arab special operators launching an assault on what’s likely an Iranian position. The video is said to show Palestinian al-Quds Brigades militia in retreat, but in reality the men below are professional unconventional warriors. They have weapons and equipment not available to militias, and they’re incredibly physically fit. Their mission was to breach the stone wall and attack the enemy’s rear area in order to disrupt command and control and logistics. They did so in two minutes and thirty seconds.

Pay close attention to the men running at the beginning.

The average height of a Middle Eastern Arab man is 5’8″ (173 cm). Therefore the distance that the men ran was at least 170 feet (52 meters).

They crossed that distance in nine seconds, giving them a speed of 12 miles per hour (19 kilometers per hour).

The US Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT) includes a two-mile (3.2 kilometer) run. A man between the ages of 17 and 24 is required to run a maximum pace of 9.24 miles per hours (15 kilometers per hour).

But this is how the soldiers are tested.

The Arab strategic special operators ran at 12 miles per hour (19 kilometers per hour) loaded down with weapons, ammunition, body armor, and other equipment. Some of them were bent double.

As a military historian, I’m amazed. I find myself bursting with pride for these men.

Imagine how their home countries feel.

The West has nothing to fear from Muslim Arab armed forces. We’re not important enough. Israel and the Arab League are fighting enemies that pose an existential threat. The challenge is to defeat the enemies without sowing the seeds for future wars. A very precise amount of force must be used.

Nobody is more skilled at using force than the current Arab leaders.

Preference for order

Here’s a video that’s been kicking around since May 15, 2013. It shows a Free Syrian Army (FSA) T-55 tank that was almost hit by an antitank guided missile (ATGM) during the siege of Abu al-Duhur Airbase, Idlib Governorate.

Well, that’s an American FGM-148 Javelin ATGM.

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and the Syrian Defense Forces (SDF) aren’t equipped with the Javelin. Arab League special forces fired that missile at the FSA tank.

Also, the Javelin is a “fire and forget” missile that uses an infrared seeker to track the target. The missile operator looks through the sight and sets a box around the target. Once the operator “locks” the box onto the target, he fires the missile. It hits the target all by itself.

There’s absolutely no way that a trained special operator missed that tank. He locked the tracking box onto another target and shot the missile as a warning to the FSA to back off. Which they did. Immediately.

The Javelin had a high-speed little buddy.

That’s not a bug. It was perfectly stationary in midair for two frames.

It’s one of these.

Bye-bye! Say hello to Tel Aviv, Riyadh, and Abu Dhabi for me!

Analyses of the Syrian civil war have been horrible. One reason is that the 24-hour news cycle requires that analysts blather constantly and always have an opinion. Nobody ever says, “I don”t know.”

The second reason that everyone is wrong? Bigotry.

Preference for self-determination

Again, Muslim Arabs don’t need me to stand up for them. I’m just explaining why we in the West can’t understand the Middle East. It’s beyond our ability to imagine that Arab armed forces would try to prevent bloodshed.

Bashar al-Assad is the one responsible for the Syrian civil war. He’s been reduced to hiring actors who project utterly primitive symbolism to degraded audiences. The man in the white is supposed to be a Syrian special forces commander.

On the other end of the fitness spectrum, we have “Mohammed Jaber,” the morbidly obese commander of the SAA “Desert Hawks” (Suqur al-Sahara).

He wears what’s called a FAST (Future Assault Technology) helmet and body armor that includes shoulder and groin protection. Only men who carry out actual close-combat missions wear such equipment. He’s a mortifying poseur.

The men winning the wars in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq know that they’re not characters in a movie. That’s why they avoid the camera. Although I have no evidence to support this next theory, I believe that the best Arab League soldiers have been taught that cameras ruin everything.

Most people can’t help playing for the camera. When you know you’re being filmed, you behave differently. Generally, you behave more stupidly.

Preference cascades are clandestine, like Arab League strategic special operators. That’s what makes them both unstoppable.

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