Thomas Wictor

Every day, we see more useless blather from self-described experts on the Middle East. These people are all idiots. Their opinions are completely wrong. All they need to do is study munitions and military operations. Then they’ll know the truth.

Let me show you how easy it is.

One of these men fighting for the Syrian Democratic Forces (QSD) is a professional soldier. Can you spot him?

If you said this man, you are correct.

He’s an Arab League strategic special operator. His athleticism, bearing, and precision shout “SPECIAL OPERATOR!”

One man can make an entire unit extremely effective, as long as everyone listens to the professional, and the people in charge are realists.

The Syrians and Iraqis are listening. Also, they have no illusions about what they can and can’t accomplish. Only fellow Middle Easterners can point out limitations without it becoming an exercise in face saving and defensive denial.

This is why western “experts” need to shut up. We had our chance; we blew it.

Useless jabbering

Today I was going to talk about a video, but then I realized that it showed a specific deception technique. Therefore I can’t discuss it. Let me just say that the news coming out of Syria is not what it seems.

I can talk about the video below, which is said to show combat in the al-Mallah Farms district of Aleppo.

First the video.

Remember how I told you that things are not what they seem? Well, the video above shows precision air strikes on weapons depots. That’s why you see tracers flying in all directions. Somebody is destroying Bashar al-Assad’s offensive capabilities.

Not only that, at least some of the strikes are the result of the 105mm howitzer mounted on the side of the AC-130 gunship.

Now, the US is not fighting Bashar al-Assad. Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve is at war with only the Islamic State. In fact, Syrian rebels who receive American weapons must sign pledges to not attack Assad’s forces.

But somebody is using retired models of AC-130s in Syria. Multiple videos prove it.

My brother told me something that I hadn’t even considered: The United Arab Emirates has the most advanced aircraft conversion facility in the world. It’s called AMMROC. All the Emiratis need is the plans for the gun mounts of the AC-130. Either that, or they could buy the actual mounts from retired AC-130s that were broken up and sold for scrap. With the plans or the scrapped mounts as patterns, the Emiratis could build their own AC-130s.

Even more exciting?

Not useless

The Emiratis could convert C-17 Globemaster transports into gunships.

They could carry three times the weapons of an AC-130. As a matter of fact, the clip below looks and sounds like strikes from two 105mm howitzers firing simultaneously. There are seven explosions. The latter six appear to be precision-fired rounds from artillery mounted on an aerial platform.

I could be wrong. I could be right.

May the road rise with you.

Back to useless

Every Russian in Syria will have to be killed. This isn’t a tragedy. The Russian culture is pathologically narcissistic, paranoid, grandiose, and self-pitying. As a group, they can’t do anything right. Here’s a Russian FAB-250 M54 unguided general-purpose bomb making a pointless hole in the ground.

This bomb is not aerodynamic, so it’s completely inaccurate.

The Russians aren’t competent enough to carry off their plan of regional domination. I once had a friend who’s a colonel in the Russian army. He was very proud when Russia defeated Georgia and the Ukraine. At the time I liked him, so I didn’t point out the video of barefoot Russian soldiers using the “pray and spray” firing technique of Somali militiamen. Or the fact that Russians stole toilets from the Georgians.

Or Russian “special forces” panicking at the sight of unarmed men singing.

The sooner Russia is kicked out of the Middle East, the better. Vladimir Putin is so rich and so jaded that he feels alive only when he’s destroying anything even semi-decent. The corrupt love to cause suffering. If a handful of Russian soldiers and airmen have to die in order for Putin to get the message that the world has changed, so be it.

Anti-useless

Another amazing video from Syria. I can’t identify the munitions used. They have a signature unlike any I’ve ever seen.

Three separate explosions, but the roofs are intact, and some of the walls are still standing.

All of the explosive force was directed into an empty lot, away from other structures.

My guess is that these were fuel-air explosives. They weren’t American munitions.

This is what Americans are talking about.

We’ve become a deeply silly culture. We’ve lost our way.

In Gaza, the fifteenth terrorist attack tunnel has collapsed, killing members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad al-Quds Brigades. All fifteen of these tunnels collapsed in Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces are not responsible.

It’s commando action by the Arab League. I know that because the Israelis don’t have it in them to kill so many terrorists during peacetime.

Talk is useless

If you’re a Middle Easter who studies the west, you know that we’re addicted to “dialogue.” While it’s true that nobody can talk as much as Arabs, we now live in an era in which the only people actually solving problems by taking risky direct action are those same verbose Arabs. I don’t mind admitting to Muslim readers that Arab culture is a mystery to me. In my opinion the reason that things are changing for the better so quickly is that Middle Easterners are finally charting the course of their own destinies.

Being in control of your own life makes all the difference. Here’s my favorite poem by Stephen Crane.

There were many who went in huddled procession,
They knew not whither;
But, at any rate, success or calamity
Would attend all in equality.

There was one who sought a new road.
He went into direful thickets,
And ultimately he died thus, alone;
But they said he had courage.

Because of courage, the Middle East will finally see peace.