Thomas Wictor

“Vanity is definitely my favorite sin,” says Satan in the film The Devil’s Advocate. It’s my favorite sin too, but for the opposite reason: Self-love—a miserably unhappy version of it—is what defines evil people. Because of their vanity, we can easily defeat them.

I spent a year studying the Hamas military deception (MILDEC) operation that took the lives of Ismail Bakr, Mohammed Bakr, Ahed Bakr, and Zakaria Bakr. These four boys were murdered, and their corpses were used on July 16, 2014, at the beach in Gaza. The operation was completely successful in framing the Israeli Defense Forces. I had a documentary made about it, but the film is unreleasable. Now that I’m free from worrying about anything having to do with this case, I can express my disgust at the Israelis and Jews who instantly fell for this transparent fraud.

You realize, you morons, that it’s because of you that Hamas murders children, right? All their propaganda is aimed directly at those who can influence Israeli policy the most. Did any of you give the IDF the benefit of the doubt?

No.

Disgraceful. You actually thought that your own armed forces murdered four little boys.

That’s not really true: You don’t believe that the IDF killed the Bakr boys. You’re just pretending to, exactly like Jew-haters pretend to believe that “Zionazis” are worse than the original Nazis. The IDF has nearly suicidal rules of engagement, and there isn’t a person on the planet who thinks that the Israelis have built extermination camps and are putting Palestinians in gas chambers.

Wait a second. Since the charge is that the Israelis are worse than the Nazis, that would mean that they’re doing worse things, such as dumping the entire populations of Palestinian towns into lakes of sulfuric acid, or they’re transforming all Palestinians into Rouslan Toumaniantz.

Israelis and Jews reached Peak Pecksniffian Poseurism over three murders committed by maniacs who represent nothing but themselves.

The events of last week cast doubt on the ability of Israel to survive the merciless brutality that surrounds it.

The insanity – and there is no other word to describe the frenzy that seized the public debate over acts, however heinous, perpetrated by a handful of individuals (some yet unidentified) – on the outermost fringe of Israeli society, betrayed a dangerous and dysfunctional disability in the nation’s capacity to order its priorities.

For in what is arguably the most fateful 60-day period in recent decades for the Jewish state, when all the nation’s energies should be focused with laser-like intensity on foiling the perilous Iran nuclear deal before Congress, attention has been diverted by sanctimonious hand-wringing and moralistic self-flagellation over crimes of individual perpetrators on the very margins of society.

This obscene carrying-on is not insanity; it’s vanity. Israelis and Jews were competing to see who could express the most phony guilt. Well, I spent over half a century dealing with extremely troubled, unreal people. I’m done. Israelis and Jews who behave this way are on my crap list forever. You’re making life much harder for the people not glistening with an oily coating of vanity.

The good news is that Israel’s deadly enemies are even more vain. They hold Jews and Arabs in such contempt that they’re not even bothering to prepare a defense against what’s coming.

On social media Iranian zealots tell me fairy tales about the IDF running in terror from the mighty Hezbollah in 2006. An Iranian human loudspeaker for the Revolutionary Guard Corps told me that Iran would use missiles to sink any American aircraft carrier that tried to go through the Strait of Hormuz into the Persian Gulf.

If I were a better person, I’d feel sorry for him. He’s like a member of the Vanuatu Air Force, gabbling about John Frum.

An American aircraft carrier would never go through the Strait of Hormuz. It wouldn’t have to. A carrier strike group would remain far away, as it it did during Operation Praying Mantis. It has long-range standoff capability, meaning it can engage the enemy from over the horizon. Not only that, the US Navy is prepared for anything the Iranians can throw at it.

For the escorts of Battle Group Foxtrot, preparations for the 18 April 2024 Operation Praying Mantis began in the southern California operating area ten months earlier. From this first underway period as a unit, the Battle Group Commander, Rear Admiral Guy Zeller (Commander Cruiser Destroyer Group Three), had insisted on a rigorous set of exercises to prepare for the upcoming tour on station in the North Arabian Sea (NAS). Initially, the ships drilled hard at interpreting rules of engagement (ROE) and at devising means to counter small high-speed surface craft (e.g., Boghammers) and low, slow-flying aircraft—both of which abound in and around the Persian Gulf. We later added exercises stressing anti-Silkworm (an Iranian surface-to-surface missile) tactics, boarding and search, Sledgehammer (a procedure to vector attack aircraft to a surface threat), convoy escort procedures, naval gunfire support (NGFS), and mine detection and destruction exercises.

We practiced in every environment—in the Bering Sea during November, throughout our transit to the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean, and on station in the NAS. During the battle group evolution off Hawaii in January, we executed a 96-hour Persian Gulf scenario, with a three submarine threat overlaid. We conducted live, coordinated Harpoon missile firings in southern California and off Hawaii, dropped Rockeye, Skipper, and laser-guided bombs (LGBs) on high-speed targets off Point Mugu and Hawaii and drilled, drilled, drilled. By late March, each ship had completed dozens of these exercises, and we were considering easing the pace and working on ways to make the exercises more interesting, as the day approached when the Forrestal (CV-59) battle group would relieve us. Such philosophic discussions ended abruptly when the USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58) hit a mine on 14 April…

In the NAS, the [aircraft carrier] USS Enterprise (CVN-65) closed to within 120 nautical miles of the Strait of Hormuz. Her escorts, the USS Reasoner (FF-1063) and Truxtun (CGN-35), were stationed to counter the potential small combatant threat in the Strait, and the air threat from Chah Bahar.

I looked all day to see if anyone had figured out that the Saudis, Emiratis, and Pakistanis had executed a spectacular deception operation in Yemen, landing an entire armored brigade that’s turning the tide of the war. Not a word. People are sleepily identifying the tanks and self-propelled artillery pieces, but nobody understands the true impact of what the Arab NATO did.

The divorce has been finalized. Though I’ll keep blogging, it’s only for myself and the Remnant. The masses are vain blockheads who can’t be reached. They prefer striking poses and nattering to actually figuring out what’s happening.

What I do isn’t difficult. Last night I discovered how and where the Saudis and Israelis meet and train. Don’t ask me to reveal it. You can find the answer yourself.

The air assault in the American Southwest that my friend saw being rehearsed is the final stage, not the first, and its only an operation. To get to that point of interoperability required years of planning and multilateral exercises. The US is allowing that area in the Southwest to be used because it exactly matches the terrain where the troops will fight. Although the US, Europe, and Russia trained the Arab NATO, the Arabs and Israelis are the ones who made the unthinkable into a reality that can no longer be denied.

Vain Iranians feel no threat from Israel and the Arabs. That’s good. When the sledgehammer smashes their skulls, they’ll have only themselves to blame.