Thomas Wictor

There’s no question that those putting their lives on the line to fight Islamic terrorism are better people than me. They don’t retaliate when lied about and unfairly criticized. All I can say is that the world should be grateful that I’m just a blogger and not a president, prime minister, king, or high-ranking military commander. This would be my answer to everything.

“Oto Melara.”

“Your Highness, Human Blights Crotch just reported that—”

“Excuse me. Thank you. Oto Melara.”

“Mr. World President, We’ve just heard that—”

“Yeah-yeah-yeah. I know. Oto Melara.”

By the way, I want to use an Oto Melara on all you Oto Melara YouTube video uploaders. Just show the frigging cannon firing. We don’t need thirty seconds or a full minute of the turret sitting there, doing nothing.

Back to my main slobbering rant.

Current public discourse in the world is 99 percent straw man. In other words, you lie about what someone says, does, or is, and then you vehemently take issue with your own fabrication. Here’s a great example from the New York Times.

GENEVA — The Yemeni government and Houthi rebels called an immediate halt to hostilities on Tuesday as they started peace talks mediated by a United Nations special envoy at an undisclosed location in Switzerland, a United Nations spokesman confirmed.

The cease-fire took effect at midday in Yemen, hours after a Saudi-led military coalition announced a seven-day pause in the campaign of intensive airstrikes it has conducted in support of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi of Yemen…

The cease-fire is “definitely positive, but this situation is extremely precarious,” said a diplomat who was closely monitoring developments, requesting anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation. Still, he added, “I think there is a will to make progress that we didn’t see in June.”

This is partly a result of far greater pressure on the parties to end the war, analysts say. The military coalition, backed by the United States, is facing mounting criticism over its bombing campaign, which has failed to defeat the Houthis despite the coalition’s overwhelming firepower and its dominance of the skies.

Okay, but the Coalition hasn’t attempted to defeat the Houthis. The Coalition’s goals have been very clear.

Washington sources said Saudi forces had acted in consultation with the White House in launching air strikes against Houthi rebels to try to dislodge their grip on the port city of Aden.

In a rare press conference, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Adel al-Jubeir, told reporters that a 10-country coalition had joined the military campaign in a bid “to protect and defend the legitimate government” of Yemen’s president, Abd-Rabbuh Mansour Hadi…

Officials also said the operation is intended to deter the strategic threat against the Gulf states posed by the Houthi advance and Iran’s growing strategic power, with Gulf cities coming in range of rebel missiles.

The goals have been met.

Liberate Aden: accomplished.

Defend the legitimate government of Abd-Rabbuh Mansour Hadi: accomplished. The Houthis are now negotiating with him.

Protect Gulf states from Iranian missiles: accomplished. Most Yemeni long-range ballistic missiles and their delivery systems have been destroyed.

World of mendacity

The press, pundits, “military experts,” and think-tankers are LYING about the Saudi-led Coalition.

“They failed at doing something they never attempted to do!”

This is the world we live in now. You know what sickens me about the knee-jerk naysayers? If armed forces fight a limited war, it’s always called a failure. But what would’ve happened if the Saudi-led Coalition had carpet bombed the Houthis, leveled cities, used napalm, and killed every last military aged male? Would the people now screeching “FAILURE!” applaud this decisive victory?

Of course not. They’d screech, “WAR CRIMES!” They’re already doing it, even though there’s literally nothing to even suggest that the Coalition is committing war crimes. We’ve seen no unambiguous photos, videos, or physical evidence. All we have are accusations made by the same people who accuse Israel of committing war crimes.

Amend that.

We have fabrications put out by the Iran-bribed organization Human Rights Watch. They published a composite photo of what they say is a cluster munition dropped by a Coalition aircraft.

That’s supposed to be the SUU-65/B Tactical Munitions Dispenser (TMD) of a CBU-87 Combined Effects Munition, but it’s not real.

Here’s the SUU-65/B.

The object in the Human Rights Watch photo has no suspension lugs. Therefore an aircraft could not have carried it. Also, there’s a fuse well (red arrow) not seen on the actual munition.

The “broken” edge of the casing (green arrow) is far too thick to be sheet metal, and it’s also olive drab, indicating that the fragment is made of a molded, homogeneous material, a thermoplastic such as ABS. Finally, the body has extensive riveting (blue arrow), another feature absent from the SUU-65/B. It’s a composite photo; a prop was superimposed on a background scene.

A Czech professional photographer taught me that if you apply the “equalization” function of photo-enhancing software to images, you can expose them as composites.

After equalization, the superimposed prop SUU-65/B leaps out at you. A white outline surrounds the pieces, and you can see that the object appears to be floating above the ground.

Equalization can be used to expose faked photos of explosions.

Before equalization.

After equalization.

The trees and buildings are superimposed, and the smoke cloud is computer-generated imagery (CGI).

This form of fakery is so common that it’s now accepted even by the people who are the targets of the lies. This phony image appeared on the IDF blog.

It’s supposed to be the bombing of Yasser Arafat International Airport in Gaza. In reality there’s no control tower at Yasser Arafat International Airport. It was blown up on December 4, 2001. And the control tower was beige, not red and white.

The photo that the IDF used is a composite of several elements: smoke clouds, buildings, trees, and background. I found another image by the same Palestinian photographer that rearranged the elements somewhat, but you can see that the building in the left foreground remains the same.

Impossible. And two of the explosions scoot to the left along the ground. Not even the Israelis have invented bombs that produce walking explosions.

Since I have no power, the world is safe from my short temper. The wars against those who must be killed are being fought by people who are much more balanced than I am.

That’s a good thing.