Actions are what counts. We can trust the Saudis
March 16, 2024 by Thomas Wictor
Someone asked if the world can trust the Saudis. Well, their actions prove to me that they’re 100 percent trustworthy. Saudi Arabia is in the midst of one of history’s greatest and fastest transformations. If I had my way, everyone would concentrate on the huge accomplishments and ignore the rest. I believe I know what the Saudis’ ultimate goal is, but I never put people on the spot.
That’s how the Saudis are winning at least three wars simultaneously. Even though the Saudi military has become literally invincible, the evidence shows that enemies are given continuous chances to stop fighting.
I’m too vengeful; I admit it. In contrast, Saudi Deputy Crown Prince and Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman doesn’t take anything personally. As a result, he’s entirely trustworthy. He’s also his opponents’ worst nightmare come true.
Actions in Yemen
The Saudis could’ve killed half a million people in Yemen. I’ll say flat out that every accusation of war crimes is a lie. My knowledge of munitions, tactics, and strategies allows me to see through the fabrications.
This is all you need to know: Nobody targets civilians with precision-guided munitions (PGMs). Actions are everything. Words—claims—mean nothing. The PGMs in the Saudi inventory are mostly British and American. They cost from $10,000 to $500,000 each. Saudi Arabia also has unguided MK-84 bombs that cost $2300 each.
Tell me why the Saudis would target civilians with massively expensive PGMs. One unguided MK-84 produces a crater this big.
You could wipe out a city block with an MK-84. There are simply not enough dead people in Yemen to justify the accusations of wholesale war crimes. The civilian death toll as of January 5, 2016, is 2800.
After ten months of war, the terminally dishonest Houthis reported 2800 civilians killed. Even that number is a lie.
The British version of a story.
Saudi-led airstrikes kill ‘at least 65 people’ when bombs hit busy marketplace in Yemen
At least 65 people die and dozens wounded in airstrikes in Yemen
Witnesses report more than 100 people killed, many of them children
Bombed busy market in Hajja, an area controlled by Houthi rebels
The Yemeni version of the same story.
A Yemeni tribal chief said Wednesday that 33 of the 41 people killed in a Saudi-led air strike on a market in a northern province were rebel fighters, not civilians as first reported.
Medics and tribal sources said that the Tuesday strike in the rebel-held Hajja province killed 41 people and wounded 35. A health official in Hajja said the dead were civilians. But on Wednesday a tribal chief close to Yemen’s Iran-backed Huthi rebels said that 33 of those were “fighters”.
“The fighters were riding in three vehicles at a military camp that was hit by three air raids,” the chief told AFP on condition of anonymity. He added that Saudi-led warplanes then hit the market when the Huthis arrived there.
I guarantee you that the Saudis didn’t bomb a market. The Houthis in the three cars were all dead! I now accept that not a single journalist, pundit, or military “expert” can actually analyze actions, so I’ll walk them through this.
The Saudis didn’t bomb the market, because they didn’t have to. Killing Houthis was never the goal. The Saudis have said in plain language from the beginning that their war plan called for helping Yemenis regain control of their country. The Houthis have a role in Yemen’s future, so killing them in massive numbers is counterproductive.
Instead, the Saudis trained Yemeni soldiers and militia. Here’s a really interesting video taken during the liberation of Taiz, March 11, 2016. WARNING: GRUESOME HOUTHI CORPSES FROM 2:32 TO 2:40.
The men credited with liberating Taiz are militia of the Popular Resistance Committees, which are based on clan affiliation. “Experts” criticized the Saudis for training and equipping these fighters, but as soon as they liberated Taiz, the militiamen evacuated and turned the positions over to the Yemeni army.
Among the jubilant militiamen are silent fighters who turn from the camera, walk away, or cover their faces.
These warriors have customized weapons. The man on the left below has a single-point sling for his AK-47; note the strip of reflective tape on the handguard (red arrow).
He’s a professional special operator. Above, the green arrow shows an AK-47 with no gas piston or foresight.
Much of the rifle is wrapped in cloth.
The cloth is to prevent the rifle from clinking against rocks. There’s no foresight because he kills the enemy at such close range that he doesn’t need to aim. A foresight can also get caught on obstacles. He’s an infiltrator who pops out of the ground like a deadly Jack-in-the-box. The lack of a gas piston means that the rifle has been converted to use the self-loading system of the American M-16.
This next guy has what appears to to be a Saudi Steyr AUG merged with a Belgian FN FAL.
It’s something never seen before. You could use it either to snipe or to mow down an entire crowd.
Actions. THERE AREN’T ENOUGH DEAD YEMENIS. The modified weapons above show that the men taking back cities from the Houthis have unbelievable firepower. But they aren’t using it. They’re also pros. Special operators in most countries are allowed to choose their own weapons.
Syrian actions
I wondered how in the heck the Saudis would solve the Turkish-Kurdish problem in Syria. Their solution is brilliant.
Turkey is backing a new Kurdish faction within the Free Syrian Army to take back territory from the Islamic State (IS) group and stop the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) from seizing further ground along the Turkish border.
The group, known as the Grandsons of Salahadin after the famed 12th-century Muslim Kurdish leader, has already captured several villages in the IS-controlled border region between Jarabulus and Azaz following Turkish artillery attacks and missile strikes. In response, IS hit the Turkish town of Kilis earlier this month, killing two civilians.
There’s a lot of hand wringing about a potential Kurdish civil war in Syria.
No. The Grandsons of Salahadin allow everyone to save face, and the plan for an independent Kurdistan will go ahead. I predict that the Grandsons of Salahadin will (with unseen help) chase the jihadists from Azaz.
The Turks will say, “We kept the Democratic Union Party (PYD) from taking Azaz!”
The PYD’s militia the Peoples’ Protection Units (YPG) will say, “Damn you, Grandsons of Salahadin! Damn you to hell! Traitors!”
And in a few months, Azaz will join the rest of northern Syria.
Kurdish-led parties are preparing to declare a unified region in areas under their control in northern Syria, representatives said Wednesday, as they push a federal model for governing the country.
The move, which would expand an already existing system of self-administration, is likely to anger Turkey which is wary of any bid by Syrian Kurds to solidify their autonomy and their control of territory.
More than 150 delegates from Kurdish, Arab, Assyrian and other parties met Wednesday in the town of Rmeilan, in Syria’s northeastern Hasakeh province.
No. Turkey is in on this plan, a Saudi brainchild. The Saudis see federalism as the solution for the entire Middle East, as announced by former Saudi National Security Adviser General Anwar Eshki in August of 2015.
And contrary to fashion, Gen. Eshki still talks about democratizing the Middle East.
“We have in the Gulf many problems,” he says. “We need more reform. We need more democracy in that place,” albeit democracy inflected by Islamic law. “We can’t conquer the terrorists just with weapons and security acts, but also by justice inside of the country.” He even imagines a federal future for the Arab states of the Persian Gulf region inspired by the U.S. Constitution.
Remember what I said about not putting people on the spot? It’s not smart to demand that Muslims renounce their religion. If the Saudis said, “Hey, all us Arabs must have secular governments,” this would be the result.
Actions matter. Our fat is being pulled from the fire. Nobody has ever fought prolonged campaigns as skillfully and bloodlessly as the Saudis are doing right now. They’re leading the way to a new world. Look at this.
ISIS has lost nearly ten per cent of its territory in Iraq and Syria in the last three months alone, new analysis has found.
The terror group has now relinquished 22 per cent of its land – an area roughly half the size of England – since the start of 2015 in the face of airstrikes and ground offensives by allies.
But new figures show coalition warplanes last month dropped the fewest bombs on ISIS targets since June, suggesting the jihadists are also being hit by other factors such as loss of income and a reduction in the number of militants signing up.
NO, you dummies. THIS is the other factor hitting the Islamic State.
Mohammed bin Salman is so far ahead of the rest of us that in a very real sense, he doesn’t have an ego. For him to be boastful would be like you and me lording it over a room full of five-year-olds.
Actions. I see nothing sinister in what the Saudis are doing. It’s time to give them the benefit of the doubt. They’ve earned it.