Thomas Wictor

Heterodox thinking made victory possible

Heterodox thinking made victory possible

I never fit in. It didn’t bother me very much, but my heterodox way of looking at things made life more difficult than it should’ve been. There were times when I wished I could be a magnificent blockhead, marching in lockstep with my peers.

Well, I’ve been purged forever of even the slightest wistfulness over the fact that I never felt the warmth of the herd. I owe my new mindset to Saudi Arabia.

Heterodox planning

The Syrian civil war will end with the defeat of the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, and any other group that wants to impose its will on others. Bashar al-Assad will leave power voluntarily, off to exile in Moscow. Syria will become a federation, and the Syrian armed forces will be built up to First World standards. Iraq and Lebanon will eventually join with their Sunni Arab partners. Last will come Iran. By that time everyone will have formally recognized and made peace with Israel.

As far as I can tell, the Saudis have planned for absolutely every single contingency. There won’t be a protracted, massively violent insurgency such as the one in Iraq that followed the overthrowing of Saddam Hussein. Secrecy and deception will prevent everything from spinning out of control.

Westerners are morons compared to Middle Easterners. I’m not a groupie; if I wanted to, I could criticize the hell out of all Middle Eastern cultures. But that doesn’t change the fact that Middle Easterners have used stunningly heterodox thinking to figure out how to end war in their region. They’ve fooled every western politician, reporter, pundit, professor, fellow, and think-tanker. Here’s a great example of how stupid we are.

Syrian militias armed by different parts of the U.S. war machine have begun to fight each other on the plains between the besieged city of Aleppo and the Turkish border, highlighting how little control U.S. intelligence officers and military planners have over the groups they have financed and trained in the bitter 5-year-old civil war.

The fighting has intensified over the past two months, as CIA-armed units and Pentagon-armed ones have repeatedly shot at each other as they have maneuvered through contested territory on the northern outskirts of Aleppo, U.S. officials and rebel leaders have confirmed.

Who says “US war machine”?

Why, W. J. Hennigen, that’s who!

I’ll bet his friends call him Henny-penny.

Let’s count all the factual errors in his report, shall we?

Heterodox deception

We’ll begin with this.

In mid-February, a CIA-armed militia called Fursan al Haq, or Knights of Righteousness, was run out of the town of Marea, about 20 miles north of Aleppo, by Pentagon-backed Syrian Democratic Forces moving in from Kurdish-controlled areas to the east.

Actually, the CIA suspended its funding and arming of Fursan al Haq in December of 2014. Henny-penny is a little out of date. And the Pentagon doesn’t back the Syrian Democratic Forces (QSD). The QSD is comprised of Kurdish Peoples’ Protection Units (YPG) and the Syrian Arab Coalition (SAC). The US provides weapons to the SAC, not the YPG.

The whole thing is silly, because in reality the QSD is fronted by Arab League and allied strategic special operators using new Israeli-designed weapons. If you think I’m insane to make that claim, you ought to hear what I just confirmed yesterday but won’t reveal. It’s a mind-blower.

Back to Henny-penny.

The CIA, meanwhile, has its own operations center inside Turkey from which it has been directing aid to rebel groups in Syria, providing them with TOW antitank missiles from Saudi Arabian weapons stockpiles.

No. Professional Arab League strategic special operators are using BGM-71 TOW antitank guided missiles (ATGMs) that have Israeli-designed warheads that I call EMPFAE ordnance. These fuel-air explosive (FAE) or thermobaric weapons have a second warhead that produces nonnuclear electromagnetic pulses (EMPs). The shock wave and EMPs destroy everything without necessarily killing people. Here you see an EMPFAE missile defeating the Shtora electro-optical jammer of the Russian T-90 main battle tank. The T-90 was thought to be invulnerable to TOW missiles.

See this logo?

Here’s what Henny-penny says about them.

A fighter with the Suqour Al-Jabal Brigade, a group with links to the CIA, said intelligence officers of the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State know their group has clashed with the Pentagon-trained militias.

“The MOM knows we fight them,” he said, referring to the joint operations center in southern Turkey, which is known as MOM from the acronym of its name in Turkish, Musterek Operasyon Merkezi.

“We’ll fight all who aim to divide Syria or harm its people,” said the fighter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

For one thing, the joint-operations center is supposed to be located in Amman, Jordan, not Turkey, and it’s called the Military Operations Command (MOC), not MOM. Once again Saudi Arabia tricked us. I’m guessing that there’s no center in either Turkey or Jordan. And I don’t think the Suqour Al-Jabal Brigade exists.

Heterodox jibber-jabber

The logo above says “Falcons of Mount Zawiya Brigade,” but the Arabic is “Mountain Falcons Brigade.” This 1200-man militia is said to have been founded by Captain Yousif Yahya in 2011, but other sources say that Captain Hassan Haj Ali is the guy who set it up.

He told Buzzfeed that his battalion received support from Washington and its allies, while Reuters quoted him as saying that his fighters had received training in Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

The Mountain Falcons Brigade is also listed as a secular group. Below is a video that shows no military skills whatsoever. And who wants to bet me $50 that they’re secular?

Those men are playacting. Nobody’s shooting at them. They’re human props.

Heterodox aviation

This video was posted today.

No. The twelve American Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II close-air support aircraft that were sent to Incirlik Air Base in Turkey are from the 75th Fighter Squadron, Moody Air Force Base, Georgia.

They’re light gray and have prominent red-and-white shark’s mouths painted on them.

This A-10 is camouflaged in dark colors.

It has no visible national markings. In June of 2015, the Boeing Company sold an unknown number of A-10s to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Our own air force has been trying desperately to rid itself of this spectacular weapon since the 1970s. The final 150 will be retired next year.

Heterodox weapons

This video was released by Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve.

I can’t identify the weapon. The black dots (red arrow) are holes in the ground and vehicle.

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) filmed the destruction (below left), while another aircraft fired (right).

I think the weapon was a 20mm M61A1 Vulcan cannon.

It fires 100 rounds per second. The question is, which aircraft was carrying the Vulcan? When people see a video released by Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve, they automatically think that Americans conducted the air strike. I think this was an Arab aircraft, probably a counterinsurgency (COIN) turboprop like the IOMAX Archangel.

IOMAX_Archangel

Heterodox alliances

Here’s one reason why Russia fled Syria.

Israeli and Jordanian jets together confronted Russian warplanes in January over southern Syria and warned them away from crossing their shared border, King Abdullah of Jordan told American lawmakers.

The Russian warplanes were attempting to survey Israeli defenses in the Golan Heights, according to a report by the Middle East Eye based on Abdullah’s briefing to members of Congress on January 11.

It’s one thing to train together. It’s quite another for the Jordanians to assist in protecting Israel. You’re still going to hear things that make you angry or suspicious. Like this.

King Abdullah of Jordan accused Turkey of exporting terrorists to Europe at a top level meeting with senior US politicians in January, the MEE can reveal.

The king said Europe’s biggest refugee crisis was not an accident, and neither was the presence of terrorists among them: “The fact that terrorists are going to Europe is part of Turkish policy and Turkey keeps on getting a slap on the hand, but they are let off the hook.”

According to a detailed account of the meeting seen by MEE, the king went on to explain what he thought was the motivation of Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Abdullah said that Erdogan believed in a “radical Islamic solution to the region”.

He repeated: “Turkey sought a religious solution to Syria, while we are looking at moderate elements in the south and Jordan pushed for a third option that would not allow a religious option.”

No. This is part of the plan. The Arab League, Turkey, the Kurds, and Israel are cooperating. Trust me. You’ve been hearing about how Russia has launched over 150 air strikes in support of the Syrian Arab Army in Palmyra, right?

There’s no video of Russian air strikes. All the aircraft at Palmyra are Syrian, like this Sukhoi Su-22.

Someday I’ll tell you why. If I’m given permission.


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