General Wesley K. Clark, former presidential candidate and NATO supreme allied commander during the NATO war against Yugoslavia, stated in a recent interview on CNN that “ISIS got started through funding from our friends and allies.” He did not specify exactly which US allies he was talking about. It has been widely reported that much of the funding had come from the oil-rich elites of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies, which of course are de facto allies of Israel. Clark did say that ISIS “is part of a strategy to destroy Hezbollah with an army of extremists.” Hezbollah was formed to drive Israel out of Lebanon, and Israel is the only country with an interest in destroying it.
It must be remembered that ISIS is not an indigenous uprising of the Iraqi and Syrian people, but rather is a paid mercenary force largely made up of outsiders that is despised by the local population. According to Nicholas Rasmussen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, more than 20,000 foreigners have flocked to fight for ISIS. They hail from 90 countries, and an estimated 3,400 fighters come from Western states.
Please keep in mind that the CIA intelligence assessment issued in September 2014 put the ISIS strength at between only 20,000 and 31,500 fighters across Iraq and Syria, up from their previous estimate of 10,000. This would indicated that the vast majority are paid foreign mercenaries.
Clark himself stated in a 2014 opinion piece for CNN that ISIS contains “thousands of alienated young people from Europe, the Caucasus, or North America.” He went on to say that ” while it has challenged al-Assad’s forces in Syria, it is more focused on carving out its territory in northern Syria [and] destabilizing Lebanon.”
Please watch this recent interview with CNN below:
