ISIS: The US-CIA Connection

In July of 2015, U.S. President Barack Obama stated on camera:

“We’re speeding up training of ISIL forces, including volunteers from Sunni tribes in Anbar Province.”[1]

This was immediately dismissed as a “Freudian slip.” However, one need not emphasize such provocative remarks in order to discover a connection between the United States and ISIS. Concrete evidence of such a sub rosa link is contained in a declassified government document.

“The general situation: Internally, events are taking a clear sectarian direction. The Salafist [sic], the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI [i.e., al-Qaeda in Iraq] are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria. The West, Gulf countries, and Turkey support the opposition; while Russia, China, and Iran support the [Assad] regime.”[2]

One possibility is that “the U.S. and other NATO nations are arming and funding ISIS to topple Syrian president Bashir al-Assad, who stands in the way of a critical natural gas pipeline that would depose Russia as Europe’s primary source of energy.”[3]

For example, “[a] Syrian Catholic archbishop has accused the United States of joining forces with al-Qaeda in an attempt to topple President Bashar Al-Assad. Archbishop Jacques Behnan Hindo of Hassaké-Nisibi said he believed that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was arming and training rebel groups in Syria which were al-Qaeda under ‘a different name.’”[4]

The archbishop’s words followed the assertion, by U.S. Senator John McCain, that Russian military “strikes were against the individuals and the groups that have been funded and trained by our CIA…”[5]

“…‘US Senator John McCain …[recently said]that the Russians are not bombing the positions of ISIS, but rather the anti-Assad rebels trained by the CIA,’ Archbishop Hindo told Fides, a Vatican-based news agency. ‘I find these words are disturbing. …They represent a blatant admission that behind the war against Assad there is also the CIA. …Western propaganda keeps talking about moderate rebels, who do not exist. There is something very disturbing about all this – there is a superpower that since September 11 protests because the Russians hit the militias of al-Qaeda in Syria. …What does it mean, (that) al-Qaeda is now a US ally, just because in Syria it has a different name? But do they really despise our intelligence and our memory?”[6]

Previously, retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General Thomas G. McInerney stated:

“[In] Syria we backed, I believe in some cases, some of the wrong people, and …not in the right part of the Free Syrian Army. And that’s a little confusing to people. So I’ve always maintained, and go back quite some time, that we were backing the wrong types. I think it’s going to turn out maybe this weekend, in a new special that Bret Baier [of Fox News] is going to have Friday, it’s going to show that some of those weapons from Benghazi ended up in the hands of ISIS. So we helped build ISIS. Now there’s a danger there. And I’m with you.”[7]

Gen. McInerney’s statement agrees with a later one from retired four-star U.S. Army General Wesley Kanne Clark, Sr., who said:

“Look: ISIS got started through funding from our friends and allies. Because, as people will tell you in the region, if you want somebody who will fight to the death against Hezbollah, you don’t put out a recruiting poster and say, ‘Sign up for us’ or ‘We’re going to make a better world.’ You go after zealots and you go after these religious fundamentalists. That’s who fights Hezbollah. ...It’s like a Frankenstein.[8]

American journalist Steven C. Clemons made similar remarks on the news network MSNBC:

“[W]e see in cases like ISIS instantly, Saudi money, private nongovernment money has helped build ISIS particularly in the early stages.”[9]

Of course, one must bear in mind that the context for these remarks is the fact – already a matter of public record – that the U.S. intelligence community was responsible for the origination of Al-Qaida. Would you believe that Osama bin Laden was a Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.) “creation”?

“Osama bin Laden, the man suspected by Washington to be the mastermind behind Tuesday’s [i.e., Tues., Sept. 11, 2001] devastating attacks on the US World Trade Center and the Pentagon, is arguably the creation of a CIA-led coalition that grew out of Afghanistan’s war with the Russians. …So if bin Laden is a monster, the logic goes, then he is a monster created by the US and its allies. …Asked how the current situation had arisen, [author and Afghan expert John] Cooley replied:

“‘The [former U.S. president Jimmy] Carter administration in 1979 decided …to recruit, arm and train, and pay, and deploy an army of mercenary volunteers. They were Muslims from all parts of the world, including black American Muslims. …And the CIA managed the recruiting process. Recruits were sent to Afghanistan, trained under some CIA officers or Pakistani military intelligence officers who were trained by the CIA in the US. There were many former CIA officers in charge of the programme.’”[10]

Additionally, an Agence France-Presse dispatch disclosed that bin Laden had met with a C.I.A. liaison prior to September 11.

“A report today says that Osama bin Laden underwent treatment in July at the American Hospital in Dubai, where he met with a CIA agent. Citing an unnamed source at the hospital, the report says the suspected terrorist arrived in Dubai on July 4 by air from Quetta, Pakistan, and was taken immediately to the hospital for kidney treatment, staying until July 14. During his stay he allegedly met an unidentified CIA agent, who was recalled to Washington on July 15, the report said. It said Mr. bin Laden was accompanied by a doctor, bodyguards and a nurse.”[11]

By 2006, during the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush, it was publicly declared that finding bin Laden was no longer even an objective.

“The Central Intelligence Agency has closed a unit that for a decade had the mission of hunting Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants, intelligence officials confirmed Monday. The unit, known as Alec Station, was disbanded late last year and its analysts reassigned within the C.I.A. Counterterrorist Center, the officials said.”[12]

Curiously, bin Laden’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (F.B.I.) “Most Wanted Poster,” updated in November of 2001, never reflected the fact that he was supposedly the mastermind of the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C.[13]

Adding to the intrigue is the fact that media reports initially represented bin Laden disclaiming involvement in the attacks of Sept. 11. According to Cable News Network (CNN):

“Islamic militant leader Osama bin Laden, the man the United States considers the prime suspect in last week’s terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, denied any role Sunday in the actions believed to have killed thousands.”[14]

Bin Laden reportedly said:

“The U.S. government has consistently blamed me for being behind every occasion its enemies attack it. I would like to assure the world that I did not plan the recent attacks, which seems to have been planned by people for personal reasons. I have been living in the Islamic emirate of Afghanistan and following its leaders’ rules. The current leader does not allow me to exercise such operations.”[15]

According to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Timothy Weiner, even in the early 1990s, there was “a 36-billion-dollar cache used by the Pentagon to fund its own agenda of top-secret weapons and wars.”[16]

No wonder C.I.A. counterintelligence insider James Jesus Angleton called the world of espionage the “wilderness of mirrors.”[17]

It is in light of this background information that reports about ISIS must be evaluated.[18]

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For related information, see also ISIS Unveiled in Paris?.

Notes:

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[1] Barack Obama, press statement, Jul. 6, 2015; reproduced at “Freudian Slip? Obama Vows to Speed up ‘Training ISIL’, WH Edit Adds Confusion (Video),” Jul. 8, 2015, updated Jul. 9, 2015, <http://www.rt.com/usa/272470-obama-training-isis-slip/>. See the White House’s edited transcript ““Remarks by the President on Progress in the Fight Against ISIL,” White House, Office of the Press Secretary, Jul. 6, 2015, <https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/07/06/remarks-president-progress-fight-against-isil>.

[2] United States, gov. doc., cached at Judicial Watch, <http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Pg.-291-Pgs.-287-293-JW-v-DOD-and-State-14-812-DOD-Release-2015-04-10-final-version11.pdf>.

[3] Kit Daniels, “Hackers Point out U.S. Arming, Funding ISIS: Hackers Deface U.S. Army Website to Underscore How the U.S. is Supporting ISIS to Topple Assad,” Infowars, Jun. 8, 2015, <http://www.infowars.com/hackers-point-out-u-s-arming-funding-isis/>.

[4] Simon Caldwell, “Syrian Archbishop Criticises U.S. for ‘Siding With al-Qaeda’,” Catholic Herald [U.K.], Oct. 6, 2015, <http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2015/10/06/syrian-archbishop-criticises-us-for-siding-with-al-qaeda/>.

[5] <http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/01/politics/john-mccain-cia-russia-airstrikes/>.

[6] Caldwell, loc. cit.

[7] Gen. Thomas McInerney, appearing on Fox News; as of this writing, the interview segment was posted online as “Retired Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney Admits ‘We Helped Build ISIS’,” YouTube, Sept. 3, 2014, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_zf7GPQqxU>. Cf. Paul Joseph Watson, “Gen. McInerney: ‘We Helped Build ISIS’: Weapons From Benghazi Ended up in the Hands of Islamic State Radicals,” Infowars, Sept. 3, 2014, <http://www.infowars.com/gen-mcinerney-we-helped-build-isis/>.

[8] Gen. Wesley Clark, Brooke Baldwin, “Interview With Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Wesley Clark; President Obama Requests Authority for War On ISIS,” CNN Newsroom, CNN, Feb. 11, 2015, accessed via LexisNexis. Cf. Pete Papaherakles, “U.S. General: West Created ISIS,” American Free Press, Mar. 19, 2015, <http://americanfreepress.net/?p=23265>. As of this writing, the segment is posted online by Brandon Martinez, “Wesley Clark: ‘Our Friends and Allies Funded ISIS to Destroy Hezbollah’,” YouTube, Feb. 17, 2015, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHLqaSZPe98>.

[9] Steven Clemons, interviewed by Edward A. “Ed” Schultz, “The Ed Show,” Politics Nation, MSNBC, Feb. 5, 2015, accessed via LexisNexis. The Saudi angle was also explored by Lyndon Larouche’s periodical. See Ramtanu Maitra, “Under London’s Wing: ISIS: Saudi-Qatari-Funded Wahhabi Terrorists Worldwide,” Executive Intelligence Review, Aug. 29, 2014, <http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2014/4134wahhabi_terrs.html>.

[10] Thierry Masure, “Bin Laden: Product of the Afghanistan War and a U.S. Alliance in the East,” Agence France-Presse [English], Sept. 15, 2001; cached online at <http://www.prisonplanet.com/bin_laden_said_arguably_the_creation_of_a_cia_led_coalition.htm>.

[11] “Bin Laden Was Treated in Hospital, Reports Say,” Agence France-Presse via Globe and Mail [Canada], Oct. 31, 2001, Wednesday, p. A12.

[12] Mark Mazzetti, “C.I.A. Closes Unit Focused on Capture of bin Laden,” New York Times, Jul. 4, 2006, p. A4, <http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/04/washington/04intel.html>. For an argument that the real Osama bin Laden in fact died sometime in Dec. 2001, see David Ray Griffin, Osama bin Laden: Dead or Alive? Northampton, Mass.: Olive Branch Press, 2009.

Of course, according to the “official” story, the details of which, like so many other fairy tales, are prone to variation, Marvel Comics’s …er, I mean, the Navy’s Seal Team Six assassinated bin Laden and then the remains were taken aboard the U.S.S. Carl Vinson and “slid off [the vessel] into the sea… because no country would accept bin Laden’s remains…”. According to Jim Garamone, “Bin Laden Buried at Sea,” American Forces Press Service, May 2, 2011, <http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=60124>.]

However, according to the hacker group Anonymous, a leaked intelligence email reveals that “Bin Laden WAS NOT buried at sea, but flown to the U.S. for cremation at secret location…”. According to Thomas Durante, Daily Mail [U.K.], Mar. 7, 2012, <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2111001/Osama-bin-Laden-WAS-NOT- buried-sea-flown-US-cremation-leaked-emails-reveal.html>.

[13] See “Usama bin Laden,” F.B.I., Jun., 1999, updated Nov., 2001, <https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/topten/usama-bin-laden>.

[14] “Bin Laden Says He Wasn’t Behind Attacks,” CNN, Sept. 17, 2001, <http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/09/16/inv.binladen.denial/index.html>.

[15] Osama bin Laden, statement, Al Jazeera [Qatar]; quoted in ibid.

[16] Tim Weiner, Blank Check: The Pentagon’s Black Budget, New York: Warner Books, 1991, back matter; archived online at <https://books.google.com/books/about/Blank_Check.html?id=S7CRPwAACAAJ>.

[17] See David C. Martin, Wilderness of Mirrors, reprint ed., Guilford, Conn.: Lyons Press, 2003 [orig. New York: Harper & Row, 1980], p. 10.

[18] At the outer-limits of plausibility, it has even been suggested that ISIS is being led by an Israeli intelligence “mole.” "The leader of the radical Islamic State (IS), Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has been reputed to be a Mossad-trained operative whose real name is Elliot Shimon, the son of Jewish parents. This information is said to have originated from 1.7 million pages of top-secret documents recently released by National Security Agency whistle-blower Edward Snowden and made public by Iranian intelligence. Arabic Internet radio website 'Ajyal.com' and the Arabic news website 'Egy-press' were also early sources before the news went viral. Although it cannot be conclusively verified at this point, evidence points in that direction." Pete Papaherakles, “Is ‘IS’ a CIA-Mossad Creation?” American Free Press, Aug. 28, 2014, <http://americanfreepress.net/?p=19176>.

Admittedly, this might be disinformation (or “noise”). The U.S. people seem to be a primary target of propaganda. See “U.S. Military Stoking Xenophobia in Iraq,” UPI, Apr. 10, 2006 and Carla Anne Robbins, “Spin Control: U.S. Has Early Priority: Managing Its Message,” Wall Street Journal, Oct 4, 2001, p. A.1. For more information, see James Bamford’s books The Puzzle Palace: A Report on America’s Most Secret Agency, Harmondsworth, Middlesex [U.K.], 1982; New York: Penguin, 1983 and The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA From 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America, New York: Doubleday, 2008.