ISIL Toyotas Are No Mystery Amid US Support for ‘Moderate’ Rebels

ISIL Toyotas Are No Mystery Amid US Support for ‘Moderate’ Rebels © REUTERS/ Stringer

The ‘mysterious’ mass use of Toyota Hilux pickup trucks is no real mystery considering US support for Syrian rebel factions and the proportion of arms ending up in al-Qaeda’s hands, head of the Ron Paul Institute Daniel McAdams told Radio Sputnik.

The finding of widespread Toyota truck use by ISIL is no real mystery considering revelations that 60 to 80 percent of US aid to moderate rebels ends up in the hands of the group, Executive Director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity Daniel McAdams told Radio Sputnik.

An April 2014 report run by NPR praising the Toyota Hilux’ use in warfare showed that the US State Department recently delivered 43 Toyota trucks to the free Syrian army. As much as 60 to 80 percent of US arms sent to Syria haven ended up in the arms of al-Qaeda and its affiliates, Joshua Landis, Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma, told AP on Saturday.

“I think the real mystery is that there is no real mystery. <…> If we put two and two together, and see what Professor Landers points out, it’s not rocket science to see where those Toyotas went to [ISIL],” McAdams told Sputnik.

Toyotas are not the only vehicle finding mass use in the Syrian conflict. A recent video of a newly captured area in Syria also shows destroyed Isuzu D-Max trucks with right-hand drive steering columns.

Such vehicles are only made in South Africa and Thailand, which both drive on the left, unlike Syria, which drives on the right. This could suggest sourcing of the vehicles from countries with sizable Islamist movements which drive on the left, including Indonesia, Malaysia and Kenya. Australia has also been suggested as a source of trucks in the hands of ISIL.

According to McAdams, while it would be better if no country was bombing Syria, the roots of the conflict date back to the US decision to destabilize the country.

“It also would have been better if in 2006, as we now know from Wikileaks cables, it would have been better if the US government had not decided to destabilize the Syrian government,” McAdams added.

In December 2014 it was found that extremist militants including foreign fighters in Syria also use vehicles from the United States, including a pickup truck formerly used by a plumbing company in Texas.

“The Obama administration has got to get rid of these Neocons, all of the Samantha Powers of the world, and some of them are called left-interventionists, humanitarian interventionists, they’re all essentially Neocons, they all believe that you must push the ideology of American exceptionalism at the barrel of a gun,” McAdams said.
McAdams also compared the ideology of Neo-Conservatism to Soviet internationalism in its scope. The ideology also has a significant hold on the US presidential administration, McAdams added.

“If you look at think tanks inside the Beltway in Washington, especially the ones that are quoted by the media all the time. Look at the funding of something like the Institute for the Study of War, they don’t make any secret of it, they are funded by the military-industrial complex. They’re funded by Raytheon and all the big defense contractors, and they produce, not surprisingly, policy papers prescribing the use of US power overseas,” McAdams added.

McAdams also said that cooler heads may prevail in the Syria conflict, as Russia’s standing up to the US could essentially put an end to its uncontested power, bringing up the British Empire and the Soviet Union as examples.

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