Dark Forces: The Truth About What Happened in Benghazi

by Kenneth R. Timmerman

Overview

The New York Times bestselling author of Shadow Warriors investigates the tragedy of Benghazi to answer the questions: what really happened—and why?

We know the Obama administration’s story, of a demonstration caused by an Internet movie that went out of control. But what actually did happen in Benghazi on the night of September 11, 2012?

Dark Forces is the story of clandestine arms deliveries by the United States and its allies to Libya that wound up in the hands of Islamist guerrillas. It’s a story of a romantic diplomat, in love with the Middle East and with a mystical version of Islam. It’s a story of bald-faced lies, heroic acts, and the deepest corruption.

But Dark Forces is not only a retelling of events. It puts those events into the larger context of Obama administration policy toward the Middle East. It will examine the administration’s record of systematically supporting Muslim Brotherhood and extremist groups in their efforts to overthrow pro-U.S. autocrats in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya.

It shows how President Obama’s obsessive outreach to the leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran led the Iranian regime to dismiss him as a weak, ineffective leader who would not fight back. And it shows why and how this deadly combination cost the lives of four Americans on Sept. 11, 2012.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062321213
Publisher:	Broadside e-books
Publication date:	06/24/2014
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	NOOK Book
Pages:	464
Sales rank:	314,969
File size:	826 KB

About the Author

Kenneth R. Timmerman is the New York Times bestselling author of Shadow Warriors, Countdown to Crisis, Preachers of Hate, and Death Lobby. He has written for USA Today, Time, Newsmax, the Wall Street Journal, the American Spectator, and the New York Times. He lives in Maryland with his family.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi

Prologue 1

1 From Terrorist to Friend 13

2 The Making of an Ambassador 41

3 "A New Beginning" 51

4 Tehran Summer, Arab Spring 58

5 Qadoafi, The Enemy 77

6 Into The Danger Zone 100

7 House Of War 124

8 Weapons, Weapons, Everywhere 141

9 The Threat Matrix 150

10 The Arms Pipeline To Syria 175

11 Obama's Ambassador 189

12 Prelude To Murder 216

13 Baiting The Trap 257

14 The Attacks 279

15 The Cover-Up 333

16 Aftermath 349

Appendix I Questions & Answers 371

Appendix II United Nations Inventory of Weapons Found on the Letfallah II 377

Notes 379

Index 417

Editorial Reviews

05/12/2014
Timmerman (Shakedown), executive director of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran, comprehensively challenges the Obama administration’s narrative of the events that took place in Benghazi, Libya, in September 2012. He presents Obama’s diplomatic overtures to the Muslim world as having the opposite effect as intended, with Muslim leaders convinced the U.S. “had lost its resolve and was not to be taken seriously.” That mind-set informed responses to covert American efforts in the aftermath of Muammar el-Qaddafi’s overthrow to funnel arms from Libya to Syrian rebels. Timmerman presents an account of the failed “doctrine of separating the jihadis from the proponents of political Islam.” It was a logical result, he claims, of the president, secretary of state, and their advisers not understanding developments in Libya, where security deteriorated to a point that danger pay for U.S. employees was increased 30%. As Iranian money flowed into Libya, jihadi militias probed for weak spots. The CIA annex in Benghazi “was supposed to be a secret base..., talk about this and it will end your career.” To Timmerman, the response to the embassy attack was implemented with incompetence, particularly by Hillary Clinton. The author’s conservatism is palpable, but he makes it clear that the Obama administration made grave errors in judgment and execution. (July)

Publishers Weekly

This book is an excellent read. In fascinating detail, it explores avenues and answers questions that have not previously been pursued. Now the question is: will the Obama administration and Congress finally provide answers through a select committee on Benghazi?

Lieutenant Colonel DENNIS B. HANEY

2014-05-29
Veteran journalist Timmerman (Shadow Warriors: The Untold Story of Traitors, Saboteurs, and the Party of Surrender, 2007, etc.) offers a blistering indictment of the Obama administration’s handling of the deadly 2012 event now known simply as “Benghazi.”On Sept, 11, 2012, four Americans, including the United States ambassador, were killed in attacks on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. The White House and State Department claim that the attack—already the subject of several Congressional investigations and soon to be probed again by House Republicans—was a protest turned violent over an anti-Islam YouTube video. Drawing on interviews with sources in the region, Timmerman argues that Benghazi was a well-planned, state-sponsored terrorist attack by the Islamic Republic of Iran. He also claims that President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton knew that terrorists were behind the attack but made up the spontaneous protest cover story to preserve the appearance of success in their anti-terrorist policies. It was the eve of the 2012 presidential election, and Obama had claimed that the “tide of war [was] receding.” Benghazi, writes the author, is “the deepest, the darkest, and the dirtiest political scandal of recent American history.” Viewing post-Gadhafi Libya as approaching “normal” status, the State Department ignored pleas for greater security for American diplomats and facilities when in fact Libya was “spinning wildly out ofcontrol,” with “heavily armed street thugs” roaming neighborhoods. The Benghazi compound was left to defend itself by a secretary of state who wanted only to celebrate a success story for the November election and then “prepare her own coronation as the first female president…in 2016.” Timmerman navigates the complex story of Libya’s role in the period as an arms bazaar for terrorists and faults U.S. policymakers for trying to distinguish between violent and nonviolent Islamist groups.An often intemperate account that will please Hillary-bashers and provide timely fodder for the upcoming Republican-led Benghazi investigation.

Kirkus Reviews

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