Tag Archives: Brandon Webb

Just a quick but important update about the new ebook that Brandon and I released this week.  Benghazi: The Definitive report has made quite a splash and I’ve been doing media for it all week with both myself and my co-author scheduled to do some television appearances starting on Monday.  We both believe in this book and stand by it.  We are also humbled by the tremendous support we’ve received from readers.  We have been covered by both the left and right wing media, we have received both praise and scorn from the left and right wing media.  I take this as a sign that we are doing something right.  The reality about what happened in Benghazi does not fit into some pre-packaged corporate political ideology.  The truth is not politically satisfying in anyway.

That said, I do want to comment on some of the grumbling going on behind the scenes.  A spokesmen for the National Security Council has said the claim made in the book that the US Government has been facilitating the trafficking of weapons from Libya to Syria is false, a complete fabrication.  The statement the NSC gave is technically correct but intrinsically wrong, that is the nature of plausible deniability.  They can issue a statement like this because technically they are not the ones trafficking the weapons, but they know all about it and have approved the process.  In regards to the JSOC operations that happened inside Libya, it has pretty much been radio silence aside from SOCOM making a statement that they don’t confirm or deny operations.

Meanwhile, in a certain Three Letter Agency, people are sharpening their knives.  We’ve seen the crackdown on whistleblowers during this administration but in this case there really isn’t anything they can do to me and my co-author.  We are out of the service now and are not writing about anything we did while we served.  We were not read into any of the projects or programs described in the ebook.  Hell, I never even held a Top Secret clearance.  I got out of the Army before the paperwork could finished to be processed.  Legally speaking, the spooks are out of luck.  There really isn’t anything they can do to us or our publisher as Benghazi: The Definitive Report falls under the category of journalism.

However, there is another avenue open to them: character assassination.  How do you go about doing this?  You could dig into our backgrounds using government databases, check out our military records, talk to some former team mates, that sort of thing.  I can’t really imagine what they could find on me…alcohol and women?  Big deal, welcome to the US Army folks!  But they can fabricate or exaggerate certain claims and then have a few retired analysts or case officers strut their stuff in the media and try to discredit what we wrote.  I’m not afraid of it, I just say, go ahead and mentally prepare for it now.

I am not trying to use scare tactics as some cheap gimmick to get people to go and buy my book, I don’t believe in that sort of thing.  What I will ask is for you to rally around this book if you support this type of reporting and this style of journalism.  It is a brave new world out there in publishing and in journalism, a libertarian wild west type of model, but maybe a better one then simply having four or five corporations who have consolidated the entire news media under their umbrella.  If you think it is important to hear from ordinary Americans, former Special Operations soldiers in this case, who do investigative work and then pass that information on to the public is a responsible manner, then please make your voice heard.

I’m writing this now to try to get ahead of the opposition’s decision making process and stay a few steps ahead of them.  If you support this book or this type of reporting then now is the time to say something.  Speak out against digital censorship and let people know that you want the unvarnished truth, not some PR spin from the corporate media.  Thanks for reading and thanks for your support!