According to information cited in The REAL Benghazi Story, Stevens served less as a diplomat and more as an arms dealer and intelligence coordinator for assistance to the so-called Arab Spring, particularly the Syrian rebels.
As was widely reported, Stevens originally arrived in Libya during the revolution there aboard a Greek cargo ship carrying equipment and vehicles. His original role in Libya was to serve as the main interlocutor between the Obama administration and the rebels based in Benghazi. Stevens never abandoned that role, even after becoming ambassador, according to the new book.
Indeed, The New York Times reported in December 2012 that Stevens himself facilitated an application to the State Department for the sale of weapons filed by one Marc Turi, whom the Times’ describes as an “American arms merchant who had sought to provide weapons to Libya.”
The Times reported Turi’s first application was rejected in March 2011 but was approved two months later after he stated “only that he planned to ship arms worth more than $200 million to Qatar.” Qatar was Turkey’s partner in aiding the Syrian rebels.
The Times did not question why a U.S. ambassador would help facilitate government applications for arms dealers. Nor did the Times bother to investigate the possible connection of those activities to the Benghazi attacks.
The book relates a larger arms-to-rebels pipeline. The story began prior to the establishment of the U.S. Mission in Benghazi, when the United States and NATO reportedly aided Arab airlifts of aid to the rebels who eventually toppled Libya’s Muammar Khaddafi.
The Obama administration’s “Arab Spring” adventures pivoted westward when the CIA started helping Arab governments and Turkey in obtaining and shipping weapons to the rebels fighting Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria.
The New York Times reported on March 25, 2013 that from offices at “secret locations,” American intelligence officers “helped the Arab governments shop for weapons…and have vetted rebel commanders and groups to determine who should receive the weapons as they arrive.”
Besides arming the Syrian rebels, the new book documents that from the U.S. Mission and CIA Annex, American agents ran an unprecedented multi-million-dollar U.S. effort to secure anti-aircraft weapons in Libya after the fall of Khaddafi’s regime.
This weapons collection effort may go a long way in explaining the motive behind the Benghazi attacks. The various jihadist organizations that looted Khaddafi’s MANPAD reserves and the rebel groups that received weapons during the NATO campaign in Libya obviously would feel threatened by an American effort to try to retrieve those weapons.