PostHill Press’s Bombardier Books imprint has signed Bensman to produce the tentatively titled work “America’s Covert Border War: The untold story of the Nation’s Campaign to Prevent Jihadist Infiltration.”
Publish date:February 2021. Pre-order information coming soon.
“The most seditious and dangerous book that could be written about this subject because it simply and powerfully tells the plain truth.” – William McGowan, critically acclaimed author of Coloring the News and Gray Lady Down.
Bombardier’s mission statement indicates why it was interested in Bensman’s ground-breaking book about the threat of terrorism along the U.S. southern border:
“In a time when the media and much of America’s elite try to limit and stifle debate in the name of sensitivity, safe spaces and political correctness, now more than ever we need writers with courage and conviction — and the gift to be able to express themselves with intelligence, eloquence, and good humor. Now is the perfect time to unleash a torrent of provocative thought onto the political and cultural battleground. This is the mission of Bombardier Books. Because sometimes you need to drop rhetorical bombs from 40,000 feet to get people to hear new ideas.“
Plot synopsis: This book reveals a covert U.S. border counter-terrorism enterprise first deployed in 2003–2004 for the singular purpose of preventing terrorist infiltration and deterring migration from Muslim-majority nations, problems which the American public is frequently told do not exist. The U.S. government wages this secret border war to the present day, on two distinct fronts: a “near” campaign at the physical U.S.-Mexico border where the FBI and intelligence agencies investigate migrants flagged as “special interest aliens” from Muslim-majority countries. The other “far” campaign deploys hundreds of U.S. federal agents to forward stations throughout Latin America, to include Mexico, where they — ICE Homeland Security Investigations, the CIA, FBI, U.S. Navy, and military intelligence — hunt terrorist travelers and their wily, rather colorful smuggler “kingpins.”
The purpose of these near and far efforts is to stop violent jihadists, and those who would support their cause in non-violent ways, from traveling well-established smuggling routes (to be detailed and mapped in this book) from the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia nations into the U.S. homeland over its land borders. The story is told from the perspective of the author who, as a counter-terrorism intelligence analyst/manager for the State of Texas with a federal security clearance, enjoyed a front-row view of the covert border war and direct operational roles. Separately as a journalist, the author met and interviewed the targeted migrants along the routes in Latin America, in the Middle East, Central America, and at the Texas border.
To establish veracity, the book relies on under-reported public records, leaked government documents and interviews with the men and women who built and operated the near and far campaigns. No other book or work of journalism has revealed these counter-terrorism programs even 15 years after their creation, nor how they work, the jihadist travelers caught coming, and what happens to them after capture. This book should prove indispensable to anyone interested in knowing the totality of American efforts to secure U.S. land borders. In associating terrorism with immigration, this book will no doubt stoke the coals of America’s cultural politics, though it does so on the premise that disagreement and controversy over the meaning of facts can only abet the health of the nation. While other immigration and border security books have discussed the prospect of Islamic border infiltration, they have most often done so with hyperbolic exaggeration and half-truths. None have so soberly triangulated the existence of counter terrorism programs designed to reduce a supposedly phantom threat.
In revealing this unusual covert border enterprise, this book cannot, of course, help but to document the extent to which jihadists obviously are not a figment of imagination to those carrying out their duties; extremists of ill-intent have indeed crossed. They have gotten caught in the American cordon. This book includes never-before-told stories of terrorist apprehensions. It also proposes a novel thesis: that America has been spared terror attack from its land borders only because these American programs caught terrorists. It proposes that the whole enterprise is in trouble, though, suffering from denialism-related neglect at precisely the wrong moment. Recommendations for its repair are provided as the clock ticks.
From Steve Emerson, Executive Director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism and author of seven books on jihadist terrorism:
“Todd Bensman is one of the last remaining authentic counter terrorism experts and investigators on jihadist terrorism whose new book will mesmerize, shock, inform and totally enlighten you on the covert war against Islamist militants fought by the government inside the US as well as around the world. Bensman is also an amazingly gifted writer whose book unfolds as though one were reading a great crime novel. Having worked as both a national security investigative reporter as well as a top level counter terrorism intelligence analyst for the U.S. Government, Bensman is in a unique position to reveal a fascinating story spanning the globe over almost two decades that will interest all readers. I must say that in today’s world of totally politicized media and the poisonous influence of political correctness in corrupting the objective truth about jihadist terrorism, Bensman rises above all others in revealing what is really going on and what has gone on. And even though I have specialized in terrorism for more than 25 years, I have learned more from reading Bensman’s work than any other counter terrorist official or “expert” in the world, bar none. Trust me, you really want to get this new book by Todd. I guarantee you that once you open the first page, you won’t put it down till the last. “