Slashdot Mirror
Pentagon Makes Good On Plan To Destroy Critical Book
mykos writes "Remember when the Pentagon said they were arranging a taxpayer-funded, government-sponsored book burning a couple weeks ago? Well, they made good on that threat, purchasing 9,500 copies of the book to be destroyed. The publisher, St. Martin's Press, has redacted anything the Pentagon told them to redact in the upcoming second run of the book. They Department of Defense has not yet paid for the burned books, but says they are 'in the process.' Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Col. April Cunningham gave this statement: 'DoD decided to purchase copies of the first printing because they contained information which could cause damage to national security.' Whew, looks like we're safe now."
What makes you think a book publisher cares about getting information out?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The Pentagon didn't really 'buy' the books. They paid for them. There's a difference.
Some body at the pentagon "Oh, shit, this has classified intel in it. Call up the publisher"
Some body at the publisher "We'd love to help protect national security, but we don't want to take a multi thousand dollar hit to costs"
Some body at the pentagon "Yes, we can compensate American citizens for damages incurred by helping us protect national security"
Some body in the press "OMG THE PENTAGON IS BURNING BOOKS!"
Captain Picard *headpalm*
The question we should be asking is not "Should the pentagon be burning books?", it's "Should the pentagon have (so much) classified information?"
They were always willing to cooperate but they already made the first run. It's just the DoD paying for the damages of forgetting to censor something in the book beforehand.
Bittorrent will have to become the only media that counts anymore. Once upon a time, the NYT and Washington Post would risk everything to publish the Pentagon Papers or the works of WoodStein. Now, in our burgeoning police state, we're reliant on WikiLeaks and bittorrent to speak truth to power. It's heartbreaking.
From the previous /. story that covered this, in the comments:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1784344&cid=33547938
"The blurb is intentionally misleading here. The govt gave the OK for the book but then upon a later review they were worried about some names released and a 2nd printing has already been agreed upon by both parties. They are just deciding what to do with 10k books that were already printed. Obviously the publisher spent money to already print them so they aren't going to just destroy them."
So nothing to see here, move along...
Yes, it is. Revealing them can allow us to realize whom we've been trusting with our money, our information, and to set policies. For example, Manuel Noriegas's status as a recipient of CIA intelligence and funding and trainee of the "School of the Americas" contributed to his eventual takeover of Panama and control of its cocaine trade. Don't you think it would have been helpful to know exactly what money or support he got from the US, and useful to know what gangsters we're currently supporting and funding worldwide? And wouldn't it have been helpful to know, in advance of the war, that the claims about Iraq purchasing "yellowcake" uranium ore came from, so that they could be exposed before a war costing billions of US dollars and thousands of US lives, and which cost us any hope of lasting victory in Afghanistan?
What's ludicrous is the apparent self promotion of the book.
So let's look at it from another perspective, perhaps the authors perspective. He wrote a book, submitted it to his CO instead of the pentagon for review. Ok honest mistake. The pentagon wanted some things removes, he was fine with that but printing had already started. So the government buys the first run of the print so no one is out any money and this guy isn't facing jail time for disclosing national security information or top secrete information. Along comes his publicists and says we need to spend X money to promote the book or else it won't sell that much. The publicists then says, we can save some of that money if you claim you are being censored unfairly and object to everything the government removed even though you are ok with it all.
So the author does an about face, goes all over national Television claiming he was wronged and the government spending a crap load of money to buy the first run of books is proof. He then adopts the claim that what the government removed was insignificant to the content of the book so buy it, it's still good. Hell, I bet you will buy the book just to see if you can tell what was removed from it.
It's nothing but a win-win for the author and his change of heart can be summed up as not letting a disaster go to waste. He benefited from writing the book, from getting it cleared the wrong way, from making the appropriate changes, and now he is benefiting from complaining about it.
No other asshole has said this so I might as well be the one.
You are going to die, your parents are going to die, your friends are going to die, your children are going to die. The troops are going to die.
They will die of cancer, they will die in car accidents, they will die of heart disease, they will die of more exotic ailments. They will die of IUDs or bullets or RPGs. Everyone dies.
The United State of America will eventually die. It's a young and influential country, but it still has a shelf life.
What doesn't necessarily die are principles and ideals. You are right that it is a fantasy, but fantasies of years past become the realities of tomorrows to come. The United States has always been far from perfect. You could even make the case its contributed little to society as a whole. But to the extent that it can hold up those principals and ideals (a free press, not burning books, distribution of fact), is the measure that it will be judged by. Not by our children, or our children's children, but by thousands of generations to come, long after the institution of the United States has morphed into something else.
Cool art gallery, if you're into that sort of thing.