Re-reporting, editing by Carolyn Bennett
In Perpetual war times —
U.S. Pentagon suppresses memoir.
Israel beats woman, bans Peace laureate.
Army Times and others are reporting today “the Pentagon paid $47,300 in taxpayer money for the 9,500 books that constituted almost the entire first print run of [Operation Dark Heart by Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer].” The U.S. government “had the volumes destroyed on September 20, while the publisher, Thomas Dunne Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press, issued a second edition on September 24 with roughly 200 words or passages blacked out.”
However, St. Martin’s Press had already sent an estimated ’60-70’ advance copies of the first edition to news organizations and others who may compare original versions with censored editions. A comparison, says the Times, “reveals that the Pentagon was eager to keep numerous missions against al-Qaida hidden from the public although the most recent operations described in the book occurred 6½ years ago.”
Pentagon representative Lt. Col. Rene White of the Air Force told the Times that the Department of Defense “has no plans to purchase editors’ review copies”; they had “hoped to recover these review copies before they became publicly available”; but recent events have made this “more difficult.”
WOMEN —
From theaters of perpetual war, government paranoia, tactics of suppression
JERUSALEM (AFP) “A grainy video of a male Israeli soldier belly dancing around a bound and blindfolded female prisoner — a video that went viral overnight — today provoked a furious response from the Palestinians.”
The clip, screened originally on Israel’s private Channel 10 television late on Monday, AFP reports, shows a soldier gyrating to a rhythmic drumbeat of an Arabic track while a woman wearing a headscarf huddles against a wall. The woman’s hands are bound in front of her, her eyes bound with white cloth.
JERUSALEM (AFP) “Israel’s supreme court yesterday rejected an appeal by Northern Irish Nobel peace laureate and activist Mairead Maguire against her deportation.” Maguire had arrived in Israel but “was denied entry at Ben Gurion airport because she had been deported in June for trying to reach the Gaza Strip by boat in defiance of an Israeli naval blockade.” The peace laureate had appeared on Monday before three Supreme Court justices in a bid to overturn Friday’s lower court decision ordering her deportation within 48 hours.
Sources and notes
“Censored book masks sensitive operations — The Defense Department’s 11th-hour effort to censor an intelligence officer’s memoir of his tours in Afghanistan has removed much, but not all, of the book’s most eye-catching previously unreported material” (Sean D. Naylor, Staff writer, Army Times), October 4, 2010, http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/10/army-book-100410w/
“The Book the Pentagon burned — The Pentagon spent $50,000 of our money to buy up the first edition of ‘Operation Dark Heart’ by Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer and destroy every copy. The second printing has many words blacked out. WikiLeaks claims to have a first edition, but hasn’t shared it. However, reading the bleeped-through version reveals plenty” (Submitted by davidswanson Thursday September 30, 2010, http://warisacrime.org/content/book-pentagon-burned
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1010/S00011/david-swanson-the-book-the-pentagon-burned.htm
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20101005/twl-israel-palestinians-military-abuse-y-4bdc673.html
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20101004/twl-israel-conflict-gaza-blockade-deport-4bdc673.html
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Bennett's books available at New York independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]
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