Wikileaks, the international internet organization for leaking controversial information, has a new trick up its sleeve.
An ominous tweet from Wikileaks about “Operation Dark Heart.”
On Sunday the international leaking machine tweeted the message: “Burn all the books you want, Nazi punks. We already have a copy.”
The “Nazi punks” in question are the US Pentagon’s Department of Defense, and the books in question are the 10,000 first-run copies of the new memoir “Operation Dark Heart,” which the Department of Defense bought and promptly burned on September 20.
After imploring the publisher of “Operation Dark Heart,” by former Army Reserve Office Anthony Shaffer, not to publish the book on the grounds that it revealed national security secrets and having the publisher refuse, citing its first amendment rights, the Pentagon sought an alternate solution, buying the entire first run and burning it. Subsequent pressings will have blacked-out text which the Pentagon can impose on material they deem to be classified.
Since 9/11 American attitudes have dictated that security—at least our best effort at security—is more important than transparency. It’s an idea that justified all kinds of exceptions to American transparency that we would have otherwise objected to—from the Patriot Act allowing us to spy on citizens to holding suspects at Guantanamo without charging them with anything.
Underlying these transgressions from American ideals was the assumption that they were necessary to save American lives—and lives trump ideals.
But the arrival of Wikileaks as a nationless, allegiance-less force for propagating free press may expose a whole new possibility: Is the Pentagon censorship machine a benevolent protector or a bunch of “Nazi punks”? Is information suppressed because it truly needs to be, or because it’ll allow unethical operations to continue?
In the past we’ve never known, because our government had no higher authority—when it wanted information suppressed, it stayed suppressed. But in the age of Wikileaks, information truly wants to be free.
“Someone buying 10,000 books to suppress a story in this digital age is ludicrous,” Shaffer told CNN—and he’s right. Burning 10,000 books won’t suppress that information any more than Terry Jones burning Qu’rans will damper that work’s influence around the world.
One one hand it does seems strange that WIkileaks markets its leaks with tweets like the one above, especially when the US government is hell-bent on keeping the information our of circulation.
But for the first time it does provide an objective look at what information the Pentagon deems unsafe for publishing. “When you look at what they took out (in the 2nd edition), it’s lunacy,” Shaffer says.
For better or worse, it seems there’s no such thing as state secrets any more. In an age when everyone’s a critic, we’ll all be able to judge for ourselves whether this information should have stayed classified, or whether our government is indeed behaving like “Nazi punks,” as Wikileaks asserts.
Unless, of course, this plot trajectory plays out the way it would in any good action film, and Wikileaks director Julian Assange quietly disappears, or dies peacefully in his sleep. Although, should that happen, you can bet there’d be a Wikileak with a revealing autopsy in no time.
September 27, 2010 at 9:02 pm, Mike L said:
According to the author, bronze-star honoree Lt. Col. Shaffer, on BookTV this past weekend, he and his researcher spent eight months finding “open instances of information to make sure I wasn’t saying anything in the book that was new or could do damage to national security.” And in January, the Army approved his book to be published. Later in the year, the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency acted to change that, and they forced lots of items to be blacked out. “There’s some animosity there regarding information that was taken out,” Shaffer said. “Nothing to do with security.”
The full interview is here http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/295631-24 and I’ve transcribed the key portion below. Questions by host Peter Slen are in parenthesis.
Shaffer: To be on the safe side, you want to have people who have proper qualifications review your work. So I went to my Army chain of command. As a member of the military, whoever owns your clearance are the people obligated to do the review. I went to the Army. The Army laid out a process. Frankly, it took a year-long effort to go through it. And I had a paid researcher to go through … who collaborated to find open instances of information to make sure I wasn’t saying anything in the book that was new or could do damage to national security. I was very careful about this by the fact that I don’t want to harm my friends who are still in the field, or do anything that would give the Taliban or our adversaries a leg up to do things against us. So, with that in mind, we spent eight months going through this process.
(So this book was cleared, at one point … with these blacked-out sections clear?)
That’s right. There were no blacked-out sections in January when I received a letter from the Army saying that we were good to go for printing of the book. That’s correct. Yes.
(And so what then happened to create this?)
Well, there’s the official side and there’s rumors. I guess I’ll hit the official side first.
Towards the summer–and keep in mind, I’m a public figure, I speak for a think tank, I’m always out. We started talking about this book two years ago. I announced every step of the way where the book was at, on the media–Fox News , CNN, MSNBC–never hid the fact that the book was about to come out.
In the eleventh hour, Defense Intelligence Agency received a copy of the manuscript from the Army and they went ballistic. They went through the roof. And basically the letter that they provided me, which I provided to the publisher, was, ‘If this book was published the free world would fall to the Taliban and society will fall into shambles.’ And I’m being a little bit facetious here, but that’s what the letter basically said.
And so I was required, then, by the Army, based on this allegation from DIA, to resubmit this book again for a second round of clearance. Which is … the result of which you see there with the current iteration of Operation Dark Heart.
(That’s the official version…)
That’s correct. Well, the unofficial version, from my contacts, since I still have contacts at the Pentagon, is that three things happened that made people take notice of the book. First, the Wikileaks issue. Once the Wikileaks issue came out, a lot of people got very concerned. And one of the things my book does, it predates some of the Wikileaks information, the ISI problems the Taliban resurgence, is a year earlier before the Wikileaks thing, so I think people got nervous about that. And of course my book connects the dots. And I think that’s where some people had some real concerns.
The second issue is General McChrystal’s firing. The fact that there was so much hoopla about the media, about General McChrystal. I talk, I believe, in favorable terms about General McChrystal. I worked for him as part of my effort there back in 2003. And so I think there were concerns about the McChrystal effect, is what I was told.
And third, I think certain people in Defense Intelligence Agency just weren’t happy about the fact the book was about the be published. And I think this goes back to the retaliation of 2005/2006 when I blew the whistle on Able Danger.
Frankly, DIA has played games for years regarding my personal background, I don’t want to get into detail here, but suffice to say … there appears to be–and I think if you read the book you can see it-there’s some animosity there regarding information that was taken out.
Nothing to do with security. More to do with unhappiness, I guess is the best way of putting it.
October 01, 2010 at 12:04 am, Truth0 said:
Everyone should make an effort against fascism of all it's names. Military complex and its threatening patriotism and expanded racism's against the global community has to end. Wikileaks has opened the eyes of humanity and that general awareness is a threat to their money making war machine. Boo Hoo!! If you are stupid enough to fight a war for a corporation who live under the veil of patriotism, then don't cry about dying for it. That's what you signed up for. Wikileaks is for the greater good of humanity, to become aware, to change our views on war, to evolve away from war, to unite against FASCIST military corporations.
STOP WAR – STOP FIGHTING. Down arms and walk away from the lies!
October 01, 2010 at 7:28 pm, Steve said:
can't wait to read it on Wikileaks – true independent reporter!
October 02, 2010 at 6:23 am, nucat said:
Are you kidding? They call the government nazis and you claim they're independent?
October 02, 2010 at 6:06 am, Chase said:
I do believe Benjamin Franklin stated this, “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” I agree with the late great Franklin.
October 02, 2010 at 6:17 pm, Teaparty said:
what a waste of a publication, anti american tea party puppets
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