Will DOD Ban Itself for Publishing Joshua Claus’ Name?
Carol Rosenberg tweets:
Just got formal notice: Pentagon publicly naming Interrogator No. 1 who testified remotely to #Guantanamo as ex-Army Sgt. Joshua Claus
Army Maj. Bradsher read me a Pentagon policy statement that said Claus’ “own actions” mean publishing his name does not violate ground rules
You’ll recall that DOD banned Carol Rosenberg and three other key Gitmo journalists when they published Claus’ name–even though one of them, Michelle Shephard, had published an on-the-record interview with him in the past. Yet now DOD says–on the eve of the Khadr trial–that it’s okay to publish his name? And as justification, they say his own actions, rather than the public nature of his name, means publishing it does not violate ground rules?
Really?
Because if you’re going to pretend your arbitrary and capricious system of censorship is not arbitrary and capricious, you might want to come up with better excuses than that.
As I said on Sat morning, Rosenberg is dealing with “a system of handling the media that could have been designed by Kafka, fleshed out by imitators of the jailers at Robben Island and the so-called tour guides of the Soviet-era Intourist, and flavored with a sizable dose of East German and Chinese paranoia.”
I obviously left out Lewis Carroll. My bad.
But maybe he can weigh in on this, to help them come up with better excuses.
What I say three times is true. From the Hunting of the Snark, An Agony in Eight Fits.
Is this applicable in this case?
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
I doubt that DOD has much occasion to quote Emerson on its own behalf, but there you go.
Anyway, thanks for pointing out their hypocrisy.
Bob in AZ
JOSHUA CLAUS! (I guess that’s not necessary any more.)
EW, NB: sp: Shephard.
I wonder whether this means that Paul Koring of the Globe and Mail is allowed back to GTMO. He was the only one of the four banned reporters who balked at the DoD’s last attempt to make them at least pretend to be contrite.
(Note to American readers: The Star is bigger and Shephard is the expert, but the Grope and Flail has, um, gravitas. Iow, it’s the conservative paper that all the Chardonnay socialists read.)
Ah, thanks on that spelling. I even double checked her FIRST name. Ah well.
I know — I have to check it every time too. These anglos with their tricky-spelled names, eh? ;)
I’ll bet it’s not “Young” Street either, eh. When I was traveling a lot, I often heard expats describe your fellow countrymen this way, “Canadians are like Americans…but with manners.”
I agree; Ms. Shephard and the Star are much more engaging than the grope and flail, though both are sometimes a refreshing change from the Times.
Heh. My dad, who was an old-fashioned Alberta conservative, used to insist on mispronouncing as many Toronto street names as he could when he came to visit. If we spelled it Yonge, then he said “yonje,” even when corrected, and we deserved that, eh? Bluidy easterners — why can’t they spell it like they mean it? (My dad was a wonderful man, and usually very funny, or at least I thought so.)
Aboot the hoose ran the little moose, eh. Now we’re in Mike Meyers territory. I found Toronto delightful.
The ‘other’ actor from that area would be Jim Carrey …. his character in “Liar Liar” is particularly needed.
What mystifies me about the DOD request is how do you replace or give back electronic documents? Once they are out there, they are, sort of out there …. limited only by the amount of paper in your Lexmark.
Why should they since no one in the corp media ever bothers to call them on their complete stupidity.
As Peterr says, we have long since left a government messaging world where the truth, a facsimile of it, rationality and consistency were worthy of respect. Without hyperbole, this is Orwellian, Kafkaesque, Lewis Carollian language meant to deceive, protect, obscure and immunize.
Such behavior seems a far cry from the oath of office many of these people take when entering upon their constitutionally and congressionally sanctioned service to the United States:
Yes, you are right to point out that if they don’t choke on that lie then all the rest of the lies come easily.
That is the beauty of saying you are not being arbitrary and capricious in public, though — you can be arbitrary and capricious while saying you aren’t, and some people, spoonfed as usual, will believe you.
As right-winger Thomas Sowell once observed, a “People’s Republic” is a place where yesterday’s weather can be changed by decree.
So I guess we’re a People’s Republic now.
Anyone able to assist with the WikiSpooks Omar Khadr page – or any other for that matter – welcome.
Site started as an antidote to the suffocating ‘official narrative’ conformity imposed by the Wikipedia establishment on deep political matters where a threat is posed to that narrative – though it must be said that on matter of US military abuse of detainees its coverage is often surprisingly impressive.
Early days
Thanks for your coverage of the Khadr case too. It’s part of what makes the site a must read for me.
DOJ Charges U.S. Citizens With Aiding Somali Terror Group
LINK.
US demands WikiLeaks return military documents
LINK.
Why would the Pentagon make such a stupid statement when they must know that WL is not going to comply? (Btw, there’s a mistake in that report. It says that WL has released all 92,000 docs, but last I read/watched, they’d released 76,000 and were holding back 15,000 more sensitive ones.)
If they touch one silver hair on the head of that nice young man from Australia, a lot of us are going to be … well, let’s just say that we will be very upset.
It is a response play to Assange boxing them with the request to help redact the next release
Dean Jones: I’m sorry, but we can’t allow Darren to continue working with you.
Kramer: Well, I have to say this seems capricious and arbitrary.
Dean Jones: Your fly is open.