In an unprecedented attempt at censorship, the Pentagon wants to buy the entire first printing of Operation Dark Heart. Image: CC pcorreia/Flickr
“Operation Dark Heart” is the latest book to get the kind of publicity money can’t buy. This time it comes courtesy of the Pentagon. Military intelligence officials said “Operation Dark Heart,” the memoir by a former intelligence officer in Afghanistan, reveals classified information damaging to national security. To suppress the book, the Pentagon, flush with Defense Department cash, simply plans to buy the entire first printing and burn it.
‘Operation Dark Heart’ sneaks past Pentagon
“Operation Dark Heart” is by Anthony A. Shaffer, a former Defense Intelligence Agency officer and currently a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve. It’s a first-person account of five months Shaffer spent in 2003 as a DIA officer based at Bagram Air Base near Kabul in Afghanistan. The New York Times reports that Army reviewers approved “Operation Dark Heart” in January. The publisher, St. Martin’s Press, planned to release the book Aug. 31. But the DIA didn’t see the manuscript until July, when it determined that the book contained classified information. By then, several dozen copies of the book had already been sent out to reviewers and online booksellers.
‘Operation Dark Heart’ content
Some of the allegedly classified information in “Operation Dark Heart” concerns a pre-9/11 operation called “Able Danger,” which Shaffer claims identified hijacker Mohammed Atta as a threat before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. According to Fox News, the DIA wants passages removed where Shaffer alleges he told the 9/11 Commission that Able Danger knew about Atta as early as 2000. Atta was the leader of the 9/11 hijackers and piloted American Airlines Flight 11 into the World Trade Center. A report released later by the Department of Defense concluded there was no evidence to support Shaffer’s claims.
Burning fans flames for bestselling book
The Pentagon is negotiating with Shaffer’s publisher to buy the entire first printing of “Operation Dark Heart.” The Washington Post reports that the Pentagon’s plan is to destroy all 10,000 copies. A second printing, without passages disputed by the DIA, is being prepared by St. Martin’s press. The first printing is sitting on pallets in a Virginia warehouse. But the Times bought a copy online late last week. “Operation Dark Heart” is currently #19 on Amazon’s bestseller list but listed as “temporarily out of stock.”
you guys just need to relax. it's a book that has information in it that may jeopardize your nations security. the US fought against the nazi book burning military. so to do anything even close to similar, this must be an internal breech that is beyond your understanding. so exercise your freedom of speech, but sway from your freedom of ignorance.
So now we need to not say anything if the Usurper Barry Soetoro orders a book burning but its ok criticize a preacher if he orders one?
Hmm, what is it they are trying to hide, this time???
Well what can I say I'm just glad I live in a reasonably free country named THE NETHERLANDS !!!
Way to go, Pentagram. Resort to Hitleresque tactics to eliminate the truth. Could you make yourselves just a tad more conspicuous? 'Cause I'm not quite getting the picture.
The unredacted Operation Dark Heart is immensely important because a person can use it as a stepping stone into a wider world, – albeit a sobering one, – and that's precisely what the elite don't want.
If an ordinary peasant were to purchase a first edition printing, I bet the feds would track its delivery, bust down the door and confiscate it. Or…perhaps…just torch the delivery truck.
The military industrial complex is such an abysmal black hole, it makes me sick. When are people going to wake up and rise up? Will there ever be a revolution, or will we just allow ourselves to be trampled under the boots of the elite time after time? This "freedom" we enjoy is a farce; it's only what we're allowed to have. We are living in a dome with a sprawling sky painted across its ceiling, giving the illusion of limitless possibility; but when curiosity leads our reach too high, we hit the limit and the jail wardens shoot us down. Living, working, existing, day after day, year after year, why can't people recognize this wretched pattern? We cannot go on with this complex, secretive, tangled spiderweb of a system we have looming over us…it only serves to beat us down and obliterate everything we work for. Greed and hatred thrive in a society in which the people's minds are distracted, sterile of suspicion, and ever-trusting. Superficial obsessions, apathy, and ignorance will be our undoing…indeed, they are unraveling our republic before our blinded eyes. If we don't bring this unspeakably massive behemoth of a system to a halt soon, there will be no going back, and we will truly be trapped within the pages of Orwell's 1984.
You want a book to burn? I'll send you my cursed copy of the 9/11 [c]Omission Report.
What is wrong with this picture? I ask what are they hiding? To buy 10,000 books using our tax payer money, and then issue a 2nd edition that has been censored? Wake up America , or should I say Russia…
Being former Military, this @$$hole LT. knows that loose lips sinks ships!! Why did this @$$hole keep his lip so tightly sealed for all this time? Bush began this occupation, and President Obama is withdrawing, but the @$$hole LT. blames the Obama admid. I love the fact that people like Hannity leads the “Sheepeople” to hatred and uncertainty and also confusion.
Yes many of us were military too, thank you. And as are most “Joes”, they run their mouth before knowing what they are talking about. Are you so stupid to say; WHY did he keep his lips sealed for all this time? He has testified before congress on this, where have you been genius? Google him and see WHY! It sounds like if you did your homework on Operation Able Danger, you would have known this is not about OPSEC but the biggest cove up since Watergate and he has been the subject of retribution. Why dont you put your big mouth to work checking out the background and then put the word out for the vets. And I have in Intel at the time he was there and then worked at the Embassy in Afghanistan in both administrations and more people need to expose this disaster.
"They dont have to burn the books… they just remove em" -RATM
Unless youre a farking mooslim
I'll say hooray to the both comments!!
USA: The land of the free and the home of the brave? should the land of the censorship and the home of the cowards.
Just whose money is the Pentagon using to buy these books???
Yours, mine and all taxpayers.
Are they going to send us all a free copy?
maybe a bag of ashes
Yeah, sure – a government censored copy. I understand "national security", but I also understand FREEDOM OF SPEECH! Hopefully, if this war ever ends, the author will republish the original version. With thousands of other war books available, it's silly that this has to be this censored AFTER the war.