CounterPunch Op-Ed
Mel Goodman is the national security columnist for counterpunch.org.
- The United States and the Middle East: the Politics of Miscalculation
- The Atlantic Joins the Chorus of Fear
- Two Wars, Five Losing Nations
- CIA’s Torture and Abuse: America’s Shame!
- Netanyahu and Israel in Decline and May Take Biden Down With the Them
- Never Forget Who Donald Trump Really Is
- Biden is Dragging the United States Deeper Into the Middle East
- Deal With Iran Politically and Diplomatically, Not Militarily
- Why Are Our Regional Experts Expecting More War in Every Corner?
- Meet the Washington Post’s Leading Apologist for Israeli Genocide
Recent News and Latest Book
The CIA will give your book a pass so long as it praises the agency
The Feb. 1 news article “Bolton faces potential legal battles in standoff with White House over book” provided much-needed discussion of the arbitrary and capricious nature of the government’s pre-publication review process. Having submitted many book-length manuscripts to the Central Intelligence Agency, I have learned that books from senior officials that praise the CIA get very quick review and approval. Former CIA directors such as Robert Gates and Leon Panetta are never challenged. If you are an agency critic, however, you can wait as long as one year to get approval. Government censors rarely provide an explanation for their redactions, and authors have no system for challenging these decisions. Moreover, the censors are far more concerned with information they find embarrassing to a particular agency rather than concerning themselves with genuine national security secrets. As a result, the public is deprived of relevant information on many national security issues that require discussion and debate. Congressional committees and media outlets are similarly deprived.
Bolton’s Battle With Government Censorship
Former national security adviser John Bolton is about to learn that the government’s pre-publication review process is little more than a violation of the First Amendment’s free speech rights. Bolton’s book, “The Room Where It Happened,” which exposes the perfidy of the Trump administration’s orchestrated extortion of the Ukrainian government, is scheduled for release in March 2020. The book is already proving more damaging to Donald Trump than the 448-page Mueller report, and rivals the attention given to the CIA whistleblower’s account of Trump’s efforts to bribe Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. But there are indications that the government will demand the deletion of significant portions of the manuscript, and will do its best to delay publication as long as possible.