Pentagon forbids troops to FOX News

[Domitan]

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,634638,00.html

It's not exactly every day that the Pentagon warns military personnel to stay away from Fox News. But that's exactly what some hopeful soul at the Department of Defense instructed, in a memo intended to forbid Pentagon staff reading a copy of the Taguba report detailing abuse of detainees at prisons in Iraq that had been posted at the Fox News web site.

An email to Pentagon staff marked "URGENT IT (Information Technology) BULLETIN: Taguba Report" orders employees not to read or download the Taguba report at Fox News, on the grounds that the document is classified. It also orders them not to discuss the matter with friends or family members. The emailed memo was leaked to TIME by a senior U.S. civilian official in Baghdad, who did not hide his disdain for the "factotums" in the Pentagon. "I do wonder how incredibly stupid some people in the Pentagon are," he emailed TIME. "Not only are they drawing everyone's attention to the report — and where it can be seen — but attempting to muzzle people never works."

Perhaps realizing that, the email's author in "Information Services Customer Liaison" said: "This leakage will be investigated for criminal prosecution. If you don't have the document and have never had legitimate access, please do not complicate the investigative processes by seeking information." As the type-face switched to high-alarm red, the 180-word email continues: "THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS REPORT IS CLASSIFIED; DO NOT GO TO FOX NEWS TO READ OR OBTAIN A COPY."


I laugh at the irony of this.

[acmavm]

1. How amazingly stupid. I've read the report. So now we really are the

old Soviet Union.

These guys are loony.

[skooooo]

2. Fox News....keeper of all things classified.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

3. This was duped in an earlier thread... EOM

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Monty Python's "Funniest Joke in the World"

Don't let your troops see this, whatever you do! Civilians can take it, but the delicate soldiers will be devastated!

http://www.jumpstation.ca/recroom/comedy/python/joke.html

Voice Over:
It was not long before the Army became interested in the military potential of the Killer Joke. Under top security, the joke was hurried to a meeting of Allied Commanders at the Ministry of War.
...
Colonel:
All through the winter of '43 we had translators working, in joke-proof conditions, to try and produce a German version of the joke. They worked on one word each for greater safety. One of them saw two words of the joke and spent several weeks in hospital. But apart from that things went pretty quickly, and we soon had the joke by January, in a form which our troops couldn't understand but which the Germans could.

[MSgt213]

5. This should help you understand why the abuse ocurred in the first place

[Qanisqineq]

6. Strange indeed

Won't this just make more people want to go read it?

DoD: Don't go to FOX News website but military installations are to air only FOX news (the TV station).