Pentagon tries to buy entire print Dark Heart

[questionmark]

It's every author's dream – to write a book that's so sensationally popular it's impossible to find a copy in the shops, even as it keeps climbing up the bestseller lists. And so it is for Anthony Shaffer, thanks to the Pentagon's desire to buy up all 10,000 copies of the first printing of his new book, Operation Dark Heart.And then pulp them. Read more...

Brilliant, so, what is going to stop the author to print 100.000 with the earnings of the 10.000?

[apriltricks]

I can't tell if someone screwed up or not. Really there supposed to be spies goodness' sake, couldn't they have done this a bit more covertly. Get a few compromising pictures of the publisher or author and then blackmail them!

This really is the kind of publicity that you just can't buy. Even I want to read it now.

-Trix

[The Silver Thong]

After years of this so many will ignore the implications and just go with the flow (9/11 commission report). Sad to see this in the land of the free *cough* *cough*

[ExpandMyMind]

Classic government tactic. Buy up all copies of a book they "don't want you to read" - book becomes immediately popular.

There must be something in this book they do want us to read.

[el midgetron]

I am gonna go with a psy-op. Their "attempt" to buy and bury this book are in promotion of information they want you to have, for whatever reason they might have. Just like the "leaked" abu ghraib photos produced by psy-ops. Seriously, if the CIA didn't want a book published, they would frame the author as a pedeophile, burn down the warehouse and murder the publisher.

[ExpandMyMind]

It looks like we may have been correct, midge.

Pentagon burns book and makes it a best-seller

Publishers know that controversy fuels book sales. Apparently, so does burning them.

The Pentagon has only helped build buzz around "Operation Dark Heart," a firsthand account of special operations in Afghanistan, by burning 9,500 copies -- nearly all the first run. (Some review copies, released before publication, have filtered out and sold for more than $2,000 on eBay, according to Time magazine.)

Destroying books isn't an everyday occurrence. In fact, the Pentagon says it has never destroyed copies of a book before. But in this case, the Pentagon contends that Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer's work includes classified information that shouldn't have been published and therefore it was the only option.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20101001/bs_yblog_upshot/pentagon-burns-book-and-makes-it-a-best-seller

Edited October 5, 2010 by expandmymind

[theGhost_and_theDarkness]

I am gonna go with a psy-op. Their "attempt" to buy and bury this book are in promotion of information they want you to have, for whatever reason they might have. Just like the "leaked" abu ghraib photos produced by psy-ops. Seriously, if the CIA didn't want a book published, they would frame the author as a pedeophile, burn down the warehouse and murder the publisher.

That's what I was thinking. Since very few people who will read the book would have been present during the events it describes, then it seems like it'd be extremely easy to discredit the author.

There are people with pre-release copies.. .all they have to do is put it in a computer and spread it around in e-book form and all the book buying would be for nothing. You'd think if it was that important to keep it secret, it would have never been written in the first place. . .and, most definitely, it would not have un-censored copies floating around.

[el midgetron]

It looks like we may have been correct, midge.

Pentagon burns book and makes it a best-seller

Edited October 6, 2010 by el midgetron

[Aus Der Box Skeptisch]

So..... Anti-conspiracy???