Books Banned at Guantanamo Bay: “Gulag Archipelago,” “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” Leftist Firestarter “Jack…

Books Banned at Guantanamo Bay: “Gulag Archipelago,” “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” Leftist Firestarter “Jack & the Beanstalk”

The Guardian put up a list of the books that attorney Clive Stafford-Smith has been forbidden to bring into Guantánamo, and as he notes in a separate column, the logic is insensible: “Perhaps after reading Jack and the Beanstalk, the military feared that prisoners would escape by planting magic seeds?” The censors allowed 1984 and Animal Farm but not Solzhenitsyn, issues of “Swimming Times” but no “Runner’s World.” This I found especially interesting:

It is rare that we get an insight into the theory behind the banning of books in Guantánamo Bay, but the censors have a particular thing about poetry: “Poetry … presents a special risk, and DOD [Department of Defense] standards are to not approve the release of any poetry in its original form or language. This is based on an analysis of risk of both content and format.”

[Guardian]