Not that it’s any surprise, but I find it both ironic and typical that the US military deems it necessary to censor political thought among the prisoners at Guantánamo to the extent that the Gitmo library has refused a gift of a Chomsky book.

The 2007 book, Interventions, collects op-eds written for and distributed by the New York Times syndicate, presumably another example of the liberal press subverting America.

A rejection slip accompanying the Chomsky book did not explain the reason but listed categories of restricted literature to include those espousing “Anti-American, Anti-Semitic, Anti-Western” ideology, literature on “military topics,” and works that portray “excessive graphic violence” and “sexual dysfunctions.”

It’s hard to imagine how a man confined to a cage nearly 24 hours a day would miss the contradiction between the espoused ideology of freedom, in whose name he’s being held, and the actual practice of censorship. Of course we probably don’t circulate a list of banned books to the prisoners.

But the story perfectly illustrates Chomsky’s description of how the American system works. The elites decide on the parameters within which rational discussion can take place; anyone advocating anything outside those parameters is ipso facto irrational and can be ignored. Since Chomsky criticizes American government policy, he’s anti-American. We can’t have those Gitmo guys realizing that there are intelligent Americans who reject their government’s actions — then where would we be?