As reported in the Wall Street Journal, the banning of John Grisham books by Guantanamo Bay authorities illustrates some of the absurdities of military and government bureaucracies.
Parkinson’s Law correctly states: “The job expands to fill the time allotted to it.”
When given the choices of real work and real decisions of gravitas, or possibly no work and no decisions, or arbitrary work and fly-weight decisions, human proclivities allow some of us to opt for the third option.
Find out what's happening in Alamedafor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Why not?
It provides a government paycheck, a sense of mission and a sense of importance.
Find out what's happening in Alamedafor free with the latest updates from Patch.
When Guantanamo authorities confiscated two John Grisham paperbacks, it unleashed a fusillade of bureaucratic activity.
The ensuing imbroglio undoubtedly clobbered the schedules of dozens military officers and high ranking government service workers.
Somewhere between Washington and Gitmo, clusters of earnest government employees, military and civilian, had to put holds on routine paperwork, cancel tennis, racquetball and squash appointments, hold prolix, ad hoc, knuckle biting meetings and possibly order out for pizza.
In order to attest that relenting on Grisham’s books was an informed decision, a minimum of one junior person in the frenzy had to carve time out of a busy schedule to actually read—okay skim—okay buy the Cliffs Notes on one of the books.
The decision to rescind the ban on Grisham had to travel up and down the chain of command like a Slinky; unleashing top secret flash messages and voice scrambled phone calls at every rung of the food chain.
Hopefully Captain Swick, despite the crisis he precipitated, will still stand a snowball’s chance before the officer promotion board after having “helped his client, Sufiyan Barhoumi, learn American legal principles.”
Was Captain Swick insinuating that MR Barhoumi has not been learning American legal principles in Gitmo?
What’s the subtext here?
Is providing Grisham books tantamount to aiding and abetting the enemy?
Will Captain Swick be charged or reprimanded?
Should detainees, such as MR Barhoumi, be released after nearly twelve years of being “humanely treated with multiple outlets for enrichment,” and then commence clogging up the U.S. Federal Court system with frivolous class action lawsuits, we will know who to blame Young Captain.
Jeffrey R Smith
Lieutenant Commander/Naval Aviator/Public Affairs US Navy Retired
