White House censors op-ed about Iran

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Here is the link to the article at New York Times. White house censored an op-ed, which I found interesting, about the relations between US and Iran. And before White House's censor, CIA found nothing inappropriate about the article. What are your opinions about the censorship and the material in the op-ed?

 

I wish to read the uncensored one. I wonder what is it they want to hide. The main frame more or less can be predicted but..

 

I found an article that, using previously published articles by the authors, partly reconstructs the deletions.

The general point the authors aren't allowed to make seems to be that in their op-ed the Iranians are not evil, and that the Whitehouse, for the sake of ideology, drowned dialogue with Iran in the bathtub.

 

Well, they can censor the NYT, but the BBC said much the same thing back in September.

 

I get a knee-jerk reaction whenever I hear the phrase "X (x being a high-ranking official, or God help us, a country) can't be reasoned with." In 99% of the cases this means "We can't be bothered with that diplomatic BS. We have a bigger army, so what's that stuff about compromising?" Lunatics and idiots generally don't rise to positions of power. If they do, it's because there's a group of quick, serious thinkers behind them that can be reasoned with, if you are serious about it.

I don't get it, though - wasn't the press supposed to be free? If the NYT got a hold of a story with some "sensitive" information, it's the leaker who is responsible, not the newspaper. Besides, I'm getting the feeling too many things are classified nowadays. It's not as if they would print out "on 2200 hours on February 15th, 2 marine squads will embark on a cross-border raid from Iraq on the route between Kaminshan and Jibhwani." I rather doubt it that any serious newspaper has that little common sense.