Peter van Buren
Peter van Buren (Government official, Whistleblower) | |
---|---|
Born | 1960 New York City |
Nationality | US |
Member of | Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity |
Interests | 2003 Iraq War |
Foreign Service official who exposed the extremely wasteful and ineffective spending during the reconstruction effort after the 2003 Iraq War. |
Peter van Buren is a former United States Foreign Service employee, and the author of two novels and two non-fiction books about military affairs.
Career
Van Buren served in the U.S. Department of State for 24 years, including a year in Iraq as a team leader for two Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs).[1]
"We Meant Well" by Peter Van Buren - U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center |
After his book, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People, was published in 2012 Van Buren claims to have experienced a series of escalating, adverse actions.[2][3] His former employer, the U. S. State Department, claimed van Buren had not properly cleared his book for publication under Department rules, and that the book contained unauthorized disclosures of classified material.[4] The Washington Post noted that "Van Buren has tested the First Amendment almost daily."[5] The Government Accountability Project and the ACLU helped defend van Buren, and the State Department eventually allowed him to retire with his standard pension and benefits.[6][5][7][8]
Van Buren was associate producer for the film Silenced (2014) by James Spione.[9][10]
In August 2018, Twitter banned Van Buren for life for writing that "harasses, intimidates, or uses fear to silence someone else's voice."[11]
Bibliography
- Hooper's War: A Novel of WWII Japan, Luminis Books, 15 May 2017, ISBN 978-1941311127
- Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the #99 Percent, Luminis Books, 25 April 2014, ISBN 978-1935462910
- We Meant Well, Metropolitan Books, 27 September 2011, ISBN 9780805094367
- Why Peace (as a contributor), Marc Guttman, 23 April 2012
External links
Wikipedia is not affiliated with Wikispooks. Original page source here
References
- ↑ https://www.thenation.com/authors/peter-van-buren/
- ↑ http://www.salon.com/2012/04/12/the_man_the_state_dept_wants_silenced/
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20160327134507/http://washdiplomat.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8467:us-foreign-service-officer-blacklisted-for-scathing-expose&catid=1491&Itemid=428
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20180624060718/https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/states-actions-against-peter-van-buren-offer-a-few-lessons-on-use-of-classified-info-power/2011/10/27/gIQAdAcHNM_story.html
- ↑ a b https://web.archive.org/web/20180624064113/https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/post/state-dept-moves-to-fire-peter-van-buren-author-of-book-critical-of-iraq-reconstruction-effort/2012/01/31/gIQAiXNSCS_blog.html
- ↑ http://diplopundit.net/category/peter-van-buren/
- ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/08/world/us-envoy-peter-van-buren-takes-caustic-pen-to-iraq-war.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20180206092942/https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/09/29/how-the-state-department-came-after-me/
- ↑ http://tribecafilm.com/filmguide/53208997c07f5df7d2000113-silenced
- ↑ http://nakededgefilms.com/films/silenced/
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20180810042328/https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/i-was-banned-for-life-from-twitter/