“The Trial” and Rumsfeld

New Scientist‘s Feedback section has long featured entries about people whose names are wierdly appropriate for their jobs.

Reading through an article on The Register entitled “Guantanamo Bay loses ‘least worst place’ status”, there is mention of the ultimate combination. One of the PR officers for Guantanamo Bay with the name Kafka! Those familiar with Franz Kafka‘s work will recognise the scary similarities between events in Guantanamo Bay and his book “The Trial” (also made into a film by Orson Wells).

Back in 2001, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld took a crack at solving this riddle, dubbing Guantanamo Bay “the least worst place” to store evil-doers. But now, with the torture scandal unfolding, the Navy has declared that Guantanamo Bay is not “the least worst place” at all.

The Navy once embraced the “least worst place” Rumsfeldism proudly, displaying the slogan across the banner of its Guantanamo Bay web site. …snip…

Times, however, change, and when a new commanding officer for the prison – Captain Les McCoy – took over near the end of 2003, he ordered a Photoshop job on the “least worst place” banner, removing the slogan all together.

“The removal was ordered because the commanding officer did not feel it accurately reflected his vision of the base,” said Navy spokesman Lieutenant Mike Kafka.

(Yes, you’re reading that correctly. A man named Kafka has been deployed to field questions about a prison where the criminals are only vaguely charged with crimes, can’t speak to lawyers and likely will never get out.)