11 ms·

Chronicle of a Death Foretold

229 points by kumarski 13y ago

jjoe 13y ago
Poignant end to the article: "America, what has happened to you?"
- mortov 13y ago
  I think we know what happened - the attacks on the WTC. However, the response has been staggeringly perverse; we have had hundreds of thousands of people die (you don't even hear about the daily bombings in food markets in Iraq or Afghanistan now and that's without counting Syria, Lybia, Egypt etc.), we have Orwellian surveillance which only a few years ago would have been dismissed as crazy tin-foil hat nonsense but for the fact Edward Snowden revealed all the theories were true and things were much worse than even the tin foil hat people yelling at secret-spy-trees said. And that does not start to cover the censorship (see elsewhere on HN today for that). The response has grown a whole industry of fear-mongering and schemes to stop crazy make-believe terrorist plots which simply defy the laws of physics (and common sense) yet no-one will tell The Emperor that he has no clothes on. Well, not anyone he is prepared to listen to. The clothes makers have become insanely rich in the process of making their wares too. What's a few dead people in far off places if you're getting rich, right ? Meantime, US judges complain about the crazy Catch-22 goalpost moving unfairness and still people languish innocently in Guantanimo and die in what can best be described as "unclear circumstances". A nation founded on rebellion against unfair and unjust oppression, seeking life and liberty. Indeed, the question is "America, what has happened to you ?" But also, what has happened to all the other countries who joined in this madness and keep it going ? They have responsibility too.
  - n21e 13y ago
    we have had hundreds of thousands of people die Yes, as compared with around three thousand. Incomparably more innocent people killed by the actions of the USA and other western nations. The arrogance, the lack of understanding that life is similar in other countries, the unquestioned greater value of the life of an American than the life of a ragged brown man we pick up in a far off place that we shouldn't have been in at all. Now more than a decade later all that's clear is that I will spend the rest of my life despising the countries in which I am likely to live.
    - sneak 13y ago
      > Now more than a decade later all that's clear is that I will spend the rest of my life despising the countries in which I am likely to live. It doesn't have to be so. You can take your productive energies elsewhere.
  - rdtsc 13y ago
    > But also, what has happened to all the other countries who joined in this madness and keep it going ? At that high of a level once a "war on X" is created and billions are poured into it, whole branches of industry are opened up, whole new government agencies are created, thousands are send to kill and thousands will be killed. Things just keep going because they already are going. It becomes a self-sustaining reaction.
    - sdoering 13y ago
      War is a massacre between people not knowing each other in behoof of people knowing, but not massacring each other. (Paul Valery)
  - madaxe_again 13y ago
    Spanish Armada. Never forget. Bomb Spain. The entire premise is staggeringly stupid, and the disease that afflicts America is the same that has eaten every empire built on the premise of never-ending expansion and unending military dominance.
- speeder 13y ago
  Nothing actually, US has always been like that, only that now people can see how absurd it all is. But ask anyone that got "democracy" by the United States, not only in middle east, but for example in South America during the cold war, several african countries, and so on, and they will tell you that this behaviour from the US government is not unexpected, and that the US population approval (even if implicit and indirect) of it, is not unexpected either.
  - refurb 13y ago
    How about Japan, South Korea, Taiwan? South Korea and Taiwan weren't true democracies until the 80s. Transition from a dictatorship takes time.
    - growupkids 13y ago
      Indeed. And there are others too, not to mention the fall of the Soviet Union liberating lots of countries in no small part due to America and it's allies fight against communism. Whenever I hear people imply the US just makes things worse most if not all of the time, or never does anything for any country but itself, I'm reminded of this scene from Life of Brian: What have the Romans done for us? And after all the characters rattle off a long list of things the Romans have done, and no one seems to want to hate the Romans anymore, Reg says: "All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?” I can't help but be reminded of that scene. Is the US perfect? Far from it, but the implication that the US is some pox on the world is just as absurd. Edit: for anyone too young to know what the Life of Brian is, it's a comedy by Monthy Python.
      - rdtsc 13y ago
        > not to mention the fall of the Soviet Union liberating lots of countries in no small part due to America and it's allies fight against communism. Was it though? I've heard that repeated so often. If it was how come it was such a surprise to all the Sovietologists at the time? The thing is, those that worked for the CIA thought they won because their spies did this and that. Those working for the Dept of State thought they won because this and that diplomatic trick. Those in Congress throughout the years thought they won because they enacted these economic sanctions and so they killed the "Bear". The truth is probably that it would have collapsed with or without the help of anyone from outside. So not sure if US should be thanked for liberating Latvia, Georgia and Poland , ironically, Soviet Union's polices and base system setup should be thanked because it was so rotten at the core. But another thing is interesting, and it shows in your post. This thing is very dangerous and it is the very thing that many hate US for -- exceptionalism. It shows implicitly in your comment and it is often assumed in political debate. It is this idea that US is special in some objective sense. That it doesn't have to abide by rules. It shouldn't be judged by same criteria as everyone else. Equating it to the Roman Empire. Attributing it wondeful qualities of slaying a the great Satan of Communism and so on. > Is the US perfect? Far from it, but the implication that the US is some pox on the world is just as absurd. It is good to find out if people judge US based on comparing it to other countries or to the propaganda image it presents of itself. I find the disconnect and hypocrisy that shows in in the latter is one reason people might dislike US. In other words, it is because it tells others how "perfect" it is, that imperfections and transgressions that are excusable for other countries become very noticeably with US. Like say torture. Ok, Somalian government chops children's arms off say if they don't want to convert or something like that. It would not shock too many people to learn that for example. The fact that US engaged and probably still does engage in torture (even thought they've redefined it as whatever enhanced interrogations something) is very shocking and disturbing vis-a-vis the "we are the great human rights champions of the world" type proclamations. > And after all the characters rattle off a long list of things the Romans have done, and no one seems to want to hate the Romans anymore, Reg says I do. They raided and conquered the territory of my country, killed and destroyed many villages. Destroyed local culture and language and imposed theirs. It is easy to look back and say well ok, Romans turned out pretty ok. We had roads and wheels. How do we know that not having Romans invade would have turned out? Maybe it would have been even better? We can't quite run that experiment to check. Anyway this comparison with the Roman Empire doesn't quite work well for me on multiple levels, as you can see, sorry ;-)
- alexeisadeski3 13y ago
  Please don't take this as a defense of everything America has done: The US is currently at war with both Al Qaida and the Taliban. Members of these organizations which are captured are allowed to be held as POWs until hostilities are formally ended. What else is the US supposed to do? These men didn't necessarily commit crimes - prisoners of war are simply fighting for their country or side. Release them? What about the prisoners who are 'high risk'? Try them? You're not really supposed to charge prisoners of war with a crime. I mean I guess that you can, but why? The US is still at war with them. They'll have to be exchanged for US prisoners eventually (the Taliban have one still, if memory serves).
  - foxylad 13y ago
    The problem is that these are organisations, not sovereign states. It's a bit like saying that since the US has declared a war on drugs, it should be able to hold drug dealers forever without trial. According to him, this guy went to Afganistan for a cheap medical procedure and bounty hunters handed him in as a foreign combatant. None of us knows whether this is true or not, but the issue is that suspending judicial procedure is going to lead to horrific injustice - even if you're at war. And the Taliban would never swap a high value American hostage for anyone, particularly if it was someone they'd never heard of.
    - alexeisadeski3 13y ago
      States are perfectly within their legal right to declare war on organizations. If the US were to declare war on FARC or Los Zetas, then yes the US government could detain prisoners until the end of hostilities. (Note that that's not the same as indefinitely) Whether or not this guy was actually fighting with Taliban or Al Qaida is an important issue, but not really at the heart of the broader issue regarding Guantanamo detainees.
      - rhizome 13y ago
        but not really at the heart of the broader issue regarding Guantanamo detainees. Then don't invoke it.
powertower 13y ago
At its peak Guantanamo Bay has 750 detainees and prisoners. Now it's 150. I kind of have a hard time taking anything said about the conditions inside from the detainees at face value. They have every reason to exaggerate and lie - and no reason to tell the truth... Because comparing it to the types of prisons in the 3rd world that do have truly horrible living conditions and real absolute torture, is just dishonest. In most of those places you don't even get paper to write on, nor have a personal lawyer, nor get special religious treatment, nor have media walk-throughs, nor doctors on call 24/7, nor TVs, and so on and on.
- tphyahoo 13y ago
  You have an incredible lack of compassion. Pray that you nor someone you love rots in a dungeon like this. Pray that you never have to eat those words as you sit in silent darkness slowly losing your mind. It can happen to anyone. It can happen to you.
- DanBC 13y ago
  The US should be aiming higher than some developing nation hellhole for its prisons. "We're not as bad as that poor nation, with the dictatorship, and all the corruption" isn't a ringing endorsement of the freedoms that the US wants the rest of the world to have.
- andrewfelix 13y ago
  "They have every reason to exaggerate and lie..." As opposed to the US Government.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- mjn 13y ago
  Perhaps that's true, but I have no way of knowing what the conditions are like. I'd have more confidence that my country is operating such facilities in a manner that meets at least basic standards if they didn't seem to be taking overt steps to avoid our own legal system's oversight. Congress has been generally sympathetic, and passed laws giving law-enforcement agencies and the military substantial deference, so it's not as if they risk oversight by some hostile foreign power, or the UN or something. And yet still the military is operating some kind of weird extra-territorial prison, which it's trying to keep our country's own courts from overseeing. What are they hiding, and why? On a basic level, we operate a prison in an area that the U.S. fully controls in perpetuity, a permanent U.S. facility that no other country exercises any control over, either now, for about 100 years into the past, or at any point in the foreseeable future. It is in effect a U.S. territory, in the sense that it is under the permanent control of the U.S., and has been for many decades. But we're claiming that it is nevertheless "in a foreign country" due a technicality, and therefore not subject to U.S. courts' jurisdiction, or indeed the jurisdiction of any other country's courts (not even those of the country that we claim has sovereignty over it). That sure seems shady, and like something is being hidden. If the USSR or any other country had claimed such an arrangement, "but look, it's not in the USSR, technically, just a perpetual lease to the USSR", we would have ridiculed it as a quasi-legalistic farce. It doesn't necessarily prove that the people operating Guantanamo are engaged in illegal activity, but the fact that they have gone out of their way to base their activities in some kind of legal no-man's land that isn't subject to any country's domestic jurisdiction doesn't give one great confidence that they are complying with American legal and ethical norms.
deleted 13y ago
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ysph 13y ago
Ugh. The United States justice system is beyond horribly broken. It is despicable. America, we have failed you. Super Bowl commercials be damned.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 13y ago
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- rdl 13y ago
  You don't have to be anti-military or even anti-war-on-terror to be against abuses of the system. (I don't know if any reasonable person is ever anti-peace, but I would definitely choose war over oppression; I still think Guantanamo is a bad idea for both moral and effectiveness grounds.)
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
pixelmonkey 13y ago
Completely coincidentally, I just bought the novel by Gabriel García Márquez, "Chronicle of a Death Foretold" (in Spanish: "Crónica de una muerte anunciada") today. It's a short novel by the Columbian author that I had read ~10 years ago, and thought of it again today when reflecting on the nature of journalism. The novel is a commentary on the notion of "truth". Its plot involves a murder in a small town in Columbia, and is told in a journalistic style, where you, the reader, learn new facts that reshape the perception of the "whole story" as the story itself unfolds through the narration. As the novel unfolds, you start to question the veracity of the facts presented to you, causing you to question whether the "true reality" of what happened is even knowable.
- tincholio 13y ago
  > It's a short novel by the Columbian author ColOmbian ;)
  - jordigh 13y ago
    The spelling difference doesn't change the fact that this is the same word: land of Columbus. This was an early proposed name for the country of the United States, Columbia, today most famously personified in the Columbia Pictures logo (and I think in the Statue of Liberty, but I'm not sure). I kind of wish sometimes that the US had used that name instead of appropriating the name "America" from the rest of the new world.
cookrn 13y ago
I hadn't heard of this story prior to today, and was definitely sad to read it. Interesting that it's being posted now though it's from 2012.
dror 13y ago
At a minimum, sign http://www.change.org/petitions/president-obama-close-detention-facility-at-guantanamo-bay-3 http://www.change.org/petitions/president-obama-close-detent...
kafkaesque 13y ago
Before the Law stands a door-keeper. A man from the country comes up to this door-keeper and begs for admission to the Law. But the door-keeper tells him that he cannot grant him admission now. The man ponders this and then asks if he will be allowed to enter later, 'Possibly', the door-keeper says, 'but not now'. Since the door leading to the Law is standing open as always and the door-keeper steps aside, the man bends down to look inside through the door. Seeing this, the door-keeper laughs and says: 'If it attracts you so much, go on and try to get in without my permission, But you must realise that I am powerful. And I'm only the lowest door-keeper. At every hall there is another door-keeper, each one more powerful than the last. Even I cannot bear to look at the third one'.
- xyzzy123 13y ago
  This man was kidnapped and tortured without trial. I did not downvote you, but somehow I feel that your comment does not do justice to the plain reality of the situation. Which is decidedly not allegorical and not abstract at all.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - michaelgrafl 13y ago
    I think what Kafka here is trying to do is pointing out the absurdity of reality. I see no reason for downvoting.
  - kafkaesque 13y ago
    Have you read The Trial? Josef K was arrested basically without trial, as well. In fact, I read this article and I see many parallels to the novel by Franz Kafka. The reason I quoted it was because the following (from the article) reminded me of it: "Latif sank deeper into depression and hopelessness as the futility of the legal efforts towards winning his freedom became clear. In one of his last letters to his lawyer he tells him: 'Do whatever you wish to do, the issue [of my defence] is over', and includes with it a message of farewell written both to him personally as well to the world at large: 'With all my pains, I say goodbye to you and the cry of death should be enough for you. A world power failed to safeguard peace and human rights and from saving me. I will do whatever I am able to do to rid myself of the imposed death on me at any moment of this prison... the soul that insists to end it all and leave this life which is no longer anymore a life'". Josef K thought the law was accessible and would protect him, because he was innocent--so there is nothing to fear, right? Wrong. The excerpt from above is taken from a central piece of The Trial--the parable "Before the Law", which was a conversation Josef K had with the priest. Franz Kafka studied law. He thought it was made to confuse the layman and that the law was not blind and balanced, as the statue so famously demonstrates, but rather has wings and shifts. Though The Trial is a work of fiction and Latif is a real man, when I first read this book, it helped me realise and gain more compassion towards those who have been treated unfairly by the law.
sneak 13y ago
Who's paying the salaries of these prison guards? Who's funding the US government agencies that appealed his release? Read your paycheck carefully, and check kayak.com regularly. You can stop any time you wish.
- e40 13y ago
  Who's paying the salaries of these prison guards? I'm pretty sure the people working that particular prison are soldiers.
lafar6502 13y ago
And of course someone will pay for this some day. Someone totally innocent, who just happens to be in a wrong place at a wrong time. Just like most of these prisoners.
squozzer 13y ago
Of all of the sad things I read in that article, the phrase, "the allegations against him must be taken as accurate if they are claimed to be so by the government." Some might call it presumption of guilt.

229 points by kumarski 13y ago

jjoe 13y ago

Poignant end to the article: "America, what has happened to you?"

mortov 13y ago
I think we know what happened - the attacks on the WTC. However, the response has been staggeringly perverse; we have had hundreds of thousands of people die (you don't even hear about the daily bombings in food markets in Iraq or Afghanistan now and that's without counting Syria, Lybia, Egypt etc.), we have Orwellian surveillance which only a few years ago would have been dismissed as crazy tin-foil hat nonsense but for the fact Edward Snowden revealed all the theories were true and things were much worse than even the tin foil hat people yelling at secret-spy-trees said. And that does not start to cover the censorship (see elsewhere on HN today for that). The response has grown a whole industry of fear-mongering and schemes to stop crazy make-believe terrorist plots which simply defy the laws of physics (and common sense) yet no-one will tell The Emperor that he has no clothes on. Well, not anyone he is prepared to listen to. The clothes makers have become insanely rich in the process of making their wares too. What's a few dead people in far off places if you're getting rich, right ? Meantime, US judges complain about the crazy Catch-22 goalpost moving unfairness and still people languish innocently in Guantanimo and die in what can best be described as "unclear circumstances". A nation founded on rebellion against unfair and unjust oppression, seeking life and liberty. Indeed, the question is "America, what has happened to you ?" But also, what has happened to all the other countries who joined in this madness and keep it going ? They have responsibility too.
- n21e 13y ago
  we have had hundreds of thousands of people die Yes, as compared with around three thousand. Incomparably more innocent people killed by the actions of the USA and other western nations. The arrogance, the lack of understanding that life is similar in other countries, the unquestioned greater value of the life of an American than the life of a ragged brown man we pick up in a far off place that we shouldn't have been in at all. Now more than a decade later all that's clear is that I will spend the rest of my life despising the countries in which I am likely to live.
  - sneak 13y ago
    > Now more than a decade later all that's clear is that I will spend the rest of my life despising the countries in which I am likely to live. It doesn't have to be so. You can take your productive energies elsewhere.
- rdtsc 13y ago
  > But also, what has happened to all the other countries who joined in this madness and keep it going ? At that high of a level once a "war on X" is created and billions are poured into it, whole branches of industry are opened up, whole new government agencies are created, thousands are send to kill and thousands will be killed. Things just keep going because they already are going. It becomes a self-sustaining reaction.
  - sdoering 13y ago
    War is a massacre between people not knowing each other in behoof of people knowing, but not massacring each other. (Paul Valery)
- madaxe_again 13y ago
  Spanish Armada. Never forget. Bomb Spain. The entire premise is staggeringly stupid, and the disease that afflicts America is the same that has eaten every empire built on the premise of never-ending expansion and unending military dominance.
speeder 13y ago
Nothing actually, US has always been like that, only that now people can see how absurd it all is. But ask anyone that got "democracy" by the United States, not only in middle east, but for example in South America during the cold war, several african countries, and so on, and they will tell you that this behaviour from the US government is not unexpected, and that the US population approval (even if implicit and indirect) of it, is not unexpected either.
- refurb 13y ago
  How about Japan, South Korea, Taiwan? South Korea and Taiwan weren't true democracies until the 80s. Transition from a dictatorship takes time.
  - growupkids 13y ago
    Indeed. And there are others too, not to mention the fall of the Soviet Union liberating lots of countries in no small part due to America and it's allies fight against communism. Whenever I hear people imply the US just makes things worse most if not all of the time, or never does anything for any country but itself, I'm reminded of this scene from Life of Brian: What have the Romans done for us? And after all the characters rattle off a long list of things the Romans have done, and no one seems to want to hate the Romans anymore, Reg says: "All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?” I can't help but be reminded of that scene. Is the US perfect? Far from it, but the implication that the US is some pox on the world is just as absurd. Edit: for anyone too young to know what the Life of Brian is, it's a comedy by Monthy Python.
    - rdtsc 13y ago
      > not to mention the fall of the Soviet Union liberating lots of countries in no small part due to America and it's allies fight against communism. Was it though? I've heard that repeated so often. If it was how come it was such a surprise to all the Sovietologists at the time? The thing is, those that worked for the CIA thought they won because their spies did this and that. Those working for the Dept of State thought they won because this and that diplomatic trick. Those in Congress throughout the years thought they won because they enacted these economic sanctions and so they killed the "Bear". The truth is probably that it would have collapsed with or without the help of anyone from outside. So not sure if US should be thanked for liberating Latvia, Georgia and Poland , ironically, Soviet Union's polices and base system setup should be thanked because it was so rotten at the core. But another thing is interesting, and it shows in your post. This thing is very dangerous and it is the very thing that many hate US for -- exceptionalism. It shows implicitly in your comment and it is often assumed in political debate. It is this idea that US is special in some objective sense. That it doesn't have to abide by rules. It shouldn't be judged by same criteria as everyone else. Equating it to the Roman Empire. Attributing it wondeful qualities of slaying a the great Satan of Communism and so on. > Is the US perfect? Far from it, but the implication that the US is some pox on the world is just as absurd. It is good to find out if people judge US based on comparing it to other countries or to the propaganda image it presents of itself. I find the disconnect and hypocrisy that shows in in the latter is one reason people might dislike US. In other words, it is because it tells others how "perfect" it is, that imperfections and transgressions that are excusable for other countries become very noticeably with US. Like say torture. Ok, Somalian government chops children's arms off say if they don't want to convert or something like that. It would not shock too many people to learn that for example. The fact that US engaged and probably still does engage in torture (even thought they've redefined it as whatever enhanced interrogations something) is very shocking and disturbing vis-a-vis the "we are the great human rights champions of the world" type proclamations. > And after all the characters rattle off a long list of things the Romans have done, and no one seems to want to hate the Romans anymore, Reg says I do. They raided and conquered the territory of my country, killed and destroyed many villages. Destroyed local culture and language and imposed theirs. It is easy to look back and say well ok, Romans turned out pretty ok. We had roads and wheels. How do we know that not having Romans invade would have turned out? Maybe it would have been even better? We can't quite run that experiment to check. Anyway this comparison with the Roman Empire doesn't quite work well for me on multiple levels, as you can see, sorry ;-)
alexeisadeski3 13y ago
Please don't take this as a defense of everything America has done: The US is currently at war with both Al Qaida and the Taliban. Members of these organizations which are captured are allowed to be held as POWs until hostilities are formally ended. What else is the US supposed to do? These men didn't necessarily commit crimes - prisoners of war are simply fighting for their country or side. Release them? What about the prisoners who are 'high risk'? Try them? You're not really supposed to charge prisoners of war with a crime. I mean I guess that you can, but why? The US is still at war with them. They'll have to be exchanged for US prisoners eventually (the Taliban have one still, if memory serves).
- foxylad 13y ago
  The problem is that these are organisations, not sovereign states. It's a bit like saying that since the US has declared a war on drugs, it should be able to hold drug dealers forever without trial. According to him, this guy went to Afganistan for a cheap medical procedure and bounty hunters handed him in as a foreign combatant. None of us knows whether this is true or not, but the issue is that suspending judicial procedure is going to lead to horrific injustice - even if you're at war. And the Taliban would never swap a high value American hostage for anyone, particularly if it was someone they'd never heard of.
  - alexeisadeski3 13y ago
    States are perfectly within their legal right to declare war on organizations. If the US were to declare war on FARC or Los Zetas, then yes the US government could detain prisoners until the end of hostilities. (Note that that's not the same as indefinitely) Whether or not this guy was actually fighting with Taliban or Al Qaida is an important issue, but not really at the heart of the broader issue regarding Guantanamo detainees.
    - rhizome 13y ago
      but not really at the heart of the broader issue regarding Guantanamo detainees. Then don't invoke it.

powertower 13y ago

At its peak Guantanamo Bay has 750 detainees and prisoners. Now it's 150. I kind of have a hard time taking anything said about the conditions inside from the detainees at face value. They have every reason to exaggerate and lie - and no reason to tell the truth... Because comparing it to the types of prisons in the 3rd world that do have truly horrible living conditions and real absolute torture, is just dishonest. In most of those places you don't even get paper to write on, nor have a personal lawyer, nor get special religious treatment, nor have media walk-throughs, nor doctors on call 24/7, nor TVs, and so on and on.

tphyahoo 13y ago
You have an incredible lack of compassion. Pray that you nor someone you love rots in a dungeon like this. Pray that you never have to eat those words as you sit in silent darkness slowly losing your mind. It can happen to anyone. It can happen to you.
DanBC 13y ago
The US should be aiming higher than some developing nation hellhole for its prisons. "We're not as bad as that poor nation, with the dictatorship, and all the corruption" isn't a ringing endorsement of the freedoms that the US wants the rest of the world to have.
andrewfelix 13y ago
"They have every reason to exaggerate and lie..." As opposed to the US Government.
deleted 13y ago
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mjn 13y ago
Perhaps that's true, but I have no way of knowing what the conditions are like. I'd have more confidence that my country is operating such facilities in a manner that meets at least basic standards if they didn't seem to be taking overt steps to avoid our own legal system's oversight. Congress has been generally sympathetic, and passed laws giving law-enforcement agencies and the military substantial deference, so it's not as if they risk oversight by some hostile foreign power, or the UN or something. And yet still the military is operating some kind of weird extra-territorial prison, which it's trying to keep our country's own courts from overseeing. What are they hiding, and why? On a basic level, we operate a prison in an area that the U.S. fully controls in perpetuity, a permanent U.S. facility that no other country exercises any control over, either now, for about 100 years into the past, or at any point in the foreseeable future. It is in effect a U.S. territory, in the sense that it is under the permanent control of the U.S., and has been for many decades. But we're claiming that it is nevertheless "in a foreign country" due a technicality, and therefore not subject to U.S. courts' jurisdiction, or indeed the jurisdiction of any other country's courts (not even those of the country that we claim has sovereignty over it). That sure seems shady, and like something is being hidden. If the USSR or any other country had claimed such an arrangement, "but look, it's not in the USSR, technically, just a perpetual lease to the USSR", we would have ridiculed it as a quasi-legalistic farce. It doesn't necessarily prove that the people operating Guantanamo are engaged in illegal activity, but the fact that they have gone out of their way to base their activities in some kind of legal no-man's land that isn't subject to any country's domestic jurisdiction doesn't give one great confidence that they are complying with American legal and ethical norms.

deleted 13y ago

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ysph 13y ago

Ugh. The United States justice system is beyond horribly broken. It is despicable. America, we have failed you. Super Bowl commercials be damned.

deleted 13y ago
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deleted 13y ago

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rdl 13y ago
You don't have to be anti-military or even anti-war-on-terror to be against abuses of the system. (I don't know if any reasonable person is ever anti-peace, but I would definitely choose war over oppression; I still think Guantanamo is a bad idea for both moral and effectiveness grounds.)
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

pixelmonkey 13y ago

Completely coincidentally, I just bought the novel by Gabriel García Márquez, "Chronicle of a Death Foretold" (in Spanish: "Crónica de una muerte anunciada") today. It's a short novel by the Columbian author that I had read ~10 years ago, and thought of it again today when reflecting on the nature of journalism. The novel is a commentary on the notion of "truth". Its plot involves a murder in a small town in Columbia, and is told in a journalistic style, where you, the reader, learn new facts that reshape the perception of the "whole story" as the story itself unfolds through the narration. As the novel unfolds, you start to question the veracity of the facts presented to you, causing you to question whether the "true reality" of what happened is even knowable.

tincholio 13y ago
> It's a short novel by the Columbian author ColOmbian ;)
- jordigh 13y ago
  The spelling difference doesn't change the fact that this is the same word: land of Columbus. This was an early proposed name for the country of the United States, Columbia, today most famously personified in the Columbia Pictures logo (and I think in the Statue of Liberty, but I'm not sure). I kind of wish sometimes that the US had used that name instead of appropriating the name "America" from the rest of the new world.

cookrn 13y ago

I hadn't heard of this story prior to today, and was definitely sad to read it. Interesting that it's being posted now though it's from 2012.

dror 13y ago

At a minimum, sign http://www.change.org/petitions/president-obama-close-detention-facility-at-guantanamo-bay-3 http://www.change.org/petitions/president-obama-close-detent...

kafkaesque 13y ago

Before the Law stands a door-keeper. A man from the country comes up to this door-keeper and begs for admission to the Law. But the door-keeper tells him that he cannot grant him admission now. The man ponders this and then asks if he will be allowed to enter later, 'Possibly', the door-keeper says, 'but not now'. Since the door leading to the Law is standing open as always and the door-keeper steps aside, the man bends down to look inside through the door. Seeing this, the door-keeper laughs and says: 'If it attracts you so much, go on and try to get in without my permission, But you must realise that I am powerful. And I'm only the lowest door-keeper. At every hall there is another door-keeper, each one more powerful than the last. Even I cannot bear to look at the third one'.

xyzzy123 13y ago
This man was kidnapped and tortured without trial. I did not downvote you, but somehow I feel that your comment does not do justice to the plain reality of the situation. Which is decidedly not allegorical and not abstract at all.
- deleted 13y ago
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- michaelgrafl 13y ago
  I think what Kafka here is trying to do is pointing out the absurdity of reality. I see no reason for downvoting.
- kafkaesque 13y ago
  Have you read The Trial? Josef K was arrested basically without trial, as well. In fact, I read this article and I see many parallels to the novel by Franz Kafka. The reason I quoted it was because the following (from the article) reminded me of it: "Latif sank deeper into depression and hopelessness as the futility of the legal efforts towards winning his freedom became clear. In one of his last letters to his lawyer he tells him: 'Do whatever you wish to do, the issue [of my defence] is over', and includes with it a message of farewell written both to him personally as well to the world at large: 'With all my pains, I say goodbye to you and the cry of death should be enough for you. A world power failed to safeguard peace and human rights and from saving me. I will do whatever I am able to do to rid myself of the imposed death on me at any moment of this prison... the soul that insists to end it all and leave this life which is no longer anymore a life'". Josef K thought the law was accessible and would protect him, because he was innocent--so there is nothing to fear, right? Wrong. The excerpt from above is taken from a central piece of The Trial--the parable "Before the Law", which was a conversation Josef K had with the priest. Franz Kafka studied law. He thought it was made to confuse the layman and that the law was not blind and balanced, as the statue so famously demonstrates, but rather has wings and shifts. Though The Trial is a work of fiction and Latif is a real man, when I first read this book, it helped me realise and gain more compassion towards those who have been treated unfairly by the law.

sneak 13y ago

Who's paying the salaries of these prison guards? Who's funding the US government agencies that appealed his release? Read your paycheck carefully, and check kayak.com regularly. You can stop any time you wish.

e40 13y ago
Who's paying the salaries of these prison guards? I'm pretty sure the people working that particular prison are soldiers.

lafar6502 13y ago

And of course someone will pay for this some day. Someone totally innocent, who just happens to be in a wrong place at a wrong time. Just like most of these prisoners.

squozzer 13y ago

Of all of the sad things I read in that article, the phrase, "the allegations against him must be taken as accurate if they are claimed to be so by the government." Some might call it presumption of guilt.