Yes We Have No

The Times reported last week that Chiquita, the banana producer, was permitted to settle, by payment of a fine, charges that from 1997 to 2004 it gave $1.7 million to support Colombian right-wing paramilitary groups classified by the United States government as terrorist organizations.

Yesterday, the government began and ended its trial of David Hicks, an Australian arrested in Afghanistan and held for over five years at Guantanamo. Although the proceeding was straight out of Kafka - Hicks could not call witnesses in his defense, and could be convicted on the basis of evidence that was not disclosed, or was coerced from him - the government was forced to abandon all of its original charges against him. Instead, it sought to justify his five years of confinement and abuse on the sole ground of "material support for terrorism." To which he pleaded guilty, after two of his three lawyers were ejected from the courtroom.

The extent of injustice in this country is almost intolerable.