
Now Streaming on YouTube: Confessions from a Presidential Hit Squad in Gambia - danso
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/31/world/africa/gambia-truth-commission-yahya-jammeh.html
======
priansh
I think technology has a high potential for increasing accountability.

However, it's likely much larger superpowers i.e. US, China, etc. will take
decades or centuries before being held accountable in this manner, which is
honestly a little too tragic. I was thinking "we don't have this
accountability in the States," when I realized we sorta do -- to an extent,
this is Wikileaks and whistleblowers, except this is considered illegal. It's
crazy to think at a high level that we have made "accountability" illegal and
somehow this is just fine.

~~~
pjc50
Accountability is subject to power. Gambia, like South Africa before then, can
have a Truth and Reconciliation because they have overthrown the reign of
terror.

The US (and for that matter UK) have not had the thorough regime change that
would enable a true accounting. And yes, this has to include the media and the
permanent state.

~~~
space_fountain
I'm going to say something that seems to be way more controversial than I
expect, but we also haven't really had a reign of terror in awhile.

~~~
pjc50
Well, we did, but we exported it. In the case of the UK it was Northern
Ireland; thereafter for both it was Afghanistan and Iraq. Admittedly there we
took over from a different reign of terror, but the whole situation remained
lawless.

The US built a special law-free zone so it could apply indefinite
unaccountable punishment to a few dozen people. A police microstate.

~~~
jacquesm
I always saw Guantanamo Bay as proof that the cases against these people were
for the most part so flimsy that they would not have held up in an actual
court of law.

~~~
orthoxerox
I think the evidence was conclusive enough, but obtained in a way that made it
inadmissible in any non-marsupial court.

So the US had two options: try and free known terrorists who now harbour even
deeper hatred against the US after having been tortured, or keep them in legal
limbo until they die. We know which one they picked.

~~~
PavlovsCat
> free known terrorists who now harbour even deeper hatred against the US
> after having been tortured

Even more perversely, I've read people say that about people may very well not
be terrorists at all, but by now they probably resent the US so much, it still
would be a threat to release them. I just have to think of someone attacking a
random person in the street, then choking them, then realizing the mistake but
not letting go because they already attacked them and they might retaliate, so
it's best to just "see it through". It boggles my mind.

~~~
baybal2
> I just have to think of someone attacking a random person in the street,
> then choking them, then realizing the mistake but not letting go because
> they already attacked them and they might retaliate, so it's best to just
> "see it through". It boggles my mind.

Well, when you left so many half choked people around, no wonder when so many
want to kill you.

See, US always carries through its promise to "finish off" old adversaries.
Saddam was once a US ally, but much more of a frenemy. US waited for decades
to dispose of him.

Ghaddafi, almost the same, once got a grudge against US no longer giving him
carrot, and 30 years later, bang!

Castro - they tried for whacking 20 long years, to no avail.

Noriega - again, it took them near a decade to smoke him after their flirting
with him went bad.

A ton of other harebrained dictatorship in Latin America ended very similarly,
the moment they antagonise US, the clock is set ticking. US may even keep
supporting them enthusiastically, while supporting a coup against them:
Arellano was a US darling until US threw a bananagate at him, then deposed his
deposer. It went even more wild in Salvator, where US sponsored a free trip to
Hague for both Daubuisson and Duarte, after supporting them both against each
other.

But ultimately that logic is both self defeating and amoral. Any war, no
matter how tiny and "manageable" it looks like carries a lethal risk,
eventually you will get killed no matter how tough you are.

I can bring a parallel with life in a lawless city. People who survive the
longest are not the strongest ones. The "tough guys" on other hand, almost
always tend to get killed in meaningless fights over stupid things because
they can not concede a thing.

Like a crime king of mid-naughties Moscow who was killed in a fight over... a
parking spot, by a single hit to the head with a stone...

I can not imagine that somebody who comes with such policy lines is an actual
military man. Nobody who went through a real war, and not ended up a psycho,
would ever meaninglessly provoke an enemy.

But that reeks of doctrinalism of political theoreticians dressing up as
generals. Very much along the lines of thought in places like RAND institute,
or the more MBA-brained parts of Westpoint.

~~~
jacquesm
> Like a crime king of mid-naughties Moscow who was killed in a fight over...
> a parking spot, by a single hit to the head with a stone...

Interesting story. That sounds like someone who truly believed they were
invulnerable and could get away with anything. Justice was served in some
manner I guess.

------
sb057
Gambia? I thought it was _the_ Gambia.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gambia#Etymology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gambia#Etymology)

~~~
dredmorbius
Particularly notable coming from _The_ New York Times, as it insists....

------
Despegar
I'd love to see a Truth and Reconciliation of the techno-utopian ideology that
has been at the center of the tech industry for decades. John Perry Barlow is
dead but other principals are still alive.

~~~
daodedickinson
Barlow shared many reevaluations that might interest you then; this one from
2006 is relatively old but kinda of interesting in how it's somewhere far from
the present but also far from his "Declaration":
[https://alumni.berkeley.edu/california-magazine/march-
april-...](https://alumni.berkeley.edu/california-magazine/march-
april-2006-can-we-know-everything/jp-barlow-cyberspace-still-anti)

------
dmix
The stream had a horrible buzzing sound, so still plenty of room for technical
improvement I guess.

I’m curious if the fact they speak English made this more newsworthy in the
west.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyE4wFwnxnk&smid=nytcore-
ios...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyE4wFwnxnk&smid=nytcore-ios-share)

