Guantánamo: a lawyer's view
关塔那摩——一名律师所见

Self-defeating
偷鸡不成蚀把米（译/陈继龙）

Jun 7th 2007
From The Economist print edition

THE military system erected by the Bush administration to try suspected foreign terrorists (which was brought to a halt on Monday by a crucial legal technicality) is “a farce[1]” says Clive Stafford Smith, a lawyer who has represented 35 Guantánamo prisoners and knows the interstices[2] of the system better than most. （1）It is also, as he argues persuasively, a tragedy. A tragedy for the men seized, violently mistreated and confined without charges. And a tragedy for America and its ability to call for the rule of law.
关塔那摩35名囚犯的代理律师克里夫•斯塔福（Clive Stafford）认为，布什政府为审问外国恐怖分子所建立的军事体系（由于存在重要的法律技术问题已于本周一关停）简直是“胡闹”。斯塔福比谁都清楚这一体系的内幕。他言之凿凿地表示，无论对于被抓捕、拷打并无辜拘禁的人还是美国及其吁求法治的能力而言，该体系都是一个悲剧。

The author, who writes well, poses provocative questions. （2）To those who say torture is acceptable in cases of the “ticking time-bomb”, ie, to prevent a horrendous terrorist attack, he asks why we did not resort to torture during the cold war to learn what the Soviet Union was up to, at a time when the world seemed to hover on the brink of nuclear annihilation.
作者的论述充分，所提的问题也颇具挑衅意味。有些人说为了防范“定时炸弹”（也就是为了防止恐怖分子发动恐怖袭击）而进行拷问并不为过，对此他则反问道，冷战时期全世界都面临核毁灭的威胁，那时候美国人为何不采用拷问的方式来搞清楚苏联到底在干什么呢？

（3）He laments that the administration has abandoned the high principles that America set with the Nuremberg tribunals, which accorded even the most venal[3] and reprehensible[4] Nazis open and fair trials. He reminds readers that Harry Truman insisted on the trials, over the objections of Winston Churchill, who simply wanted the Nazi leaders summarily executed.
他痛惜道，当初在美国曾与纽伦堡审判庭所共同确立的一系列重要原则之下，即便是最为恶贯满盈的纳粹分子受到的也是公开和公正的审判，而现如今美国已经将这些原则抛诸九霄云外了。他认为读者需要注意的一点是，哈利•杜鲁门（Harry Trumen）不顾温斯顿•丘吉尔（Winston Churchill）的反对，坚持要求对纳粹进行审判，并且希望将纳粹党魁草草处决了事。

Even Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, one of Osama bin Laden's top henchmen[5] and a mastermind of the September 11th 2001 attacks, could have been properly tried in an American civilian court, or so Mr Stafford Smith argues. “There was plenty of legitimate evidence against him,” he writes, drawn from diligent intelligence work and from his own boasts on video. But he doubts whether he or other senior al-Qaeda men will be tried. （4）This is not, he argues, because classified intelligence information might be compromised but because the torture to which he says they have been subjected would be exposed.
斯塔福认为，就算是对哈利德•默罕默德（本•拉登最重要的亲信之一，也是911袭击事件的主谋之一），也应当在美国一个民事法庭中进行合理审判。他写道，从大量的情报及默罕默德本人在电视上的夸夸其谈中可以收集到“充足的判他有罪的合法证据”。但是，默罕默德或其他基地组织首领是否会受审，对此他表示怀疑。他认为，这不是因为可能泄露机密情报的缘故，而是因为他们所遭受的拷问可能会大白于天下。

[QUIZ]
英译汉（请将划线部分英文翻译成中文）：

[NOTES](OXFORD)
1. farce n. absurd and pointless proceedings 荒唐而无意义的行动: The prisoner's trial was a farce. 对那个囚犯的审讯简直是胡闹.
2. interstice n. (usu pl 通常作复数) ~ (of/between/in sth) (fml 文) very small gap or crack 裂隙; 缝隙; 空隙: The interstices between the bricks let in cold air. 冷空气透过砖缝进入室内.
3. venal adj. 1 ready to accept money for doing sth dishonest 贪财而行不义的: venal judges, politicians, etc 贪赃枉法的法官、 政客等.  2 (of conduct) influenced by or done for bribery （指行为）因受贿而为的: venal practices 受贿而做的事.
4. reprehensible adj. deserving to be reprehended 应受指责的: Your conduct/attitude is most reprehensible. 你的行为[态度]的确应该受到批评.
5. henchman n. faithful follower or political supporter who always obeys the orders of his leader （对领导者唯命是从的）忠实的追随者或政治上的支持者: the dictator and his henchmen 独裁者及其亲信.