Latin America is confusing. Whether it is a coke-and-weed feud between Mexican drug lords against Colombian capos to seize drug markets in South America, or the national sentiment that spurts out from each country every time the World Cup qualifiers take place, Latin American countries seem to disagree more than they agree in many ways.

However, an article by NYU Professor Greg Gandin suggests Latin America does unite for one purpose, at least: To undermine United States’ path towards the abuse of international law, and stop the world leader from bringing blatant torture to their homes.

Using a methodical approach that walks the reader through important moments in Latin American history, Gandin explains how the United States has repeatedly tried to “re-conquer” its backyard.

The purpose? To enforce its counterterrorism measures — blatant torture and prisoner transfers included — and black sites (secret prisons, mainly) in the lower portion of the continent.

Gandin’s angle is unique. Basing himself off a map that reveals which countries have participated in CIA’s rendition program to abduct, transport and torture prisoners, he takes an interesting element from another story and develops it into a narrative of his own.

Details about the “herculean tasks” Latin American countries undertake nowadays to dismantle intelligent operatives, secret prisons and torture techniques the U.S. enforced during the Cold War, 9/11 hypocrisy and the transfer of prisoners in other places of the world are entertaining.

The segment about former U.S. Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld is both amusing and maddening.

As the secretary of defense praised Latin America’s return to the rule of law after the dark days of the Cold War, Baheer (an Afghani prisoner) may well have been in the middle of one of his torture sessions, ‘hung naked for hours on end.’

As the United States raised its veil of praise for democracy, due processes for people accused on false pretenses were ignored.

Yeah, being a world leader has its benefits.

Anyway, powerful quotes about torture describe the way interrogators took information out of prisoners. Subjects were abducted. Then, waterboarded, beaten, and some even mock executed. If an interrogator threatened to bring my mother and sexually abuse her in front of me, I’d probably wish for the full gunblast.

Overall, the article is well-sourced, providing the links to the studies it uses. Structure ensures a transparent writing by separating information in topical subjects. Five subheads break the motions and there is consistency with the use of attributions and tildes (except when the author confuses Nelson Jobim’s name and writes Jobin, or when he alternates Chavez for Chávez, lacking consistency).

Toward the article’s ending, the author makes an unnecessary statement about the Brazilian government. He writes:

One can imagine that if Brazil and the rest of Latin America had signed up to participate in Washington’s rendition program, Open Society would have a lot more Middle Eastern-sounding names to add to its list.

No, I cannot imagine Brazil would support the U.S. State Department’s measures, especially after Brazil complained about the expansive definition the United States has given to the word “terrorism.” No conspiracy theories and suppositions, please.

Though I’m an Orwell fan, I do not agree with Gandin’s idea of perpetual war. He writes the Bush administration attempted to build a “perfect machine of perpetual war in a corridor running from Colombia through Central America to Mexico,” and, though it is true the United States is partly responsible for the war on drugs — and is also a major actor in it — the foundations of the war on drugs are much more deeper. At least from the Mexican part, they date back to the 19th century, when Chinese settlers began opium trading in several regions of Mexico (Gandin probably knows this, given that he is Pulitzer Prize finalist and a successful writer. My guess is he decided to narrow his focus for the story).

If you are going to mention the influence of the United States on the war on drugs, then talk about how consumption is majorly unattended in the United States; how Mexicans, Colombians and other Latin Americans have died to sustain traffic past the Rio Grande. That would be an idea for a chunkier article, covering two great paradoxes: the war on terrorism and the war on drugs.

I do, however, like the ending. “The sun never rose US-choreographed torture” in my hometown… I think.