Twice I’ve written in opposition to the confirmation of Gina Haspel as our next director of Central Intelligence. And I was heartened to see that she attempted to withdraw her name on Friday. I even liked her reasoning:
A career veteran of the agency, Ms. Haspel told White House officials that she was worried less about her own reputation than about the potential damage to the C.I.A. from a bruising confirmation battle. The C.I.A. has struggled to put the legacy of its interrogation policies behind the agency.
We’re still using pseudonyms for torture here. “Interrogation policies” sounds like we’re talking about the good cop/bad cop routine instead of beating people to death, shoving them in boxes, slamming them against walls, and using “Chinese water torture” on them two hundred and sixty-six times. What the CIA has struggled to do is to put their legacy of torturing people behind them. And that means that the United States hasn’t put it behind either.
What the CIA does reflects on all of us. We don’t know and are not supposed to know much about what our clandestine services are engaged in, but when we find out that they’re committing gross violations of human rights it is our responsibility to put a stop to it. If we fail, then we become complicit and the world at large has the right to judge us for it. If we want to have the credibility to criticize other countries for their records on human rights, then we have to be able to clean up our own house. If we don’t want to be a target of those who fight for human rights, we have to maintain an exemplary record.
If we instead choose to elevate Gina Haspel to the directorship of the Central Intelligence Agency, then we all lose.
In one sense, it’s already too late. The Bush administration tarnished America’s image and badly eroded our moral standing in the world, and people will still be using their record to dismiss America’s leadership for decades or even centuries regardless of what we do from here on out. We can’t blot out history.
But we can mitigate the damage. Our legacy of slavery and Jim Crow dragged on us all throughout the Cold War, but we were able to build up some moral authority despite this by putting past injustices partially right and establishing an international architecture for resolving conflicts, protecting human rights and helping deal with humanitarian disasters and crises. That’s the record we need to emulate now.
We can’t get started if our Senate confirms Gina Haspel. Her confirmation would send the message that engaging in torture and covering up and destroying evidence of torture are things that will get you a promotion to the top of our intelligence community instead of shameful things that require accountability and atonement.
Haspel seems to recognize this, which is why she’s wavering on whether she can credibly lead the agency she clearly loves. That she has many admirers and defenders speaks well of her broader career and leadership potential, but those details are ultimately irrelevant. She can’t be our new DCI because of the bad marks on her record, and this is something that no amount of good marks can overcome.
Her nomination offers an opportunity. By defeating it, we can take some meaningful steps in the right direction. The message will be even more powerful precisely because her record is otherwise impressive. It will be clear that she was rejected purely for her record on torture, and for no other reason. That’s the exact kind of message America needs to send to the world.
This was 100% intended by Der Trumper to be a politically divisive nomination, end of story. We’ve already heard the tweetscript ad nauseum: “Now Dems won’t confirm a hee-roic Muzlimist-terror fighter! Also, too, a woman! #MeToo that! Checkmate Libs!” Haspel is way too smart not to have seen precisely how her nomination would play out in the senate and across FailedNation, Inc., so she is absolutely complicit in Trumper’s disgusting game-playing here.
As for the “message”, thanks to our political criminal we are right back to 50+% of the country voicing their enthusiasm for (illegal) torture of prisoners of a certain religion–at least for starters. The WWII Greatest Generation of Nazi torture fighters is long gone–hell, today’s Worst Generation of White Nationalists openly sides WITH the Nazis, so torture of prisoners is (by definition) appropriate for this noble cadre.
A key player in the Bushco/CIA torture regime has been nominated to head the spies and lauded to the skies. 95% of Repubs would vote to confirm Haspel, and likely 10% of Dems. So the message to the world has already been sent. Der Trumper thought nothing was better than rubbing the nation’s face in the shit yet again, all to play “Checkmate Libs!” at worst, and give a torture advocate/defender the top spy post at best. He’s a true patriot, yes indeed…
. . . Haspel objection, but for some reason never got around to:
Applies to this followup, too.
Oh, and could you please forward it to every single fucking member of Congress . . . and somehow compel them to actually read it, thoughtfully, with an open mind focused for once on the nation’s and world’s best interest, instead of just their partisan political advantage? Thanks. (Yeah, I know, you’re not The Miracle Worker. Still, couldn’t hurt to try.)
The United States made the choice to become an imperialist power around 1900, and with that choice came all the trappings. We’ve been doing shitty stuff since then, including torture. Perhaps we tried a bit harder to keep our finger prints off of it, but we were behind it just the same.
Plus we didn’t always keep our finger prints off it. When the Marines went into the Philippines, they would lock people into houses and light them on fire. We’ve done a ton of stuff like that.
Until around 1900 there was this notion that the United States was a light upon other nations. I mean if you ignore slavery and Jim Crow and rampant racism. In truth, we’ve been forever battling our own impulses. We’ve committed genocide against our native population. We’ve oppressed African-Americans. We’ve frequently engaged in the worst sorts of crimes against humanity. We have no right to be self righteous about anything.
We’ve also done some good stuff. Sometimes by accident. I mean, the Berlin airlift was miraculous and it inspired first Germany and then all of western Europe, and kept the iron curtain from falling across the entire continent. One particular airman who chose to drop candy had a lot to do with it. The propaganda value of that act, for which he thought he’d get in trouble, was enormous. We went from being seen as self-interested devils to empathetic angels.
Perhaps a day will come when the United States chooses to live up to the ideals of its founding documents, both at home and around the world. I believe it’s both possible and would actually be our best long-term policy option. Realpolitik is shortsighted at best and neocons and their ilk are frickin insane.
It’s very likely someone, somewhere has the true story, and proof, on what she did. And using the old adage that things are ALWAYS worse than they appear from the outside, whatever that is makes her susceptible to blackmail. In my opinion, that is the explanation of why she was nominated, why Trump wants to fight hard for her, and also why she wanted to withdraw. And why Trump refused her offer.
Trump has repeatedly surrounded himself with compromised people, usually by the Russians. Now I am expected to believe that he is fighting for a career CIA administrator, that by all outside appearances is completely loyal to the CIA and protective of its employees and mission.
Sorry, this administration gets no such credibility from me. He wants her because the he has the goods on her, and because the Russians approved her.
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No way this Senate fails to rubber stamp her nomination.
Booman writes:
Mostly true, Booman…except for the phrase “The Bush administration tarnished America’s image and badly eroded our moral standing in the world.” Our “moral standing” in the world had already been throughly tarnished by the shameful Vietnam War, the concomitant carpet bombing of Cambodia, the continued, highly honored prominence of people like Henry Kissinger and others who engineered that series of disasters, our continued…and continuing…support of right-wing dictators throught the Third World, our prison numbers and the overall non-whiteness of those prisoners, the continuation by other means of our Blood For Oil War in the Middle East by our so-called “Peace President” and his simultaneous support of massive surveillance systems on innocent American citizens and millions of others around the world.
You are right about one thing, for sure. We definitely cannot “blot out history.” Gina Haspel’s stint in that torturous marathon?? One drop into the giant bucket of blood that has comprised U.S. history since at least Hiroshima/Nagasaki.
I have no idea why that leak about Haspel “reconssidering” her promotion was dropped. It’s all Spook World, all the time. Maybe she just got tired of doing the corporate world’s dirty work, or maybe it’s just some kind of “limited hangout” ploy. Who the fuck knows?
But I do know this:
If the Deep State wants her there, she will be approved by the DC congressional toadies, many of whom…Dem and RatPub alike…undoubtedly know that the intelligence people have the goods on them and would fuck up their hustle in a heartbeat if they showed any reluctance to follow orders.
This “Moral America” dream in which you seem to continue to live?
I grew up with Hiroshima and Nagasaki in my own dreams. Any pretext at U.S. “morality” ended with the lives of the civilians that perished or were wounded and sickened by that shameful act. Trump is just the curtain closer.
The final act.
Unless Haspel recuses herself…she’s in.
Watch.
AG
Back during the early days of Bush regime and in the wake of 9/11, I had “discussions” with a democrat (DINO?) friend on torture. He conceded and understood the following:
a) Torture is outlawed by the Geneva convention, which the US is bound by international law to abide; b) US military and intelligence officials have said torture is of little value in getting information, since people will lie to give their “interrogators” what they want to hear; c) torture is dangerous because it will make our own personnel more likely to be subject to torture if captured, and d) torture undermines the US leadership role in human rights.
And yet, he agreed with torture, because like with so many people, unfortunately, torture is seen as not so much a means to an end to get information, i.e. the “ticking time bomb scenario” but as revenge for what they did to us.” Many Americans looked at Abu Ghraib and said, that’s what “they” deserved. Never mind the fact that the “they” were often times the people we were there supposedly to save.
This is yet another one of those things that, although simple enough to understand, its the lizard brain that rules a vast number of Americans — not just the MAGA deplorables but also a vast number of the low information, non-political voters — and they can’t help themselves. For that reason Haspel will get a lot more support than she deserves, and may get confirmed.
And if one doesn’t even try? As when Obama abrogated his duty under the United Nations Convention Against Torture – which carries the force of federal law – to prosecute the numerous Bush officials who publicly acknowledged their complicity with waterboarding? Making him an accessory after the fact?
Have we the right to judge him? Judging by his conspicuous absence from your post, I guess not. His party affiliation wouldn’t have anything to do with that, would it?
Haspel’s “I was only following orders” line is no longer the Nuremberg defense; it’s the Obama Doctrine.