Progressive outrage about Gina Haspel is unfair

[ducks]

https://www-m.cnn.com/2018/05/09/opinions/gina-haspel-democrat-obstructionism-opinion-sheffield/index.html

[boutons_deux]

When asked if she would torture if Trash told her to torture, she said pro-torture-and-make-it-worse Trash would NOT ask her to torture. :lol

As a liar and fraud, she's exactly the "top talent" Trash "respects"

If Trash asked her to fake evidence, build a bogus case against Iran, she wouldn't hesitate to grease the skids with "fake data" into war with Iran.

[Pavlov]

Yeah, I thought she was too evasive and not forthright enough about torture.

[boutons_deux]

Watch Tom Cotton bring the art of the awkward silence to a Senate confirmation hearing
(http://theweek.com/speedreads/772310/watch-tom-cotton-bring-art-awkward-silence-senate-confirmation-hearing)
He opened his questioning with a soliloquy about the partisanship that has seeped into the nomination process under the Trump administration, specifically (https://twitter.com/ChrisMegerian/status/994238230349471744) calling out "overwhelming Democratic opposition."

He then asked Haspel how many votes she believes she would've received for confirmation under a hypothetical (https://twitter.com/JennaMC_Laugh/status/994238724811698176) President Hillary Clinton —

which prompted quite an awkward silence when Haspel declined to respond.

http://theweek.com/speedreads/772310/watch-tom-cotton-bring-art-awkward-silence-senate-confirmation-hearing

[Chris]

Feinstein got her bony ass handed to her.


994248063681159168

[Spurtacular]

Yeah, I thought she was too evasive and not forthright enough about torture.

:lol Afraid to call it waterboarding.

[Pavlov]

:lol Afraid to call it waterboarding.What are you whining about now?

[Cuppycake Gumdrop]

https://www-m.cnn.com/2018/05/09/opinions/gina-haspel-democrat-obstructionism-opinion-sheffield/index.html
CNN good now

[Spurtacular]

CNN good now

Slob knobbin' that schtick again. :lol

[Winehole23]

It's a motif in this forum:

http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=146515
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=184622
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=117305
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=126077
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=229975
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=136177
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=190947
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=169840
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=126447
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=183459
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=125021
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=126145
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17017
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=126214
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=123896
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=250870
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=178205
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25757
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=126168
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=245231
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=176901
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=186779

I wish it were more than an electoral wedge that LE be allowed to abuse detainees with impunity. We used to pretend to be above it. Exempting so-called terrorists from legal protection basically amounts to the revival of archaic outlawry: multi-tiered justice, invidiously bestowed.

Even the Gina Haspel says she wouldn't resort to it again. Not that I particularly believe her.




Vive la difference.

[boutons_deux]

America doesn't torture is just another lie America tells its "exceptional" whitewashed, Pharisaical self

A Brief History of American Torture (https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/05/08/a-brief-history-of-american-torture/)

https://uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/dropzone/2018/05/Screen-Shot-2018-05-07-at-9.33.34-PM-768x508.png

(https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/05/08/a-brief-history-of-american-torture/)Genocide and Slavery

Torture is almost always a crime attributed to other, less civilized peoples.

When most Americans do think of their own country’s torture, if they think of it at all,

they usually imagine it to be a regrettable departure the civilized norm

misguidedly perpetrated amid the terror and fury ignited by the deadliest attack on US soil in generations.

Yet torture has been an unspoken weapon in America’s arsenal since the earliest colonial days.

In a nation built on a foundation of genocide and slavery,

horrific violence (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-shocking-savagery-of-americas-early-history-22739301/), including widespread torture, was a critical tool for securing and maintaining white dominance

in the same way that great global violence has been crucial to perpetuating America’s superpower status in modern times.

(https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/05/08/a-brief-history-of-american-torture/)https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/05/08/a-brief-history-of-american-torture/

btw, USA's unchallenged, untouchable, pervasive sadistism of solitary confinement is actually torture, as it damages, often permanently, the prisoner.

[Splits]

:cry unfair :cry

fucking snowflakes

[ducks]

"I think the techniques we used were not torture. Our techniques were used on our people in training," Cheney said.
Most important, Cheney said, the techniques work. They were successful. Just three terrorists were water-boarded, Cheney said, and one of those was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), No. 2 in command to Osama bin Laden and the mastermind of 9/11.

[ducks]

"There are a lot of Monday morning quarterbacks in the terrorism business," Cheney said.
"You tell me that the only method we have is please, please, pretty please, tell us what you know? Well I don't buy that," Cheney said of the information gleaned from KSM.

[Chris]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dc3-lVeW0AElqEA.jpg:large

[Winehole23]

GWB put Gina Haspel and no small number of US officers at legal and reputational hazard; damaged the prestige and reputation of the USA as a place with a fair system of law where even bad guys get a fair shake.

Endangered US Armed forces then, now and forever by torturing US detainees; it set a precedent. Reciprocity is a thing. Others will do it to us because we did it to them.

Some people think torture is justified for reasons of expedience, but all torture is really good at is extracting false confessions. And morally degrading those power obliges to do it, Gina Haspel for example.

After Nuremberg, following orders or legal guidance in the commission of war crimes, when ordinary moral options such as not torturing are available, is not a positive defense.

Gina Haspel deserves the flames. If the Senate does not confirm her that's on GWB and Dick Cheney's heads.

It would also be on Gina Haspel's head. She carried out orders contrary to honor and morality and international law related to humane treatment of prisoners. That's a perfectly good reason not to confirm.

[Quadzilla99]

"There are a lot of Monday morning quarterbacks in the terrorism business," Cheney said.
"You tell me that the only method we have is please, please, pretty please, tell us what you know? Well I don't buy that," Cheney said of the information gleaned from KSM.

Lol dick cheney

[Pavlov]

Yeah, destroying the tapes is a red line for me. That was done purely to protect the "reputation" of the CIA, such as it was.

[Winehole23]

Yeah, destroying the tapes is a red line for me. That was done purely to protect the "reputation" of the CIA, such as it was.Just following orders. Haspel presumed her superior, Mr Rodriguez, had done his due diligence and cleared it with counsel, and so passed on the order to destroy.

[Winehole23]

apparently there were two rounds of destruction:


“Gina Haspel supervised the torture of al-Nashiri, which raises the stakes on the question of whether there were or were not remaining tapes of his torture,” said Hina Shamsi, the director of the A.C.L.U.’s national security project.

Asked about the apparent discrepancy, the C.I.A. pointed without comment to several pages of another document (https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/0005856717.pdf) previously released under the Freedom of Information Act that discussed how the agency logged the contents of the 92 tapes before destroying them. It said 11 were blank, two were blank “except for one or two minutes of recording,” and “two were broken and could not be reviewed.”



In 2010, I noted (https://www.emptywheel.net/2010/03/25/durham-going-after-the-first-destruction-of-torture-tapes/) that John Durham was clearly investigating two rounds of torture tape destruction: the second round, in 2005, when Gina Haspel helped her boss Jose Rodriguez destroy all the undamaged tapes. And the first round, in 2002 or 2003, when someone destroyed the evidence on what must be the most damning tapes.

https://www.emptywheel.net/2018/05/11/gina-haspel-started-her-cover-up-in-2002/

[Winehole23]

one wonders why there would be any urgency to destroy records if the activities therein were legal

[Winehole23]

two incidents of torture tape destruction: the first, when in 2002 or 2003 someone removed evidence of two sessions of waterboarding (and potentially, the use of mock burial (http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2010/02/25/what-if-they-did-use-mock-burial-with-abu-zubaydah/) that would be declared torture by John Yoo) from the videotapes. And the second one, on November 8, 2005, when someone destroyed all the tapes, which not only destroyed evidence of waterboarding that violated the terms of the Bybee Two memo, but also destroyed evidence of the first round of destruction.

[Winehole23]

One more point: This makes Haspel’s enthusiasm (https://www.emptywheel.net/2018/05/09/ron-wyden-makes-it-clear-gina-haspel-pushed-for-torture-to-continue-in-2005/) for keeping torture in 2005-2007 all the more damning. Over two years earlier, Haspel appears to have destroyed evidence of how bad torture was. But she was still pushing to keep it even after hiding what she had done.

[koriwhat]

When asked if she would torture if Trash told her to torture, she said pro-torture-and-make-it-worse Trash would NOT ask her to torture. :lol

As a liar and fraud, she's exactly the "top talent" Trash "respects"

If Trash asked her to fake evidence, build a bogus case against Iran, she wouldn't hesitate to grease the skids with "fake data" into war with Iran.

people are against torture towards our foes/terrorists? lmao! fuck them all and fuck you pansy's too!

[koriwhat]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dc3-lVeW0AElqEA.jpg:large

pretty spot on :tu

[Winehole23]

Torture is against US law.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2340

US treaties are also law of the land.


The United States is a party to the following conventions (international treaties) that prohibits torture, such as the 1949 Geneva Conventions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Conventions) (signed 1949; ratified 1955), the American Convention on Human Rights (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Convention_on_Human_Rights)(signed 1977), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Covenant_on_Civil_and_Political_Righ ts) (signed 1977; ratified 1992), and the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Convention_against_Torture_and_Othe r_Cruel,_Inhuman_or_Degrading_Treatment_or_Punishm ent) (signed 1988; ratified 1994).

[Winehole23]

the US Army Field Manuals forbid it:


In late 2006, the military issued updated U.S. Army Field Manuals (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Army_Field_Manuals) on intelligence collection (FM 2-22.3. Human Intelligence Collector Operations (http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm2-22-3.pdf), September 2006) and counterinsurgency (FM 3-24. Counterinsurgency (http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-24.pdf), December 2006). Both manuals reiterated that "no person in the custody or under the control of DOD (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Defense), regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, in accordance with and as defined in U.S. law."[10] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture_and_the_United_States#cite_note-11) Specific techniques prohibited in the intelligence collection manual include:


Forcing the detainee to be naked, perform sexual acts, or pose in a sexual manner;
Hooding (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hooding), that is, placing hoods or sacks over the head of a detainee; using duct tape over the eyes;
Applying beatings, electric shock, burns, or other forms of physical pain;
Waterboarding (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterboarding);
Using military working dogs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_dogs);
Inducing hypothermia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothermia) or heat injury;
Conducting mock executions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mock_execution);
Depriving the detainee of necessary food, water, or medical care.[11] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture_and_the_United_States#cite_note-12)

[Winehole23]

people are against torture towards our foes/terrorists? lmao! fuck them all and fuck you pansy's too!the US Army disagrees with you

[koriwhat]

the US Army disagrees with you

idgaf

[koriwhat]

Torture is against US law.

so is a clandestine server and broken evidence but whatever, right?

[Chris]

pretty spot on :tu

"Torture bad! Fire bad!!!" :lol

[koriwhat]

"Torture bad! Fire bad!!!" :lol

torture is only good if it's death by drones and only when a hipster black president does it.

[Chris]

torture is only good if it's death by drones and only when a hipster black president does it.

Water boarding is highly effective in the field. Democrats live in a fantasy world. In the real world hard people have to do hard things. Left is SOFT AF.

[Pavlov]

Water boarding is highly effective in the field. Democrats live in a fantasy world. In the real world hard people have to do hard things. Left is SOFT AF.What is your evidence it is highly effective in the field?

[CosmicCowboy]

Should have just killed the assholes instead of capturing them. That was clearly the humane thing to do.

[Winehole23]

Should have just killed the assholes instead of capturing them. That was clearly the humane thing to do.GWB let 2/3 of them go because we had no good basis to detain them in the first place and no good reason to keep them.

You think we should have killed all the people GWB and Obama released, instead of releasing them?

Damn if you ain't a piece of work.

[Winehole23]

so is a clandestine server and broken evidence but whatever, right?that investigation is ongoing as far as I know.

but Obama slammed the courtroom door shut on torture by US officers.

big difference.

[Pavlov]

Should have just killed the assholes instead of capturing them. That was clearly the humane thing to do.

Just shouldn't have tortured them. Then we might have been able to really put them on trial.

[Chris]

Just shouldn't have tortured them. Then we might have been able to really put them on trial.

Pavlov's bleeding heart for terrorists :lol

[Pavlov]

Pavlov's bleeding heart for terrorists :lol

My respect for the rule of law.

Something you clearly lack.

lol

[Chris]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dc3-lVeW0AElqEA.jpg:large

[Chris]

My respect for the rule of law.

Something you clearly lack.

lol

It was legal when she was doing it.

lol

[Pavlov]

She's just wishy washy. Pretty disappointing tbh.

[Nathan89]

Feinstein got her bony ass handed to her.


994248063681159168

"No, that's not accurate."

"Let me read you the part from the book.":lol

[Nathan89]

If torture is effective then I wouldn't hesitate to do it to a terrorist tbh. The parroted talking point seems to be that it is not effective. If that's accurate then obviously torture would be useless.

I read some post earlier from some UK twat saying he rather not torture even if the result was less safety. Fuck that.

[Pavlov]

If torture was so great they would've kept the tapes of the torture sessions.

[Chris]

"No, that's not accurate."

"Let me read you the part from the book.":lol

:lol

[ElNono]

If torture is effective then I wouldn't hesitate to do it to a terrorist tbh. The parroted talking point seems to be that it is not effective. If that's accurate then obviously torture would be useless.

I read some post earlier from some UK twat saying he rather not torture even if the result was less safety. Fuck that.

Arguendo, we claim to know better and thus act better than the terrorists themselves. Especially since 'terrorist' is a fairly elastic term.

[Winehole23]

Just shouldn't have tortured them. Then we might have been able to really put them on trial.I agree with this. Military commissions didn't work.

The criminal law track still works.

[Winehole23]

It was legal when she was doing it.

lol If the application of putatively legal torture methods would have tended to prove their efficacy, as you suggest, why did Haspel and Gonzalez destroy the evidence of their good work?

[Chris]

995286839895478272

[Pavlov]

995286839895478272What information were they trying to extract from trainees?

[Winehole23]

Yeah, destroying the tapes is a red line for me. That was done purely to protect the "reputation" of the CIA, such as it was.


Just following orders. Haspel presumed her superior, Mr Rodriguez, had done his due diligence and cleared it with counsel, and so passed on the order to destroy.


apparently there were two rounds of destruction:
https://www.emptywheel.net/2018/05/11/gina-haspel-started-her-cover-up-in-2002/




one wonders why there would be any urgency to destroy records if the activities therein were legal

Haspel is gone:

1351600925757026305

[Winehole23]

There is one outstanding whistleblower complaint against Haspel's CIA


[DOJ prosecutor Mark]McConnell had uncovered what he described as a “criminal conspiracy” perpetrated by the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. Every year, entries in the Helios database lead to hundreds of drug busts, which lead to prosecutions in American courts. The entries are typically submitted to Helios by the Drug Enforcement Administration, the F.B.I., and a division of the Department of Homeland Security. But McConnell had learned that more than a hundred entries in the database that were labelled as originating from F.B.I. investigations were actually from a secret C.I.A. surveillance program. He realized that C.I.A. officers and F.B.I. agents, in violation of federal law and Department of Justice guidelines, had concealed the information’s origins from federal prosecutors, leaving judges and defense lawyers in the dark. Critics call such concealment “intelligence laundering.”https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/11/09/how-a-cia-coverup-targeted-a-whistle-blower

[Winehole23]

1322198512189214721

[Winehole23]

plus retaliation against the whistleblower

1322198520837844993