Progressive outrage about Gina Haspel is unfair

**ducks** · 05-09-2018

https://www-m.cnn.com/2018/05/09/opi...eld/index.html

**boutons_deux** · 05-09-2018

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.

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** · 05-09-2018

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

**boutons_deux** · 05-10-2018

Watch Tom Cotton bring the art of the awkward silence to a 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 calling out "overwhelming Democratic opposition."

He then asked Haspel how many votes she believes she would've received for confirmation under a hypothetical President Hillary Clinton —

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

http://theweek.com/speedreads/772310...mation-hearing

**Chris** · 05-10-2018

Feinstein got her bony ass handed to her.

**Spurtacular** · 05-10-2018

Originally Posted by Pavlov

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

Afraid to call it waterboarding.

**Pavlov** · 05-10-2018

Originally Posted by Spurtacular

Afraid to call it waterboarding.

What are you whining about now?

**Cuppycake Gumdrop** · 05-10-2018

Originally Posted by ducks

https://www-m.cnn.com/2018/05/09/opi...eld/index.html

CNN good now

**Spurtacular** · 05-10-2018

Originally Posted by Cuppycake Gumdrop

CNN good now

Slob knobbin' that schtick again.

**Winehole23** · 05-10-2018

**boutons_deux** · 05-10-2018

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

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, 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...rican-torture/

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

**Splits** · 05-10-2018

unfair

ing snowflakes

**ducks** · 05-10-2018

"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** · 05-10-2018

"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** · 05-11-2018

**Winehole23** · 05-11-2018

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 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** · 05-11-2018

Originally Posted by 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.

Lol cheney

**Pavlov** · 05-11-2018

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** · 05-11-2018

Originally Posted by 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.

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** · 05-11-2018

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 do ent 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 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/2018/05/1...er-up-in-2002/

**Winehole23** · 05-11-2018

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

**Winehole23** · 05-11-2018

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 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** · 05-11-2018

One more point: This makes Haspel’s enthusiasm 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** · 05-11-2018

Originally Posted by 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.

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! them all and you pansy's too!

**koriwhat** · 05-11-2018

Originally Posted by Chris

pretty spot on

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