Senate confirms Trump's pick Gina Haspel to lead CIA. Here are the 6 Democrats who voted 'yes' for torture

I’m gonna be a bit contrary to the bbs shared wisdom here, and say that I don’t find this one too personally distressing. Being an agency lifer and exhibiting general competence matters here. Even if this competence was directed (by her command structure! from above!) in an evil direction a couple of administrations ago. Expressing contrition for past sins versus taking a Trumpian “I never have to apologize for anything, bitches” attitude matters too.

Or maybe I’m just a bit cynical and expect our spooks to have done some evil in the past. That I’d not want to meet one of her teams in a dark alley, but somewhat this is part of the package…

I don’t think she’d be getting elevated to this role if HRC had won the election, but this one I feel like I can file under the “elections have consequences” folder. Like Chris Christie killing the ARC commuter tunnel & rail system upon becoming NJ governor. It’s of a different character than DeVos’s confirmation, or Scott Pruitt’s, which I do not consider simply a pair of “elections have consequences” moments.

Also, this is maybe easier for me to say from a “never have been tortured” position of privilege.

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My x-wife said the very same thing.

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So she was only “following orders?”

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Those six don’t matter. We will all be condemned for it.

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Outsourcing it on the other hand…

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It’s not just that Haspel tortured people, and managed people who tortured people, she also organized a cover up and participated in in that cover up herself.

If congresspeoples support torture, then fine, they should vote for people who torture. (And we should vote their asses out of office.) However, Haspel, covered up her participation in torture. So, WTF would a pro-torture congressperson vote for her? I just don’t get why there’s any reason for anyone to vote for her.

I agree that the six Dems who voted for her (as well as all the other people who voted for her) should be voted out of office but I do not think that they bear all of the responsibility for Haspel becoming the CIA director. Obama’s Look Forward Not Backwards approach to bringing Bush-era bureaucrats to justice is also responsible.

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One of the things that jarred during the hearings was her statement about how strong her moral compass is.

I mean, those are nice words, and people certainly can change over course of more than a decade. But actions speak louder than words, and in the mid-2000’s her moral compass was seriously fucking broken. Did her parents only ‘raise her right’ beginning 10 years ago? Or did she ‘compartmentalise’ her upbringing when it was inconvenient? What assurance is there that she won’t compartmentalise it again? Sens Warner and Heinrich asked the question, but got a spectacularly weaksauce answer.

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“I would not allow CIA to undertake activity that I thought was immoral, even if it was technically legal.”

Wow.

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Maybe they’re… into that kind of thing.

There’s an element of that. It’s ugliness, to be sure.

Right? I mean, the point is that she has already not just passively allowed it, but actively facilitated it.

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#equality #feminism

See? Women can be awful, too!

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Y’all are taking one snippet of what I wrote instead of responding to the total thought. :frowning:

Okay then.

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No, not just a couple of administrations ago. Every modern administration. Torture is not the only crime of the CIA.

The current administration is exceedingly unlikely to shift the CIA to a less evil trajectory. Haspel is not stupid enough to be unaware of this.

See this thread:

https://twitter.com/ybbkaren/status/996501375914795009?s=21

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Haspel has not apologised for being a torturer. She has not even admitted her crime.

It was not always so, and it does not need to be so. To quote Truman:

Excerpt from Limit CIA Role To Intelligence by Harry S Truman

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Your country has spent the last two decades routinely kidnapping, murdering and torturing people across the globe in large numbers. If you find this to be a matter which you can casually dismiss as part of the normal give and take of routine politics, it does not reflect well upon your apparent ethical standards.

Yes.

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So your reaction is to burn it all down. Okay, this is principled, but not, to me, pragmatic.

Or put another way, were I a senator I would not be voting for the woman’s confirmation, but I can understand why 6 of the 49 members of the minority did. That there’s daylight for a difference of interpretation here. Calls elsewhere on the BB – not from you, to be clear! – to vote these 6 bums out strike me as lunatic. Do you want ants? 'Cause that’s how you get ants. And by ants, I mean ironclad reactionary control of all 3 branches of US government.

You already have that. And history provides a very clear demonstration of the consequences of your proposed strategy.

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Burn? No.

But avoiding the fire this time is going to require radical action.

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But not the first war criminal to lead the agency.

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Not being to answer what your stance on torture should automatically disqualify you for a leadership position anywhere.

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