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

[JonS]

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

HASPEL: Senator, as we sit here today, and with some distance between us and the events of 9/11, the Congress and indeed our nation have had an opportunity to have a debate about the interrogation standards we want to use as the United States of America. We have decided to hold ourselves to a stricter moral standard. For DOD that is defined in the army field manual. I support the United States holding itself to that stricter moral standard and I support the army field manual.

WARNER: But, Miss Haspel, that is answering on a legalistic – we’re asking you to take on a position. I understand with RDI you were downstream, not part of the policy making, but if you’re entrusted with this responsibility we need – I need to at least get a sense of what your moral code says about those kind of actions because there is the potential that this president could ask you to do something.

He obviously believes in these procedures, but even if he asked you to do something that is not directly related to the detention interrogation, but if he asked you to do something that you believe is morally questionable, even if there is an OLC opinion that in effect gives you a get-out-of-jail-free card, what will you do in that action when you are the director of the CIA?

HASPEL: Senator, my father’s watching today. He served 33 years in the Air Force. My parents gave me a very strong moral compass. I support the higher moral standard that this country has decided to hold itself to. I would never, ever take CIA back to an interrogation program. First of all, CIA follows the law. We followed the law then. We follow the law today. I support the law. I wouldn’t support a change in the law, but I’ll tell you this, I would not put CIA officers at risk by asking them to undertake risky, controversial activity again.

WARNER: Miss Haspel, my question is this. On a going forward basis, if this president asked you to do something that you find morally objectionable, even if there is an OLC opinion, what will you do? Will you carry that out – that order or not? I mean, we’re entrusting you in a very different position if you’re confirmed. I just need to know what you –

HASPEL: Senator –

WARNER: Your response to that would be.

HASPEL: My moral compass is strong. I would not allow CIA to undertake activity that I thought was immoral, even if it was technically legal. I would absolutely not permit it.

WARNER: So you would not follow the order if you felt it was –

HASPEL: No. I believe that CIA must undertake activities that are consistent with American values. America is looked at all over the world as an example to everyone else in the world and we have to uphold that and CIA is included in that.

…

HEINRICH: Thank you. You have repeatedly said that at the time the CIA’s use of interrogation techniques like water boarding were determined to be legal. Now, there was an opinion written by the Office of Legal Counsel. I don’t believe those actions were ever legal. They certainly didn’t meet the bar set by either the Geneva Conventions or our own Army Field Manual, and I’m not aware of a single court ruling that affirmed that opinion. Today, I’m not really interested in whether you believe those techniques were legal, but I am interested in the question that Senator Warner asked you. We got a very legalistic answer to that question. Let me ask you again, were these the right thing to do? Do – are they consistent with American values fundamentally? What you believe?

HASPEL: Senator, I believe very strongly in American values and America be an example to the rest of the world. That is why I support the fact that we have chosen to hold ourselves to a stricter moral standard.

HEINRICH: But that’s about Congress and all of us. I want to know what you think.

HASPEL: I think that we should hold ourselves to a stricter moral standard and I would never allow CIA to be involved in coercive interrogations.

HEINRICH: Where was that moral compass at the time?

HASPEL: Senator, that was 17 years ago and it’s – you know, CIA like the U.S. Army and the U.S. Marine Corps is an organization, it’s a large bureaucracy and when you’re out in the trenches at far-flung outposts in the globe and Washington says, here’s what we need you to do, this is legal, the Attorney General has deemed it so, the president of the United States is counting on you…

HEINRICH: No, I know…

HASPEL: …to prevent another attack…

HEINRICH: …you believed it was legal.

HASPEL: I’m sorry?

HEINRICH: I know you believed it was legal. I want to see – I want to feel, I want to trust that you have the moral compass that you said you have. You’re giving very legalistic answers to very fundamentally moral questions.

HASPEL: Senator I – you know, we provided the committee every evaluation since my – my training report when I first joined in 1985. In all of my assignments, I have conducted myself honorably and in accordance with U.S. law. My parents raised me right. I know – I know the difference between right and wrong.

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.

[numbertwopencil]

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

Wow.

[TheGreatParis]

Maybe they’re… into that kind of thing.

[ElQuesero]

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

[JonS]

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

[Wanderfound]

@ElQuesero

I don’t find this one too personally distressing.

Edward Snowden

Edward Snowden

[ficuswhisperer]

@TomPoston

Big deal. Just because she’s a woman doesn’t negate her reputation.

#equality #feminism

See? Women can be awful, too!

[ElQuesero]

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

[Wanderfound]

@ElQuesero

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

Okay then.

@ElQuesero

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.

@Wanderfound

When are y’all going to realise that competence is not a virtue when it is allied with fascism?

At this point, anything that weakens the American state is a win for humanity.

.

@ElQuesero

Even if this competence was directed (by her command structure! from above!)

@ElQuesero

in an evil direction a couple of administrations ago.

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.

@ElQuesero

Expressing contrition for past sins versus taking a Trumpian “I never have to apologize for anything, bitches” attitude matters too.

See this thread:

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

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

@ElQuesero

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…

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

For some time I have been disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government. This has led to trouble and may have compounded our difficulties in several explosive areas.

I never had any thought that when I set up the CIA that it would be injected into peacetime cloak and dagger operations. Some of the complications and embarrassment I think we have experienced are in part attributable to the fact that this quiet intelligence arm of the President has been so removed from its intended role that it is being interpreted as a symbol of sinister and mysterious foreign intrigue—and a subject for cold war enemy propaganda.

With all the nonsense put out by Communist propaganda about “Yankee imperialism,” “exploitive capitalism,” “war-mongering,” “monopolists,” in their name-calling assault on the West, the last thing we needed was for the CIA to be seized upon as something akin to a subverting influence in the affairs of other people.

I well knew the first temporary director of the CIA, Adm. Souers, and the later permanent directors of the CIA, Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg and Allen Dulles. These were men of the highest character, patriotism and integrity—and I assume this is true of all those who continue in charge.

But there are now some searching questions that need to be answered. I, therefore, would like to see the CIA be restored to its original assignment as the intelligence arm of the President, and that whatever else it can properly perform in that special field—and that its operational duties be terminated or properly used elsewhere.

We have grown up as a nation, respected for our free institutions and for our ability to maintain a free and open society. There is something about the way the CIA has been functioning that is casting a shadow over our historic position and I feel that we need to correct it.

Excerpt from Limit CIA Role To Intelligence by Harry S Truman

@ElQuesero

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.

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.

@ElQuesero

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

Yes.

[ElQuesero]

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.

[Wanderfound]

@ElQuesero

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.

@ElQuesero

So your reaction is to burn it all down.

Burn? No.

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

Trump could be put in jail for his attacks on NFL players

It’s the same as it’s always been. Sustained, massive, non-violent non-destructive disruptive civil disobedience. Targeted at the money of the 0.01%. Shut the country down. It isn’t a protest, it’s a revolution. Look to St Louis for a demonstration of how. Or Argentina. This is not a fun or easy solution. But it’s the only one available.

[David_Friedman]

@xeni

Haspel will be the first woman to lead the Central Intelligence Agency.

But not the first war criminal to lead the agency.

[ninjustin]

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