NO TO HASPEL AS CIA DIRECTOR
“BLACK SITE” TORTURE LADY WILL BE A BLACK EYE FOR NATION
Ms Gina Haspel has been a secret CIA agent since 1985. She has been picked by President Trump to be the next Director of the CIA to replace Mike Pompeo. Haspel’s choice drew praise from the 007 crowd. But she may come with just too much baggage for Director of CIA. She is praised by those who have worked with her as a person “who gets things done”. Like many of those who work themselves up through the ranks of an organization, she is imbued with the culture (good and bad) of that organization. And perhaps in the case of the CIA—and Ms Haspel—- the encomium that she “gets things done” is true. But “getting things done” even if they are immoral, illegal and unconstitutional may be a positive trait for a near invisible subordinate. Such traits and personal history would be an embarrassment, and millstone around the neck for the formal head of a prestigious organization of the USA.
Gina Haspel ran a “black site” in Thailand in 2002 codenamed “Cats Eye”. Haspel was stated by some observers and commentators as being “up to her eyeballs” in torture. She is our first openly designated female torturer. Is that what those who are favoring her appointment as “the first woman CIA Director” would be able to tout or be proud of?
Haspel was in charge of the brutal, illegal and gruesome torture and detention of Abu Zubaydah a Saudi citizen who was captured in Pakistan in 2002 and remains in indefinite illegal detention with no chance of a trial sixteen years later. Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times in one month, he was forced into stress positions in a small box, subjected nudity, to sleep deprivation, loud noises, dietetic stress, and beaten to the point of losing an eye. His illegal torture made it impossible to use any charges against him in a formal tried...and although he provided no meaningful evidence or useful information he remains in legal limbo in Guantanamo. After his brutal treatment, at the hands of Haspel and his other torturers they concluded that he had not provided them with any “useful” information.
Finally, after her misdeeds were revealed and were being investigated by the Senate, Haspel played a vital role in the destruction of the CIA torture tapes at the sites she ran and at other black sites. For that she has been charged with destruction of evidence among other crimes.
The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights pressed criminal charges against Haspel and others for their abuse of detainees. In 2017 a public arrest warrant for Haspel for crimes against humanity, in relation to the Zubaydah case, was issued by the Public Prosecutor General of Germany.
In response to charges of criminality against Haspel in her role as chief US “black site torturer” Haspel and her misguided supporter have sadly attempted to use the embarrassing and now infamous: “I was just following orders” defense, made by Nazi criminals during the post WWII Nuremberg Trials, and later was used by other heinous criminals like Adolph Eichmann. These ignoramuses should be condemned to watch the tapes of those trials in their entirety for this horrible lack of historical knowledge and sensitivity.
Haspel the” black site lady”will give any organization she heads a black eye. The CIA already has its image problems—imagine what the detractors of that organization would say and do with a head spy—who is accused as a criminal, and would be arrested were she to land in Europe.
Ms. Haspel was no doubt effective and useful as a dutiful subordinate who would “get things done” and “go all the way” under orders...even illegal or immoral orders. But such obedience and personal obsequious characteristics do not make such an individual an acceptable or effective DIRECTOR. In the exposed and publicly known role as head of a prestigious national organization he or she must represent a higher order of allegiance—to the nation and its laws. Ms Haspel’s past history and character prevents her from effectively assuming that role.
No comments:
Post a Comment