Issues Under Fire: Gina Haspel: The Face of Torture
When Donald Trump picked Gina Haspel to replace CIA Director Mike Pompeo, so Pompeo could replace Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State, I had to reacquaint myself with her bio since she'd be the first woman to head the world's premier spy agency. I wanted to review her background and experience to understand why Trump considered her for the job of CIA Director. After all, this agency has been accused of being involved in some pretty Fu*k'd up sh*t. So, it only stands to reason one would have to be a really Fu*k'd up person to be successful in the job. And from what I found, Gina Haspel should do just fine.
According to Wikipedia, Haspel's got more than thirty years on the job, with extensive overseas service. Haspel was stationed in Central Europe, Turkey and Central Asia with impressive titles and even received a bunch of notable awards like the George H.W. Bush Award for excellence in counterterrorism, the Donovan Award the Intelligence Medal of Merit and the Presidential Rank Award. Not bad, I thought, until it became apparent what one would have to do to deserve high praise for working at an organization like the CIA. With a career spanning three decades, Haspel was a major player in the torture scandals that plagued the Bush W. administration. Running a black site in Thailand, Haspel was in charge of interrogating suspected terrorists. And according to the stories, you wouldn't want to be a captive under her command or control.
In Thailand, you could do really Fu*k'd up sh*t to people, that would be illegal in most other parts of the world. As far as I know, this is how it worked. Firstly, suspected terrorists would be grabbed off some dark street in some dark corner of the world, after being fingered by some rat. They'd be detained in some kind of safe space until they could be transported to a place on the planet with no rules. This is what's called extraordinary rendition and Thailand is one of those places. In places like Thailand, you could do stuff like water-boarding people. You could twist a person's body into extremely uncomfortable positions and force them to stay that way for long periods of time. In places without rules, you could deprive your captive of sleep for days. This is what's called enhanced interrogation techniques. And Haspel gave the orders.
Unfortunately, we don't have any videos or audio tapes of those enhanced interrogations. Maybe we could've seen Ms. Haspel in black dominatrix's boots, with a cat-o-nine tails beating the truth out of a terrorist. Talk about something going viral. The world could've learned a lot watching somebody being forced to spill their guts. But, those tapes were destroyed before they could see the light of day. Again, according to the stories, in 2005, Haspel was the chief of staff to Jose Rodriguez, Director of the National Clandestine Service. In Jose's memoir, he wrote, Haspel drafted a cable ordering the destruction of dozens of tapes made at the black site in Thailand in response to mounting public scrutiny of the program. That's called CYA.
Still, we shouldn't be surprised Donald Trump selected Gina Haspel to be the nation's top spymaster. She walks Trump's talk. Trump has said all along he favored the use of water-boarding and other means of beating the sh*t out of suspected terrorists (and likely anybody else) to gain compliance. Remember, Trump's solution to the opioid crisis is to execute drug dealers. But despite the fact that experts agree, torturing people doesn't work Trump is committed to it. Eexperienced interrogators realized ages ago, that after a sufficient amount of pain people will say whatever they think you want to hear. They'll sell out their own mothers if they thought you'd take the battery cables off their nuts. Under these conditions, everybody talks, whether they know anything or not.
Bottom line: By hook or by crook, Donald Trump became president of the United States. Ever since that tragedy befell the world, he has delivered on his promise to take the country in another direction. Trump cut social services for the poor to pay for tax cuts for the rich. Trump cut foreign aid to the needy and dispensed with diplomacy. Trump is rounding up undocumented people as fast as he can while banning as many Muslims from entering the United States as the courts will allow. And now he's promoting the face of torture to lead the CIA. Thomas Jefferson said, "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice can not sleep forever." Now those are words to remember when Karma comes around. Podcast below.
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