"Having a Torturer Lead the CIA," New York Times Editorial: (Warning, discussion of violence)

[Stuart G]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/13/opinion/cia-torture-gina-haspel.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region®ion=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region
_________________________________________________________________________________________

WARNING: DISCUSSION OF VIOLENCE AND CRUELTY

President Trump has displayed enthusiasm for brutality over the past year. He has told the police to treat suspects roughly, praised President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines for murdering people suspected of drug ties and called for the execution of drug dealers.

But one of his most unsettling beliefs is still his acceptance of the value of torture. “In my opinion, it works,” he told Sean Hannity of Fox News early last year.

Previously, anyone alarmed by Mr. Trump’s cavalier embrace of government-sanctioned cruelty was reassured by his vow to accept the advice of his defense secretary, Jim Mattis, who opposes torture and promised at his Senate confirmation hearing that he would uphold American and international laws against it.

Now we have reason to be uneasy yet again. When it comes to torture, no American officials have been more practiced in those heinous dark arts than the agents and employees of the Central Intelligence Agency who applied it to terrorism suspects after 9/11. Few American officials were so directly involved in that frenzy of abuse, which began under President George W. Bush and was ended by President Barack Obama, as Gina Haspel.

On Tuesday, in announcing that he had dismissed Rex Tillerson as secretary of state and was replacing him with Mike Pompeo, the C.I.A. director, Mr. Trump said that Mr. Pompeo’s successor would be his deputy, Ms. Haspel. As an undercover C.I.A. officer, Ms. Haspel played a direct role in the agency’s “extraordinary rendition program,” under which suspected militants were remanded to foreign governments and held at secret facilities, where they were tortured by agency personnel.

Ms. Haspel ran the first detention site in Thailand and oversaw the brutal interrogations of two detainees, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. Mr. Zubaydah was waterboarded at least 83 times in a single month; his C.I.A. torturers bashed his head into walls and subjected him to other unspeakable brutalities. This cruelty stopped when investigators decided he had nothing useful to tell them.


(NOTE: Rest of editorial is at link. This is only part of editorial.)

[madaboutharry]

1. She is a sadist.

She is a depraved and evil person.

[Stuart G]

2. I agree. She should have retired a long time ago. Having carried that out,

that was enough. But the evil depraved person is still around. At least this is being reported on. And not only in the NYT. I am sure other media are picking this up too.

[burrowowl]

3. She should be prosecuted for war crimes

[DeminPennswoods]

4. Indeed

nt