Great choice, Mr.President!
Posted on 03/19/2018 12:07:55 PM PDT by Starman417
I would take anything John Kirakou says with a grain from the salt pit. I question his credibility.
What does anyone really know about Gina Haspel, President Trump's nominee to be the next director of the CIA? Not a heck of a lot. So far what we have is media and ideology-driven hysteria: She mocked torture victim; oversaw Zubaydah's interrogation; destroyed evidence tapes. None of it is true.
The torture alarmists' fevered imaginations have painted her to be unfit for the job due to preconceived notions and the distorted narrative regarding the CIA RDI program; along with assumptions about her involvement with it.
Last week, ProPublica- cited by many media outlets- offered some major retractions to their attempt at filling in the many blanks regarding Gina Haspel's history with CIA interrogations. 4 major news organizations had to make retractions (regardless, Rand Paul's mind apparently is made up; at least John McCain is entertaining hearing her answer questions at her confirmation hearing).
So what do we know about her? Spin, thus far:
The role that President Donald Trump’s nominee for CIA director had in torturing detainees has become increasingly unclear after a series of influential news organizations backed off stories claiming she’d overseen one suspect’s torture in 2002.How were the black sites "illegal" operations when they were endorsed by the U.S. government with the cooperation of Thailand's government?The recent corrections may increase pressure on the CIA to declassify documents that would explain Gina Haspel’s role in the “rendition, detention and interrogation” program that the agency established after 9/11 to hold and brutally question terrorism suspects at secret prisons overseas.
Four senators, including Republican Rand Paul of Kentucky, have said they will vote against Haspel. A fifth, Republican John McCain of Arizona, has said Haspel must explain her involvement.
Paul stepped up his opposition Sunday, saying on CNN’s State of the Union that he would “do whatever it takes, and that includes a filibuster” to block Haspel’s confirmation. On CBS’s Face the Nation, Paul said, “My main concern about her is that she oversaw an illegal black ops operation in Thailand.”
But certainty about her role in the program has been shaken by an extraordinary series of corrections since Thursday; four news organizations, including the New York Times, have amended or retracted articles that said Haspel was in charge of the torture of the first terrorism suspect captured after the Sept. 11 attacks.
John Brennan:
Haspel’s defenders, including former CIA director John Brennan, a harsh critic of Trump, have made the point that the torture program had received legal approval from the Justice Department in mid-2002. Brennan told MSNBC last week that Haspel did her job “consistent with what CIA’s legal authorities were. And don’t forget that the detention interrogation program was authorized by the president of the United States [George W. Bush] and deemed lawful by the Department of Justice.”Some of her other colleagues also have characterized her as a "consummate professional".
"Now, with the benefit of time, I think the country would be well-served by a reasoned, non-emotional discussion about whether any kind of interrogation technique, beyond a standard Q&A, is ever justifiable — or effective, for that matter," Rizzo told NPR's Morning Edition.However, Rizzo, who said he has known Haspel since the 1990s, remains a supporter of the tough interrogation methods.
"I have some regrets, but I still continue to believe the program was effective," he said. "I have a strong feeling that the information in question — and there was a lot of it — would not have come nearly as quickly without resorting to aggressive measures."
He does not think those measure amounted to torture.
"I do not believe that the word 'torture' was and is legally accurate," he said. "There were very harsh, very brutal methods. But not torture."
Many of the articles I've seen still perpetuate the misleading claim that Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times (that number refers to the amount of pours/splashes); and that he was shoved into a wall (look up the OLC Memo on what "walling' entails).
Ali Soufan has long made claims regarding intelligence gathered prior to EITs applied to Zubaydah (I have his book, "The Black Banners" where he also writes about it); and most recently, penning an article for the Atlantic to voice his opposition to Haspel's nomination. His claims and the timeline of events, however, are challenged by Marc Thiessen, Jose Rodriguez, and James Mitchell in their respective books. It's a bit dated now, but I wrote about Zubaydah here and here.
I consider Ali Soufan a patriot and an expert in his field to be respected, even as I disagree with much of what he says about the CIA interrogation program.
Another "insider", however, I deem a traitor. Former CIA officer John Kirakou is also attempting to redeem his reputation (how can he, when he once again stands on the wrong side of the fence on this one?), reiterating his persecuted sense of victimhood and martyr complex, writing a WaPo op-ed with an eye-catching headline blurb: I went to prison for disclosing the CIA’s torture. Gina Haspel helped cover it up.
(Excerpt) Read more at floppingaces.net...
I don’t care if she goes Jack Bauer on a terrorist....
Well, if we torture them, they might retaliate by cutting off American heads.
Or if we torture them, they might retalitate by flying airplanes into our buildings.
And if we torture them, they will be compelled to go to gay night clubs and gun everyone down.
If we don't torture them, all will be well.
As I understand it, Pompeo vouches for her. That’s all I need to know.
War on Wimminz! Where are the pink vagina hats at?
Complete bull.
Which is a disappointment because I wish all they said about her was true.
“Bloody Gina”
Sounds Misogynistic to me.
Gina Bauer? As long as she’s not Deep State, I’m all for it.
Ringing endorsement, sounds to me.
“Bloody Gina.” I like it!!! Go Gina!!!
The media are attacking her just because she is a woman, and they can’t stand the image of the CIA being run for the first time by a woman. They are so sexist. /leftist style response
Maybe she has “blood coming out of her eyes, her... whatever.”
I don’t care if she used a blowtorch and a set of rusty pliers.
L
Marcellus Wallace approves of this post.
You’re good. I mean really good.
L
You forgot the /S
Jan 2013; Former CIA agent John Kiriakou speaks out just days after he was sentenced to 30 months in prison, becoming the first CIA official to face jail time for any reason relating to the U.S. torture program. Under a plea deal, Kiriakou admitted to a single count of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act by revealing the identity of a covert officer to a freelance reporter, who did not publish it. Supporters say Kiriakou is being unfairly targeted for having been the first CIA official to publicly confirm and detail the Bush administration’s use of waterboarding. Kiriakou joins us to discuss his story from Washington, D.C., along with his attorney, Jesselyn Radack, director of National Security & Human Rights at the Government Accountability Project. “This … was not a case about leaking; this was a case about torture. And I believe I’m going to prison because I blew the whistle on torture,” Kiriakou says. “My oath was to the Constitution. … And to me, torture is unconstitutional.” [inlcudes rush transcript
Great choice, Mr.President!
John Kirakou was apparently part of an anti-Israel group led by Ray McGovern called Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, a/k/a VIPS that collaborated with frmr Ambassador Joe Wilson and his wife Valerie Plame in going after Scooter Libby. VIPS consists of more than a few leakers who are affiliated with Lyndon LaRouche.
VIPS is the group to which Tyler Drumheller, an associate of Sid Blumenthal in the Libyan affair who along with Cody Shearer fed information of a classified nature and disinfo to Hillary possibly to advance their business ventures in Africa including in Libya.
Wilson is a Hillary and John Kerry associate.
Valerie Plame is a Kerry and Ibama nut who works with the nuclear disarmament group Global Zero.
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