Gina Haspel showed 'failure of leadership,' says lawyer for waterboarded detainee

Washington Examiner ^ | May 7, 2018

[deplorableindc]

An attorney for the only terrorism suspect known to have been waterboarded during Gina Haspel’s time leading a secret CIA facility in Thailand is blasting her “failure to stand up for what’s right,” just ahead of her confirmation hearing to be CIA director.

Navy Lt. Alaric Piette, a military defense attorney representing Guantanamo Bay inmate Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, emailed the statement to the Washington Examiner ahead of Haspel’s Wednesday confirmation hearing, where she is likely to be grilled on her post-9/11 actions.

"I was an enlisted sailor during 9/11 and I understand the impulses that led people to want to torture," he said. "However, the purpose of leadership is to be able to stand up for what’s right in tough times. Ms. Haspel did not do that. Failure to stand up for what’s right is not toughness. In a time when we needed professionalism and leadership, we got torture instead."

[DarthVader]

Waterboarding!! These blokes don’t know what real torture is!

[48th SPS Crusader]

I she water boarded a terrorist she did stand up for what is right!

[Zathras]

So we are now going to take advice from people defending terrorists.

[rovenstinez]

Maybe they are against her, because she is FOR the Commander in Chief. Sounds like someone needs to pull the plug on some corner of the Swamp. We do have a duly elected President, why so much STALLING, and him hawing around.

[BenLurkin]

Didn’t she head the team that tracked down bin laden?

Sounds like good leadership.

[Kickass Conservative]

Waterboarding wasn’t called “torture” until it was Politically advantageous for Leftists to call it torture.
Just ask John McLame.

It is unpleasant, but nobody has been killed or injured using it as an Interrogation tool used on Terrorists.

Some of our own Troops are subject to Waterboarding as part of their Training.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

Fortunately, the terrorist knew to stand up for what’s right. You blithering piece of garbage.

[Mariner]

Until you have been on the waterboard it’s best not to characterize it.

Every single official that has claimed waterboarding is not torture is at legal/criminal risk if it is ever to be found to be torture.

Anyone who has been waterboarded Khmer Rouge style (Warner Springs) that was not a SERE instructor (and therefore participated in waterboarding) is likely to tell you it’s torture.

It meets all the requirements of the USC for torture. To included permanent damage.

[Mariner]

“I she water boarded a terrorist she did stand up for what is right!”

Waterboarding is torture, and completely appropriate for the situation we were in after 9/11.

[PGR88]

The CIA can lie to Congress, meddle in Presidential politics, manufacture and disseminate lies about US politicians, attempt a soft coup against a sitting President - but please don’t pour water up the noses of Muslim terrorists caught on the battlefield while overseas.

[Mariner]

“It is unpleasant, but nobody has been killed or injured using it as an Interrogation tool used on Terrorists.

Some of our own Troops are subject to Waterboarding as part of their Training”.

We have a couple of dozen of them receiving a VA disability as a result.

There have also been several physical injuries on the waterboard during training.

[Dilbert San Diego]

You prompt various questions. Among those are, what is the definition of torture? I don’t know legally how it’s defined.

I think we’re all on thin ice if torture is a term being thrown around with few of us knowing what legally constitutes torture.

[Magnum44]

To included permanent damage

Managed improperly one could drown. That would not longer be water boarding, it would be drowning. What permanent damage are you implying? Any kid who ever accidently inhaled a little water up his nose while swimming has experienced water boarding without permanent damage. It causes very uncomfortable reflex actions. No permanent damage. (I was at Warner springs in 85)

[A_Former_Democrat]

Yeah, BFD . . . WB is much too kind to those bastards

[Kickass Conservative]

Well, count me corrected then. Never heard of that.

[Mariner]

PTSD is the most common disability in VA due to waterboarding.

[Mariner]

Were you waterboarded?
Did you waterboard anyone?

[Magnum44]

I wont try to knock anyone with a claim to PTSD, but lets get real. Soldiers come back from combat with PTSD. Anyone who was subject to being a POW could lay claim to PTSD. Going to Warner Springs and being waterboarded as part of the survival training (which was usually only one student per class with the rest of the class watching while the student still thought he was in the POW scenario) involved only a few minutes at most of enduring the ‘drowning sensation’ that makes people compliant rather than endure the process. There are many incentives to get a disability rating when you are discharged or retired from service and the more issues you can document, the better the disability pay. But I would say that claiming PTSD from going to SERE training is a real pu$$y kind of claim. JMO

[areukiddingme1]

But did Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri die? Did he die?

Okay then, what is the F'n problem.

While it does remain a fact, that some limp wristed, window licking, pants wetting, bleeding heart liberals find what Ms. Haspel did or didn't do horrible, the simple fact of the matter is Americans deserve to be safe and to be free from attack.

When Nahiri lead the attack on the USS COLE he truly lost sympathay from the vast majority of Americans that love our country and mourn the loss of American servicemen/women.

"F" Nahiri!!!

I dare the left try this case in the court of public opinion, I dare them....