[Peace-discuss] Trumps latest appointment

Wed Mar 14 16:00:18 UTC 2018

Rand Paul just came out against this very strongly. This is stoppable.

Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
(202) 448-2898 x1

Senate: Wield the Constitution to Stop Saudi Starvation of Yemeni Children
https://www.change.org/p/senate-invoke-war-powers-to-stop-saudi-from-starving-yemeni-kids

@SenatorShaheen and @SenToddYoung: Stop Starving Yemeni Children
https://www.change.org/p/senatorshaheen-and-sentoddyoung-stop-starving-yemeni-children

On Wed, Mar 14, 2018 at 10:47 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss <
peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:

> Frankly, just about anyone leading the CIA is likely to have been involved
> in torture of one form or another. Whether through rendition or our usual
> interventions and training of proxies. However, we are becoming so overt in
> our illegal and atrocious behavior, that it takes on the veneer of
> acceptability and normality. This we must resist.
>
> Opinion <https://www.nytimes.com/pages/opinion/index.html> |  EDITORIAL Having
> a Torturer Lead the C.I.A.
>
> By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
> <https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/opinion/editorialboard.html>MARCH
> 13, 2018
> Continue reading the main story
> <https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/13/opinion/cia-torture-gina-haspel.html?emc=edit_th_180314&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=328950540314#story-continues-1>Share
> This Page
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> Photo
> CreditDamon Winter/The New York Times
>
> President Trump has displayed enthusiasm for brutality over the past year.
> He has told the police to treat suspects roughly
> <https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/28/us/politics/trump-immigration-gang-violence-long-island.html>
> , praised President Rodrigo Duterte
> <https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/23/us/politics/trump-duterte-phone-transcript-philippine-drug-crackdown.html> of
> the Philippines for murdering people suspected of drug ties and called for
> the execution of drug dealers
> <https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/03/01/us/politics/ap-us-trump-opioids.html>
> .
>
> But one of his most unsettling beliefs is still his acceptance of the
> value of torture. “In my opinion, it works,
> <http://www.foxnews.com/transcript/2017/01/26/cable-exclusive-president-trump-sits-down-with-sean-hannity-at-white-house.html>”
> 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
> <http://thehill.com/policy/defense/316542-trump-mattis-will-override-on-torture>,
> 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.
> Continue reading the main story
> <https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/13/opinion/cia-torture-gina-haspel.html?emc=edit_th_180314&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=328950540314#story-continues-2>
>
> As an undercover C.I.A. officer, Ms. Haspel played a direct role in the
> agency’s “extraordinary rendition program,
> <https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/02/us/politics/cia-deputy-director-gina-haspel-torture-thailand.html>”
> 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.
> Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story
> <https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/13/opinion/cia-torture-gina-haspel.html?emc=edit_th_180314&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=328950540314#continues-post-newsletter> Opinion
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>
> The sessions were videotaped and the recordings stored in a safe at the
> C.I.A. station in Thailand until they were ordered destroyed in 2005. And
> who did that? By then, Ms. Haspel was at C.I.A. headquarters, and while the
> agency said the decision to destroy evidence was made by her boss at the
> time, Jose Rodriguez, Ms. Haspel’s name was on the cable with the
> destruction orders.
>
> In 2013
> <http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-new-c-i-a-deputy-chiefs-black-site-past>,
> these activities were of such concern that Senator Dianne Feinstein of
> California, the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee,
> blocked Ms. Haspel’s promotion to be head of the agency’s clandestine
> service. Since then the two have spent time together, leading Ms. Feinstein
> on Tuesday to describe Ms. Haspel as a “good deputy” and to say she would
> wait until the confirmation hearing to make a judgment on the appointment.
>
> Senator John McCain
> <https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/13/politics/gina-haspel-senate-confirmation/index.html>,
> Republican of Arizona and a former prisoner of war, insisted that during
> the confirmation process, Ms. Haspel must “explain the nature and extent of
> her involvement” in the interrogation program. Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat
> of Oregon, said her roles overseeing the waterboarding of detainees and the
> destruction of tapes were troubling. He and the American Civil Liberties
> Union called for Ms. Haspel’s C
> <https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/13/politics/gina-haspel-senate-confirmation/index.html>
> .I.A.
> <https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/13/politics/gina-haspel-senate-confirmation/index.html> records
> to be declassified
> <https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/13/politics/gina-haspel-senate-confirmation/index.html>as
> part of her nomination.
>
> The use of torture and secret foreign prisons — think of the deeply
> disgraceful events at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq — was a boon to terrorist
> groups, helping their propaganda and recruitment efforts. Such activities
> were also an irritant to key allies and even put American forces and
> personnel at risk of legal liability and being subjected to harsh treatment
> when they are detained.
>
> Ms. Haspel is reportedly respected by many C.I.A. agents. But she
> effectively ran an illegal program, and her promotion to such a top
> administration position, unless she forcefully renounces the use of torture
> during her confirmation hearing, would send an undeniable signal to the
> agency, and the country, that Mr. Trump is indifferent to this brutality,
> regardless of what Secretary Mattis believes. Members of Congress and
> public interest groups need to stand up and make clear that, otherwise, the
> appointment is wrong.
>
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>
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