[Peace-discuss] The Real News discusses the newly appointed CIA Director

[Boyle, Francis A]

Criminal indeed. Just remember that our Marquis De Sade Professor of Law at our Trump Law School Michael Moore has publicly admitted he works with both the CIA and the Mossad on torture. Mikey and his Consort our Fired and Disgraced Dean Hurricane Heidi Hurd have been stinking up this campus and this community ever  since their arrival here advocating torture for the CIA and the Mossad and along the lines of the KGB. Two Thugs.
Fab.

Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (phone)
217-244-1478 (fax)
(personal comments only)


-----Original Message-----
From: Peace-discuss [mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of C G Estabrook via Peace-discuss
Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2018 7:38 AM
To: Karen Aram <karenaram at hotmail.com>
Cc: Peace-discuss List (peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net) <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] The Real News discusses the newly appointed CIA Director

We should demand that our senators not vote to confirm this criminal.

Durbin: <https://www.durbin.senate.gov/contact/email>

Duckworth: <https://www.duckworth.senate.gov/connect/email-tammy>


> On Mar 15, 2018, at 7:03 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
> 
> http://therealnews.com/t2/story:21363:The-CIA%27s-New-Torturer-in-Chief
> 
> Log in and tell us why you support TRNN
> 
> 
> biography
> Marcy Wheeler is a national security reporter and author. Her website is Empty Wheel.
> 
> transcript
> AARON MATÉ: It's The Real News. I'm Aaron Maté. President Trump has had several major Cabinet shake ups since taking office, but his latest is his boldest yet. Earlier today, Trump announcing that Rex Tillerson is out as Secretary of State, replaced by CIA Director Mike Pompeo. And replacing Pompeo at CIA is his deputy, Gina Haspel. Trump spoke to reporters on the White House south lawn.
> 
> DONALD TRUMP: I've worked with Mike Pompeo now for quite some time. Tremendous energy, tremendous intellect. We're always on the same wavelength. The relationship has been very good, and that's what I need as Secretary of State. I wish Rex Tillerson well. Gina, by the way, who I know very well, who I've worked very closely, will be the first woman Director of the CIA. She's an outstanding person who also I have gotten to know very well. So, I've gotten to know a lot of people very well over the last year, and I'm really at a point where we're getting very close to having the Cabinet and other things that I want.
> 
> AARON MATÉ: In elevating Pompeo, Trump would have a Secretary of State even more in line with confronting Iran. In installing Gina Haspel as head of the CIA, Trump also has someone who would be in line with one of his other defining views, embracing torture. Haspel was in charge of the CIA's first secret overseas prison site in Thailand, and there she oversaw the torture of two prisoners and later ordered the destruction of video footage that caught their abuse on camera.
> 
> Joining me is Marcy Wheeler, national security reporter whose website is emptywheel.net. Welcome Marcy. Lots to talk about. Let's start with the presumptive new CIA Director, Gina Haspel. Tell us about her record.
> 
> MARCY WHEELER: As you said, she was the Chief of Station for the first black sites or for Thailand, where the first black site, where our torture program was. She oversaw the torture of Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri in 2002, when really CIA was just experimenting with it. In that role, because people are already saying that she was just doing what she was told, she was just following orders, in that role, she was also particularly sadistic. She at times when other people said Abu Zubaydah's fully compliant, he's told us all he knows, would say, "You go back and keep torturing him until he tells us more." That's her role in torture.
> 
> And then while she was still Chief of Station there in 2002, she said, "Let's get rid of all of the videos we took of this torture." CIA didn't permit her to do that in 2002 because there were ongoing investigations, but when, in 2005, she and Jose Rodriguez, who kind of instituted the torture program, when they were at a much more senior level at CIA, she said, "Hey, great idea. Let's get rid of those videos that we took back in 2002, even though there are court rulings that say we should not be able to get rid of them." So, she oversaw the destruction of them, so both the torture and the cover up of the torture. That's who we're getting to run the CIA.
> 
> AARON MATÉ: And for one of those prisoners who was tortured, last year, this nonprofit group in Europe, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, issued a statement calling for an arrest warrant for her. Now, I'm wondering, do you think that as the CIA Director if she travels overseas, especially to Europe where there have been cases around torture and there have been extradition requests for people who committed rights abuses, that she could be vulnerable to arrest?
> 
> MARCY WHEELER: I think people, activists in Europe, certainly will try and make that an issue because yes, she is on the record as having played a key role in our torture program. And Europe for years has used whatever leverage they can to try and at least shame us for the torture program we've had. By the way, both Abu Zubaydah, Abu Zubaydah has never been charged. He's still at Gitmo. He's one of those people in this kind of holding pattern. His lawyers every once in a while say, "Hey..." something about him. Then Nashiri's trial is very troubled right now.
> 
> She will be undergoing confirmation process at the same time as daily crazy stuff happens in Gitmo as they try and move closer to finally try this guy. He was allegedly responsible for the USS Cole bombing in 2000, before 9/11. So, the entire background, both before and after she gets confirmed, is going to emphasize her role in the torture, which will make for a pretty antagonistic debate about her nomination, I think rightly so.
> 
> AARON MATÉ: Now, in terms of antagonism, the question for me is whether she'll face serious antagonism from Democrats in the Senate. Senator Dianne Feinstein, the powerful Democratic senator from California, has already indicated today that she will support Haspel's nomination. On this front, I'm wondering. We famously know that when President Obama took office, he talked about looking forward, not backwards, and essentially not prosecuting those who took part in torture. I'm wondering how much of a role Democratic inaction around torture has played in elevating someone like Gina Haspel to the top CIA post today.
> 
> MARCY WHEELER: Well, I can't believe I'm going to defend Dianne Feinstein. I don't think she said that she will support Haspel's nomination. I think she has said she will give it a good listen, which probably means she's going to support it, but she also has a real primary challenge this year. And, I think that, again, this is the kind of thing that people can bring some political pressure on Feinstein about. She's no longer the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is the committee Haspel's nomination will go through. That puts her in less of a position to influence it.
> 
> I mean, I expect that Wyden and Heinrich, and maybe Kamala Harris, will raise that as an issue in the confirmation process, but you're right. Feinstein is one of those people who's saying, "Well, she was just doing what she was ordered to do, and therefore, it's not that big of a deal." One of Feinstein's laudable actions in her time as a senator is making sure that the Senate report, the Senate torture report, actually got finished. Then to have what could be her last year in the Senate, have her rubber stamp this torturer to run the whole CIA, because even, I mean, Aaron, it's terrible enough that this torturer might run the whole CIA, but the other thing is the cover up, right?
> 
> There were congressional inquiries into the torture program at the time those videos were destroyed. Carl Levin, for one, was asking for precisely that kind of data. Jay Rockefeller even was, Feinstein's predecessor as ranking member on the committee. And so, the notion that this woman who oversaw the obstruction of multiple investigations into CIA torture, including congressional investigations, the notion that she should become CIA Director, just invites CIA to continue to refuse all oversight from our democratically elected members of Congress. That, if you are a member of Congress, should be as important as the torture. They're both important, but the obstruction, as a member of Congress, as somebody who is supposed to oversee this agency, that really ought to be disqualifying, but apparently it's not for Feinstein.
> 
> AARON MATÉ: Right. Speaking of congressional oversight of the CIA, there also was the fact that the CIA, after the initial cover up with the videotapes and so forth, back when the Senate was compiling its torture report, you had the CIA actually spying on the senators who were writing it.
> 
> MARCY WHEELER: Under John Brennan, so yeah, that's under Barack Obama. Obama did not side with Dianne Feinstein in that battle. That's not the only obstruction. At one point, I made a long list, and it was a long list of all of the documents on the CIA torture program that disappeared into the ether. And it was a bipartisan effort from 2002 all the way to today, but yeah, this wasn't fixed under Barack Obama. Gina Haspel not only stayed in government, but continued to get promoted. And now, she's about to take over the agency. Again, for all the complaints about the deep state investigating Donald Trump and being out of control and what have you, confirming Gina Haspel as Director of CIA will further empower whatever uncontrollable power the deep state has.
> 
> AARON MATÉ: All right. We're going to leave it there for part one. In part two, we'll talk about Mike Pompeo as a new Secretary of State. Marcy Wheeler of emptywheel.net, thank you. And thank you for joining us on The Real News.
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