jeudi 15 mars 2018

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Trump's Pick For CIA Director Would Be the First Woman to Have the Job - but There's 1 Big Problem

By  07:13  No comments

Amid this week's mass hirings and firings at the White House, one huge development has risen to the top of the pile: Donald Trump has selected Gina Haspel as the new director of the CIA. Haspel has served as deputy director of the agency under Mike Pompeo, who has now been promoted to secretary of state following Trump's dismissal of Rex Tillerson.

This is a big deal for two reasons, and the first is that Haspel could be the first woman to run the CIA. Haspel has been involved with the CIA since 1985, and while she has spent most of her career working undercover, her appointment to deputy was received quite positively, earning praise by both Bush- and Obama-era leadership who worked with her. The appointment of Haspel would also mean more women at cabinet-level positions for the Trump administration, though it'd still have a long way to go in reaching the gender equality of previous administrations.

The second reason this is a big deal - and the one that should give us all pause - is that Haspel has an incredibly brutal track record when it comes to torture.

Haspel oversaw the torturing of dozens of people by way of tactics from waterboarding to sleep deprivation, to literally putting living people in coffins at the black site prison she oversaw. Tactics under Haspel had been recorded, and documents were generated verifying these deeply disturbing practices - but Haspel controversially had said recordings destroyed under orders from her boss at the time. Her promotions and appointments have been protested at very high levels over the years, from Sen. Dianne Feinstein to Sen. John McCain to Sen. Tammy Duckworth, because of her associations with torture and destroying of evidence.

At this point the only obstacle between Haspel and the CIA directorship is a confirmation hearing, where her work at the CIA will be questioned by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. While it still remains to be determined if Haspel will be formally opposed, some senators do support her: Sen. Richard Burr, a Republican on the intelligence committee, has praised her nomination. Other intelligence committee senators like Sen. Ron Wyden are seeking to declassify information regarding said torture programs, so lawmakers can properly assess her prior work and make their own decisions.

Ultimately, the only way for Haspel to succeed in her hearing - one in which she'll likely be grilled on the matter of enabling these deadly practices and destroying evidence - is to denounce the torture practices she participated in, reconciling her past by confronting it. But it's important to note that regardless of where Haspel publicly lands on her stance, the practices she enabled could be furthered by the current POTUS. Trump noted while campaigning that he supports torture, saying, "I would bring back waterboarding," in a 2016 debate, and compounding that statement by saying "I would bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding." He also raised the matter early in his presidency and ordered that the controversial Guantanamo Bay prison remain open.

While Haspel, Trump, and talk of torture might seem like a shock, it should be noted that the subject isn't new: former President Barack Obama's overlooking of torture and use of drone strikes are largely overlooked but have been extensively documented, standing as a blemish on his legacy. If anything, Haspel is reigniting a sore spot in American history: the tendency for torture over compassion. And though conversations about controversial practices will be reignited by Haspel's hearings, no consensus has ever been reached among policymakers as to how we proceed going forward - and how this plays out in Congress is anyone's guess at this stage.



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