Gina Haspel and CIA Torture

The Dark Side

So Gina Haspel, Emperor Trump’s nominee to head the C.I.A. went before a Senate Committee a few days ago. These folks, charged to advise and consent to the fitness of the candidate to hold this office asked questions and as usual in America today the questions divided up along party lines.

Haspel has been with the CIA for over 30 years, from a dusty back street operator on the fringes of the empire to a senior administrator. She undoubtedly  knows the CIA and the basis of her experience and service would normally be considered “highly qualitied.”

There is only one problem.

Haspel ran a “black site” in Thailand.  Haspel is a torturer.

Oh but of course she has discovered a higher moral standard; she would never do it again.

As for what she did being  “legal,” she operated under “legal opinions” drafted by water carriers for Dick Cheney, written specifically to protect the asses of CIA torturers by redefining what constitutes criminal “torture.”  When the Japanese did it to American POWs during WWII we called waterboarding what it is.

So we called it “enhanced interrogation.”

Want to know what that sweet woman did in “service” to our country?  What she did in your name and mine? Read excerpts below from my post in 2014 when the Senate  torture report was released.  You can go here to read the unsealed summary of the report, including a section on initial findings and hundreds of pages of declassified documents.

 

Detainees were subjected to “rectal feeding,” a process by which food is pumped into the anus…

[Page 115]

… even when there was no demonstrated medical need for it.

[Page 82]

Detainees were told they would never leave these “black sites” and that their families would be sexually assaulted or murdered.

[Page 4 of findings]

One never did. He died of suspected hypothermia after being tortured at one of the covert facilities.

[Page 10 of summary]

During an extended period of stress, an interrogator operated a power drill near a detainee.

[Page 69]

Detainees were waterboarded until they turned blue…

[Page 107]

… and were on the verge of drowning.

[Page 86]

Forced nudity was regularly used as an interrogation technique.

[Page 79]

After this brutal regimen of torture, detainees often gave false information, which the U.S. acted on.

[Page 83]

One detainee, a Saudi Arabian citizen who is still being held at Guantanamo Bay and was one of the first detainees held during the torture program, faced nearly 19 days of nonstop “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

[Page 40]

This included extended periods of isolation and confinement in a coffin-sized box.

[Page 42]

At one black site, groups of detainees were regularly stripped, beaten, hooded and bound with tape.

[Page 4 of summary]

Detainees were subjected to seemingly unimaginable periods of sleep deprivation, in conjunction with other forms of torture.

[Page 149]

Sleep deprivation often led to disturbing hallucinations.

[Page 16]

Detainees were also refused access to toilets, put in diapers and left hanging by their wrists in cells for extended periods of time.

[Page 53]

Others were forced to maintain “stress positions” even on broken limbs and though medical personnel had advised against it.

[Page 101]

An interrogator reportedly played Russian roulette with a detainee.

[Page 424]

The CIA detained individuals who did not meet its outlined detention standard, and they were used to extract information from family members. This included at least one “intellectually challenged” individual.

Gina Haspel ran one of these “Black Sites.”  For all we know her name is one of the redacted.  Did she sit in a darkened corner of the interrogation room / torture chamber while her subordinates pumped a pureed meal up the ass of a prisoner?  Did they get hard-ons, enjoying the sadism?  Did she actively participate?  Did she sit there calmly as she sat in the Senate chamber?

A number of these sessions were recorded on film; Haspel made sure the films were destroyed to “protect the agents.”  From who?  From us?

Yesterday Senator John McCain, who spent 5 years in the Hanoi Hilton and was belittled by the Emperor for it,  came out against her nomination.  Torture is of course supported by both their highnesses Trump and Cheney; both of course avoided service when it was their time.   Cheney the Inquisitor got 5 student deferments and money bags Trump had a string of student deferments and finally a “bone spur.”  Right.

Nothing illustrates the attitude of the “administration” better than the flip comment made by White House “Special Assistant” Kelly Sadler, another of the little blond bitches working for Trump.

In a White House meeting and discussion which turned to McCain’s opposition  to the CIA nominee she quipped “Who cares?  He’s dying anyway.”

Nice.  She came to work the next day and still has a job.

Remember when we thought this country was exceptional?  The beacon of light  for the world?  We didn’t torture people.  We believed in the rule of law. We were not the KGB.  We were not Nazis.

Himmler and Heydrich are laughing in their graves.