Posted on 03/16/2018 12:22:10 AM PDT by lowbuck
Rand Paul launched a typically obnoxious attack on Gina Haspel today. Here is one account:
“To really appoint the head cheerleader for waterboarding to be head of the CIA? How can you trust somebody who did that to be in charge of the CIA,” Paul wondered, adding, “To read of her glee during the waterboarding is just absolutely appalling.”
Paul was referring to an account of a waterboarding session with suspected al Qaeda lieutenant Abu Zubaydah, who was subjected to so-called enhanced interrogation techniques now widely considered to be torture. ., .
The problem is that this conduct appears to be misattributed to Haspel. A U.S. intelligence official provided this statement:
Senator Paul’s claims today about Gina Haspel are not only inaccurate, but contradicted by the very source materials he relied on. The Senator quotes liberally from page 263 of James Mitchell’s book “Enhanced Interrogation” in describing the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah in claiming that Ms. Haspel was the CIA Chief of Base who was present and expressing joy at this interrogation. A reading of the same page demonstrates that the Chief of Base present and quoted during this event was a man, not Gina Haspel. This is just one of many false claims about Ms. Haspel being peddled by the uninformed. . . snip
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
I also think The Donald expects she will sweep the enemies of America from the ranks and management.
Little Rand yelps for attention!
I’m more interested in how this story got started in the first place.
Where did Pro Publica get the false information about Gina Haspel in the first place?
President Trump campaigned on solving the problem of our global meddling. It's very disconcerting that he's in bed with the bad guys with his foreign policy.
Uh, what?
Explain yourself.
I will never support torture. I am a lawyer and a former JAG officer. The so-called alleged “lawyers” at DOJ that wrote the memos authorizing torture should be repudiated. They were wrong. It is my belief that torture is illegal and antiAmerican. Torture also places our own citizens and military at risk of the same or worse treatment.
So, get that? TORTURE IS ILLEGAL AND UNAMERICAN. I WILL NEVER SUPPORT IT AND I DO NOT SUPPORT HASPEL.
Our account of Haspel’s actions was drawn in part from declassified agency cables and CIA-reviewed books which referred to the official overseeing Zubaydah’s interrogation at a secret prison in Thailand as “chief of base.” The books and cables redacted the name of the official, as is routinely done in declassified documents referring to covert operations. The Trump administration named Haspel to the CIA’s No. 2 job in early February 2017. Soon after, three former government officials told ProPublica that Haspel was chief of base in Thailand at the time of Zubaydah’s waterboarding.
Why would CIA employees lie on her like that? She was definitely NOT Chief of base during that time. And we wonder why NSA/MI/Trump are at war with CIA/Deep State/State/DOJ.
I would think a lawyer would be better able to suss out the truth of a thing by analyzing the evidence. The lady was NOT in charge of the base when the original accusers said she was. SOMEBODY ELSE WAS.
So, what do these incidents have to do with HER. And if nothing, which is the truth, why do you oppose her?
Don't you see how illogical you are being?
p.s. Simmer down, counsellor.
It’s not waterboarding if you use diesel.
I think Rand Paul sometimes comes down on the right side of issues but he squanders his standing & influence when he doesn’t check facts and comes out strong, as do any of us. It causes me to question his commitment since without constant fact checking we are just parroting positions.
I am certainly not interested in wars based on economic interests. Wars are for defense of America & it’s allies when diplomatic channels have failed or in case of direct attack. Sometimes we get involved in humanitarian conflicts which is less clear cut. I am not convinced President Trump is involved with the “bad guys”. Remember he likes to hear divergent points of view from honest and forthright persons. That helps him to clarify the situation.
President Trump’s foreign policy has been marked by a step back from trying to force other Nations to live by our ideas of how they should live. So I think that although POTUS is using America’s strength to negotiate favorable trade agreements he is not promoting Global dominance.
There are actions going on that he wouldn’t have started but unlike Obama he will exit them strategically by stages and leave the populace trained and equip so that the lives, time and efforts of Americans were not wasted.
She. Wasn’t. There.
Why we care about how we treat people who burn other people alive, throw people off buildings, saw off their heads or any other method of taking lives is beyond me. If it were up to me I would televise the ripping of them from limb to limb until they stop breathing. The scum of the earth have no treaties with anyone. They just need to be killed.
Not sure they did.
From your last post, ProPublica says their false account was fed to them by 'three former government officials'...that could be any number of people from the Obama administration national security team.
I think a leaven of information about waterboarding would be helpful to understanding the issue at hand.
“Too many people who insist that the CIA tortured the infamous three are throwing out analogies insisting that the CIA waterboarding was no different from that of the Spanish Inquisition or war criminals of the 1940s.
Let us suspend politics for a moment. Just what are the facts of waterboarding? What did the CIA do? How does it compare to historical waterboarding that we regard as torture?”
http://humanevents.com/2009/06/12/a-brief-history-of-waterboarding/
I have zero problem with waterboarding and other enhanced methods. I personally would use wirecutters on fingers without hesitation.
Replay the 911 tapes of people jumping out of the towers. This ain’t patty cake.
“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” - George Orwell
“feelings” ??!!, are the refuge of idiots, liberals and children (I guess I repeat myself). Rational adults rely on thinking, based on facts and data. When one is driven by emotional reliance on “feelings” any bit of flotsam can be clung to in support of them.
Agreed.
You don’t think he should apologize for making specific false accusations against her simply because he “has strong feelings”?
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