Many of Donald Trump’s nominees for various positions have been hotly contested, but Gina Haspel, the nominee for CIA director, is a next-level nightmare. Trump praises Haspel for being “TOUGH ON TERROR” [caps his, obviously], but in this case, what that means is that she ran a “black site” torture prison in Thailand in 2002. Under Haspel’s rule, the site used inhumane torture techniques, including waterboarding, on countless prisoners, including pregnant women.
[Content warning for torture and violence]
This is monstrous, Senators. Hell is a place on earth called Gina Haspel. https://t.co/0geasFvUqS pic.twitter.com/GjELhWZ7Fe
— Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) May 9, 2018
Gina Haspel knew that prisoners she was responsible for were kept for days chained to the ceiling, naked or in diapers, then slammed face-first into walls. pic.twitter.com/FvkeVSZM8u
— ACLU (@ACLU) May 9, 2018
Additionally, the prisoners were subjected to near-drowning and relentless physical assault, deprived of food and sleep, forced into excruciating stress positions and stuffed into coffin-like boxes. pic.twitter.com/JsphPUSOeI
— ACLU (@ACLU) May 9, 2018
More than 100 retired U.S. ambassadors have signed a letter expressing “serious concern” over Haspel’s nomination. They write that, while she is technically qualified in her credentials, “she is also emblematic of choices made by certain American officials in the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001 that dispensed with our ideals and international commitments to the ultimate detriment of our national security.”
And in today’s hearing, Haspel repeatedly refused to answer questions regarding whether or not she believed torture is immoral, despite her attempted assurances that she would disobey even legal government orders that she found immoral—which Senator Martin Heinrich found kind of ridiculous in light of the morality of orders she’d previously followed. She said she wouldn’t create another “detention and interrogation” program like the one she previously ran, but she refused to condemn what happened in that prison.
I asked Trump nominee Gina Haspel four different times whether she believe the CIA’s previous interrogation techniques, like waterboarding, were immoral. She repeatedly declined to answer. pic.twitter.com/UhH0j3U4uY
— Kamala Harris (@SenKamalaHarris) May 9, 2018
I covered the Middle East where CIA rendered suspects to police states to torture.
Up to today, Abu Gharib images remain vivid in Arab people’s minds.
Haspel’s refusal to answer YES or NO as to whether interrogation techniques are immoral, disqualifies her by definition.— Rula Jebreal (@rulajebreal) May 9, 2018
Maybe the most shocking moment in this Real Life Dolores Umbridge’s hearing, though, was when former CIA analyst Ray McGovern was forcibly removed from the hearing. McGovern was reportedly sitting in the audience and stood up to demand Haspel give a “direct answer” regarding the morality of torture.
Former CIA officer Ray McGovern was just forcibly removed from a Senate hearing for protesting Trump’s CIA director nominee Gina Haspel. Haspel has been linked to the use of torture at CIA black sites. pic.twitter.com/osTQgQ6Sd0
— VICE News (@vicenews) May 9, 2018
I say that may be the most shocking moment because, shortly thereafter, all reporters were also forced to leave the hearing.
After less than 3 hours of Gina Haspel’s Senate hearing, the TV cameras are being shut off and reporters kicked out. The rest will be behind closed doors — depriving the public of the full truth about her role in CIA torture.
— ACLU (@ACLU) May 9, 2018
While people with consciences and/or a basic desire to fill jobs with people who are qualified (or, in this case, not a danger to the country and world in general) have had trouble preventing the confirmation of even Trump’s most ludicrous nominees (see: Betsy DeVos), there’s an especially bizarre narrative around Haspel. A whole lot of conservatives are criticizing what they see–or, more accurately, are pretending to see–as anti-feminist behavior on the part of liberals opposing Haspel’s nomination.
The argument is that if we love women so much, we can’t possibly object to the appointment of the first-ever female director of the CIA. It’s “troll feminism,” a completely disingenuous way to paint liberal feminists as hypocrites and conservative women as victims. We’ve seen this before with women like Sarah Palin, as well as with Kellyanne Conway, Ivanka Trump, and Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Those claiming hypocrisy when feminists condemn these women do not understand that feminism is not the same as “celebrating everything every woman does, ever.”
Anyone who thinks Gina Haspel is a win for “women’s empowerment” doesn’t understand that there’s a huge difference between being a feminist and being a woman who benefitted from feminism
— Jessica Valenti (@JessicaValenti) May 9, 2018
Yes, of course feminists want to see all these glass ceilings shattered, but that doesn’t mean that the appointment of a truly evil woman to a position is a win, just because no woman had held that job before.
Gina Haspel is waterboarding the glass ceiling.
— jeremy scahill (@jeremyscahill) May 9, 2018
Gina Haspel is shattering the glass ceiling over detainees’ heads.
— OhNoSheTwitnt (@OhNoSheTwitnt) May 9, 2018
Women can be evil. They can be dangerous. They can be incompetent or ineffective. Not supporting an individual woman because of the terrible things she’s done is not the same as not supporting women in general or feminism. Anyone who insists otherwise is making it clear they don’t care about either of those things.
(image: Alex Wong/Getty Images)
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