President Trump has picked CIA Director Mike Pompeo to replace fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and CIA Deputy Director Gina Haspel to replace Pompeo. Both Pompeo and Haspel are highly qualified to fill those posts. But partisan politics may make it difficult for Trump’s picks to obtain the required Senate approval.
Some Democrats oppose Pompeo because he opposed Gay marriage. Others oppose him because he is a foreign policy hawk. But what it really boils down to is that the Senate Democrats hate Trump.
As soon as Trump announced his choice of Haspel, the ACLU trounced on the nomination because in 2002 she headed a CIA prison in Thailand where terrorists Abu Zubayadah and Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri were waterboarded. A torturer to head the CIA? Not if the Senate Democrats have their way.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee which considers the Pompeo nomination is composed of 11 Republicans and 10 Democrats. All 10 Democratic members have indicated their opposition to Trump’s pick. But so has Republican Senator Rand Paul, who has announced he is unalterably opposed to the nominations of Pompeo and Haspel.
At the last minute Paul changed his mind about Pompeo and on Monday the Foreign Relations Committee voted 11-10 along party lines to recommend that Pompeo be confirmed. The full Senate will now vote on Pompeo’s nomination and he is likely to be confirmed by a narrow margin. But Haspel, who would become the first woman to head the CIA, may not fare as well.
Haspel’s nomination will be heard by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. You can bet the Democratic members will be solidly opposed to her pick as head of the CIA. They may be joined by some Republican members as well. It’s not only that Haspel oversaw the waterboarding, but she also destroyed the videos of the terrorists being subjected to that interrogation method.
Haspel has been in the CIA since 1985. She has been has been Chief of Station at several CIA outposts overseas, including the notorious Thailand prison. She has worked her way up through the ranks to Deputy Director. Haspel is eminently qualified to head the CIA, the wateboarding notwithstanding.
There used to be an unwritten rule that the President had the right to pick his choices for high government posts as long as his picks were qualified. But all that ended some years ago when partisan politics became the rule of the day.
It is downright shameful that the Democrats’ hate of Trump is getting in the way of the President’s right to pick his choices for high government posts, especially since, in this case, Trump’s picks for Secretary of State and CIA Director are so highly qualified.
As a general rule, presidents should have the cabinet members they want. That is barring an unqualified candidate or one who flat shouldn’t have the job for other reasons. For instance, a good argument can be made that the president’s personal physician, a Navy admiral, doesn’t have the experience to run the huge Department of Veterans Affairs.
Then, there’s Gina Haspel. If what is in the public record is true, she waterboarded prisoners — that’s torture under international law — then destroyed videotape evidence. Stated simply, she could — and maybe should — be charged as a war criminal.
And, I don’t want to hear the victims were terrorists and deserved what they got. Torture isn’t effective in getting the truth. A person being tortured will say whatever it takes to make the pain end. I know people who could get the Pope to confess he was the guy on the grassy knoll in Dallas who shot President Kennedy.
Besides, torturing prisoners is simply wrong. We sent Japanese officers to prison simply for waterboarding US prisoners of war. The United States is supposed to be Ronald Reagan’s shining city on a hill. We should set the standard. At the Nuremberg, Admiral Doenitz was acquitted of war crimes during submarine warfare because he got an affidavit from Admiral Nimitz that the U.S. Navy used exactly the same tactics. Doenitz took the position that the U.S. Navy would never violate international law.
If it’s OK for Gina Haspel to waterboard prisoners, then some future official can say it’s OK for him to waterboard U.S. prisoners of war. Ask Senator John McCain what he thinks about torture. He’s the U.S. government’s expert on being on the receiving end.
An argument can be made that Gina Haspell should be in a 9-by-12 foot cell, not a corner office at CIA Headquarters.
Tom, it is hard to argue with your, as always, eloquent comment.. The only thing I can say is that if Gina Haspel should be in a 9-by-12 foot cell, so should 3 or 4 of her superiors up the line who ordered and/or approved the watrerboardin, and that includes the director of the CIA at the time.
Haspel had a clean record before the Waterboarding and has had a clean record ever since.
By the way, I know that some Japanese officers who were captured in the WW2 Pacific campaign, were tortured to gain vital tactical information. Other Japanese soldiers were just simply shot by the grunts after they had laid down their firearms and surrendered. There were and there are still (surviving) WW2 war criminals among us. Do I approve of that? Of course not! Do I approve of waterboarding or any other means of torture? Of course not! But all that is behind us and so is the Haspel waterboaeding.
Most of the Democratic Senators are not really concerned about the waterboarding, they just hate Trump and want to have their gotcha moments by blocking his appointments. Haspel is most certainly qualified to be the new director and should be confirmed, all the holier-than-though crap aside.
Howie: I not only agree with you about some of Haspel’s superiors belonging in cells next to her, I’ll go further. A serious case can be made that George W. Bush and Barack Obama are guilty under a command responsibility theory in that they did not take reasonable steps either to prevent the torture or to punish it. Obama in particular refused to prosecute torturers even though he was well aware of what happened. I guess this makes me an equal opportunity jailer.
Haspel shouldn’t be denied confirmation because she’s Trumps nominee. She is qualified for the job. She should be denied confirmation because she’s a war criminal.
As to war crimes committed by Americans during World War II, yes, they were crimes and should have been punished. When i put a group of reservists on active duty during the first Gulf war, I taught them law of war. I told them if they violated the laws and customs of war, I was their worst nightmare.
As to prosecuting surviving WWII war criminals, Germany recently tried a guy who had been SS at Auschwitz and sentenced him to prison. He died while his case was on appeal.
Tom, of course you were right in instructing your troops, but sometimes they will fall on deaf ears in the heat of combat. Even though it was wrong, dead wrong, for our troops to shoot down Japanese soldiers after they had surrendered, it shouldn’t take a nuclear physicist to figure out why they did it. Those soldiers had probably just seen their comrades killed.
As for the SS guy, it’s a real stretch to compare a man who participated in the killing of countless innocent victims at Auschwitz to a lady who was involved with waterboarding of terrorists.
We are just going to have to disagree about Haspel. Instead of being locked up in a prison cell as you want, Gina Haspel should be allowed to serve as the Director of the CIA.
There are “war crimes” and there are “war crimes”. I know a man who, along with his comrads, when Iraqi soldiers tried to surrender slaughtered them to a man. You see, these U.A. soldiers had just come did afterwfrom the horror that was Kuwait City mere hours after the “BRAVE IRAQI SOLDIERS” had vacated it. They saw all the obscene atrocities that the Iraqi troops had committed there. You remember? The things the liberal press said never happened? This young man saw it. ALL of it! They were so outraged by what they saw that they responded by refusing to take the surrender of troops who, doubtless, had participated in the slaughter of infants, children and pregnant women in Kuwait City. The man has nightmares about Kuwait City to this day. He has NONE about what he and his comrades did afterwards. NOR SHOULD HE/THEY!!
Actually, the SS guy was the camp “banker.” He simply collected money taken from inmates, accounted for what didn’t stick to his fingers and deliver it to Berlin.
And, yes, in the heat of battle things happen. But it doesn’t make it legal to commit murder. The first editor of Texas Monthly was a Vietnam Marine who said he saw a lot of killings but only one murder.
And, torturing prisoners is very different from doing something stupid and illegal in the heat of battle. Haspel and her colleagues worked with psychologists to plan their “enhanced interrogation techniques” and had plenty of time to think about what they were going to do.
And, if it is understandable that American troops would kill surrendering Japanese because they had just seen their comrades killed in combat, it is understandable and (I guess) under your view forgiveable for Japanese or terrorists to kill American captives because they had just seen their comrades killed in combat.
The rule of law has to apply to everyone the same.
Tom, say what you like and read into my words what you like, but the Democrats don’t give a rat’s ass about the waterboarding, they just hate Trump. My last word is that Haspel is extremely well qualified to be the Director and she should be confirmed!
John McCain might give more tan a rat’s ass about waterboarding. And, he’s not a Democrat.
I’m not a Democrat. I have been a Republican since I was an officer in my high school Teenage Republican Club in 1964 and I give a rat’s ass about torture by US officials. It makes me want to puke.
Good God Tom, then you better stick your head in the commode, and quick.
Senator McCain is a true war hero and I respect him for that, but over the years he has become a RINO. I am sure he will oppose the nomination of Haspel because he is a strong critic of waterboarding. But that does not change the fact that the Democrats do not give a rat’s ass about waterboarding by Haspel, they just oppose her out of hate for Trump.
I happen to like you, Tom, so I am not going to go back and forth with you on this anymore. And after you get through puking, let me suggest you wash your mouth out with Listerine. It will make you feel refreshed.
Howie Katz, are you referring to the same John McCain who his fellow inmates at the Hanoi Hilton named “Songbird”? That John McCain?
Bill, John McCain was a fighter pilot in the Vietnam War who flew a number of combat missions in the face of anti-aircraft fire. That alone makes him a true hero.