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Thread: Rand Opposes Pompeo and Haspel

  1. #1

    Rand Opposes Pompeo and Haspel





    ---

    [Mod Edit: The following is an Op-Ed by Rand.]

    Rand Paul: Why I’ll Fight Gina Haspel and Mike Pompeo Nominations
    Last edited by Brian4Liberty; 03-17-2018 at 06:50 PM.
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  3. #2
    Quote Originally Posted by EBounding View Post
    2:45
    "He's talkin' to his gut like it's a person!!" -me
    "dumpster diving isn't professional." - angelatc
    "You don't need a medical degree to spot obvious bullshit, that's actually a separate skill." -Scott Adams
    "When you are divided, and angry, and controlled, you target those 'different' from you, not those responsible [controllers]" -Q

    "Each of us must choose which course of action we should take: education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes. But let it not be said that we did nothing." - Ron Paul

    "Paul said "the wave of the future" is a coalition of anti-authoritarian progressive Democrats and libertarian Republicans in Congress opposed to domestic surveillance, opposed to starting new wars and in favor of ending the so-called War on Drugs."

  4. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by dannno View Post
    2:45

    Chris

    "Government ... does not exist of necessity, but rather by virtue of a tragic, almost comical combination of klutzy, opportunistic terrorism against sitting ducks whom it pretends to shelter, plus our childish phobia of responsibility, praying to be exempted from the hard reality of life on life's terms." Wolf DeVoon

    "...Make America Great Again. I'm interested in making American FREE again. Then the greatness will come automatically."Ron Paul

  5. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by dannno View Post
    2:45
    OMG! Rand supports your dad!

  6. #5
    "He's talkin' to his gut like it's a person!!" -me
    "dumpster diving isn't professional." - angelatc
    "You don't need a medical degree to spot obvious bullshit, that's actually a separate skill." -Scott Adams
    "When you are divided, and angry, and controlled, you target those 'different' from you, not those responsible [controllers]" -Q

    "Each of us must choose which course of action we should take: education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes. But let it not be said that we did nothing." - Ron Paul

    "Paul said "the wave of the future" is a coalition of anti-authoritarian progressive Democrats and libertarian Republicans in Congress opposed to domestic surveillance, opposed to starting new wars and in favor of ending the so-called War on Drugs."

  7. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by dannno View Post

    You mean kinda like you are virtually every single time someone posts anything even remotely critical of your god emperor?
    Chris

    "Government ... does not exist of necessity, but rather by virtue of a tragic, almost comical combination of klutzy, opportunistic terrorism against sitting ducks whom it pretends to shelter, plus our childish phobia of responsibility, praying to be exempted from the hard reality of life on life's terms." Wolf DeVoon

    "...Make America Great Again. I'm interested in making American FREE again. Then the greatness will come automatically."Ron Paul

  8. #7
    Rand "up next" on Fox channel "Outnumbered Overtime".

    update: still waiting at 1:47pm....
    Last edited by Valli6; 03-14-2018 at 11:48 AM.

  9. #8
    Trump was wrong to fire Rex Tillerson...Pompeo is a dangerous Neocon



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  11. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Sammy View Post
    Trump was wrong to fire Rex Tillerson...Pompeo is a dangerous Neocon
    Your first statement is incorrect, your second statement is correct.

    Hopefully Rand can block it.
    "He's talkin' to his gut like it's a person!!" -me
    "dumpster diving isn't professional." - angelatc
    "You don't need a medical degree to spot obvious bullshit, that's actually a separate skill." -Scott Adams
    "When you are divided, and angry, and controlled, you target those 'different' from you, not those responsible [controllers]" -Q

    "Each of us must choose which course of action we should take: education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes. But let it not be said that we did nothing." - Ron Paul

    "Paul said "the wave of the future" is a coalition of anti-authoritarian progressive Democrats and libertarian Republicans in Congress opposed to domestic surveillance, opposed to starting new wars and in favor of ending the so-called War on Drugs."

  12. #10

  13. #11
    Twitter link cited above (pscp.tv) wouldn't open for me; here is YouTube link:

    Brawndo's got what plants crave. Its got electrolytes.



    H. L. Mencken said it best:


    “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”


    "As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

  14. #12
    Press release:




    Dr. Rand Paul Announces Opposition to Pompeo, Haspel Nominations


    WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) released the following statement announcing his opposition to the nominations of CIA Director Mike Pompeo to be the next Secretary of State and Gina Haspel to take over as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency:

    “What I liked about candidate Trump was his strong condemnation of the Iraq War. I believe President Trump has done a great job, and I continue to support him, but I cannot endorse his nomination of people who loved the Iraq War so much that they want an Iran War next. Director Pompeo has not learned the lessons of regime change and wants regime change in Iran.

    “I can’t support people who never understood America First and want to manipulate the President into the sphere of the neocons who never met a war they didn’t want to star in.

    “President Trump sought to break with the foreign policy mistakes of the last two administrations. Yet now he picks for Secretary of State and CIA Director people who embody them, defend them, and, I’m afraid, will repeat them. I will not support their nominations.”


    In addition to Director Pompeo’s stance on foreign policy, Dr. Paul is also concerned about his previous statements supporting the use of enhanced interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, and his support for maintaining and expanding the growing surveillance state, including calling in a 2016 Wall Street Journal op-ed for Congress to “pass a law re-establishing collection of all metadata, and combining it with publicly available financial and lifestyle information into a comprehensive, searchable database.”[1]

    Dr. Paul believes that Gina Haspel’s record on torture, including running a CIA “black site” prison in Thailand, should disqualify her from consideration for the position.
    __________________________________________________ ________________
    "A politician will do almost anything to keep their job, even become a patriot" - Hearst

  15. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Matt Collins View Post
    Press release:
    At least somebody in Washington has some sense.
    There is no spoon.

  16. #14

    "Rand Paul Goes to War against Pompeo and Haspel"

    Published at the National Interest, which was founded by Irving Kristol and Owen Harries in '85.

    Rand Paul Goes to War against Pompeo and Haspel
    by Curt Mills
    March 14,2018

    Sen. Rand Paul appeared on the Hill Wednesday to hold an extraordinary press conference. Not only would Paul announce his opposition to Mike Pompeo as secretary of state and Gina Haspel as CIA director, but he also attacked their selections in the most specific terms possible...
    .................................................. ...........

    My reporting on Tuesday and President Trump’s own statement indicated that Iran, and Trump’s continual loathing of the Obama-negotiated Iran nuclear deal, was a major impetus for the change-up at Foggy Bottom. “I agree with Rand Paul that someone who favors war with Iran over diplomacy should not be heading the State Department,” says Scott McConnell, founding editor of The American Conservative. McConnell supported Trump for president. “Trump’s opposition to the Iran deal is the weakest part of his presidency; during the campaign, he seemed skeptical of neoconservatism (and their Iraq war project) so it’s really disappointing to see him moving in their direction.” Paul also approvingly mentioned Trump’s stated opposition to the Iraq mission.

    Paul then laid into Haspel, reading a account on her from one her former colleagues on her time heading a CIA black site prison in South Asia shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks. The senator unflinchingly called the conduct she oversaw “torture".

    “The quote says that Gina Haspel said, ‘Good job. I like the way you’re..."
    .................................................. ...........

    ...Speculation abounded Tuesday, when Rex Tillerson was ousted, on whether Paul would take this step. The senator recently spoke at the Center for the National Interest, and published an eloquent piece in this publication: Washington Must Move beyond the Old Foreign Policy Consensus. He was the only Republican to oppose Pompeo for CIA director, a nomination many Democrats supported. “Rand will not be happy,” a source familiar with his thinking told me yesterday. “He and his dad [former Congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul] can’t stand the torture stuff.”

    Senator Paul is not alone in the foreign policy restrainer community in his concern. Pompeo “is a hawkish ideologue who has advocated regime change in Iran, among other insane policies. . . . If anything, he will encourage Trump's worst instincts. His move to State is based more on his personal compatibility with the president than his ability to serve U.S. interests,” says John Glaser of the CATO Institute...
    .................................................. ...........

    much more: http://nationalinterest.org/feature/...o-haspel-24900
    Last edited by Valli6; 03-14-2018 at 04:17 PM.

  17. #15
    Anyone with an IQ above room temperature will oppose Pompeo and Haspel.

  18. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Anti Globalist View Post
    Anyone with an IQ above room temperature will oppose Pompeo and Haspel.
    Well that eliminates most of Congress.
    __________________________________________________ ________________
    "A politician will do almost anything to keep their job, even become a patriot" - Hearst



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  20. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by dannno View Post
    Your first statement is incorrect, your second statement is correct.

    Hopefully Rand can block it.
    The report noted that when Trump abruptly accepted an invitation for face-to-face talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, it contradicted what Tillerson, who was traveling in Africa, told reporters a day earlier, namely, that the United States was “a long ways from negotiations” with Pyongyang.
    Trump said that he hadn’t discussed the idea in advance with Tillerson, explaining, “Rex wasn’t, as you know, in this country. I made that decision by myself.”
    A more believable explanation is that Trump knew Tillerson was opposed to the idea so Trump just kept him out of the loop. Pompeo, in contrast, defended the president's decision.

    Another point of disagreement between Trump and Tillerson was the Iran deal. NPR noted that Pompeo, like the president, has been a fierce critic of the Iran deal, saying it doesn’t go far enough in dismantling Tehran's nuclear program and that it’s not permanent.
    Another area where Tillerson and Pompeo disagree is Trump’s recent decision to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum. Tillerson was among the advisers who reportedly tried, unsuccessfully, to talk the president out of imposing the tariffs.

    However, Pompeo defended the president’s decision in an interview with Fox News Sunday, especially with regard to China, the country widely blamed for the glut of steel and aluminum on the world market.

    Pompeo — despite his drawbacks, which we’ll examine in a moment — is not as committed an internationalist as Tillerson. In an article last December, we noted:
    Tillerson’s removal would be heartily applauded by all supporters of Trump’s “America First” inclination, since Tillerson clearly represents the opposite orientation, especially as it relates to that ultimate bastion of world government internationalism, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). We noted last March in our report on the Trump-Tillerson adoption of Communist Beijing’s “One China” doctrine (slamming our Free China ally, Taiwan) and the administration’s support of expanded U.S.-China “trade” (More Dangerous China Trade? Globalist Push vs. Trump Promise) that Tillerson, “while not a CFR member, has nonetheless been active as a speaker and participant at CFR events, a search of the Council’s website shows.” Moreover, “he has been endorsed or given high marks by CFR heavyweights and China Lobby stalwarts such as Henry Kissinger, Condoleezza Rice, Stephen Hadley, and Dick Cheney. All of these developments stack up as decidedly unfavorable signs for those who are expecting (or hoping for) major reversals in our decades of disastrous policies regarding China.”

    In his maiden speech before the Council, on March 9, 2007, Tillerson stated, “Although this is my first time speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations, from a historical perspective, it feels a little bit like home.” So although Tillerson is not a CFR member, for all practical purposes, he shares in their internationalist philosophy. It is this philosophy that has dominated U.S. foreign policy since the end of World War II, leading our nation into undeclared wars in Korea, Vietnam, and the Middle East.

    The day before we wrote about Tillerson, we profiled Pompeo in another article, “Trump May Replace Rex Tillerson With Hawkish Mike Pompeo to Head State.” In that article, we cited a report in The New American from November 2016, written just after Trump nominated him to head the CIA. The article noted that “in many ways, Pompeo is a strongly conservative Republican,” but “in the areas over which his CIA directorship will be more relevant, Pompeo cannot be classified as a defender of various constitutional safeguards of civil liberties.” That observation was based on Pompeo’s support of the surveillance programs of the National Security Agency (NSA), saying they do “good and important work.” In February 2016, Pompeo said that whistleblower Edward Snowden “should be brought back from Russia and given due process, and I think the proper outcome would be that he would be given a death sentence.”

    Another area of criticism noted in that article is especially relevant to Pompeo’s anticipated role at the head of the State Department:
    In May [2016] [Pompeo] voted against an effort to repeal the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which had authorized President George W. Bush to invade Iraq. The results of this open-ended military force authorization illustrates a reason to oppose mere congressional authorizations, rather war declarations. Congress chose to leave it up to the president whether to use military force in Iraq, instead of a more specific declaration of war. This unconstitutional delegation to the president of the congressional power to declare war is why the AUMF is still in effect, 15 years later. [Emphasis in original.]

    For the constitutionalist hoping that the unlimited war powers ceded to former presidents might be withdrawn under Trump, the prospect of having a supporter of the AUMF heading the State Department is not promising. It portends yet more unbridled interventionism.

    More at: https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnew...ry-hawk-pompeo
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

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  21. #18
    Hey I thought I would save the bandwidth by not starting a new thread and add this opinion piece by HA Goodman on Rand's objection


  22. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Working Poor View Post
    Hey I thought I would save the bandwidth by not starting a new thread and add this opinion piece by HA Goodman on Rand's objection
    Your video is not working. This?

    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    You only show up to attack Trump when he is wrong
    Make America the Land of the Free & the Home of the Brave again

  23. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by RonZeplin View Post
    Your video is not working. This?

    yes that's it

  24. #21

  25. #22
    Sen. Rand Paul: Why I can't support neocons Pompeo at State, Haspel at CIA and Bolton as NSA


    Sen. Paul says he will oppose Gina Haspel's nomination


    Republican senator from Kentucky says Gina Haspel's connection to waterboarding and enhanced interrogation of terror suspects makes her the wrong person to lead the CIA and sends the wrong message to the world.

    The neocons have been so completely and regularly wrong for decades now that it’s almost unimaginable to believe they would ever be in a position to advise a president again – let alone to wield the kind of power they will have if they lead some of our nation’s most powerful institutions.

    Yet the past week has brought such a resurgence of this failed ideology that you would be forgiven for thinking we had time-traveled back to 2003.


    Since President Trump took office, we have removed unnecessary and overzealous regulations from the American people’s backs, cut taxes, revitalized the economy and installed constitutional conservatives throughout the federal judiciary – all great and much-needed changes.


    But the furthest thing from making America great again would be to allow the neocons to have even more influence.


    The furthest thing from making America great again would be to allow the neocons to have even more influence.

    According to published reports, Gina Haspel – who President Trump wants to become the next CIA director – ran one of the CIA’s notorious “black sites” in Thailand, where she was in charge of an operation that waterboarded prisoner Abu Zubaydah 83 times in one month alone. Other reports have detailed how he was also slammed into walls and “confined … for hours in a coffin-like box” as part of what was supposed to pass for interrogation.


    We’re not simply talking about a run-of-the-mill CIA agent here. Haspel was someone in a position of power who presided over practices that epitomized the abuse of that power.

    Even worse, as scrutiny of the CIA’s actions intensified, Haspel was directly involved in the destruction of videos documenting the torture.

    This alone should be instantly disqualifying. Allowing her to now run the CIA will only invite even more distrust and suspicion of what is going on behind the scenes at the agency.

    Going forward, our CIA director should be someone who would refuse to employ certain methods because he or she knows them to be wrong – not just because they are illegal.

    Unfortunately, current CIA Director Mike Pompeo has also defended such actions in the past, once having to apologize to former Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., for saying that the committee’s release of its report on the CIA’s use of torture was “a narcissistic self-cleansing that is quintessentially at odds with (Sen. Feinstein’s) duty to the country.”


    Now Director Pompeo is the nominee to follow Rex Tillerson as our next secretary of state, and I still have the same concerns about Pompeo’s appointment as when I opposed his nomination to lead the CIA last year, especially his consistent defense of the National Security Agency’s (NSA) unconstitutional spying programs.


    Pompeo even called in a 2016 op-ed for Congress to “pass a law re-establishing collection of all metadata, and combining it with publicly available financial and lifestyle information into a comprehensive, searchable database,” and he has previously stated that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden should receive the death penalty.


    I simply cannot support Pompeo’s nomination to be our chief diplomat.

    Rumors have also swirled that former Ambassador John Bolton is being considered for an important foreign policy position in the Trump administration. This would be a catastrophically bad idea.

    Bolton has been for all of the wars Donald Trump has been against, most importantly the Iraq war. His policies would have been perfectly at home in a Hillary Clinton administration, but should have no place in President Trump’s White House.


    Most disturbingly, Bolton recently called for preemptive war against North Korea, a massive undertaking with potentially horrific consequences for millions. He has doubled down on the decision to overthrow Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, which I agree with President Trump only further destabilized the Middle East. And earlier this year, Bolton explicitly stated, “Our goal should be regime change in Iran.”


    Of course, Bolton also said obtaining Congress’ approval to use force in Libya and overthrowing dictator Muammar Gaddafi would have been “politically prudent” but “not constitutionally required.…”


    President Trump understands the damage previous foreign policy missteps have done, including helping fuel the rise of ISIS, so why should he seek counsel from those who miss the obvious every time?


    It has been said that “war is hell” for a reason, and while the realities of the world mean it cannot always be avoided, no one should look to it as a first resort – let alone eagerly cheerlead for its arrival or throw the principles that built this nation out the window to fight it.


    The failed neocons’ legacy will not be stability, safety and peace. Following their course will only lead to more chaos and quagmires. It will only create more enemies to threaten the American people and result in more sons and daughters never coming home.


    Mr. President, you had it right in your campaign that our foreign policy has been a disaster. Arming the neocons with massive power will only pave the way for more of the same.

  26. #23
    loveshiscountry
    Member

    So Haspel did not take charge of the base until after the interrogation of Zubaydah ended? Granted if her stance is, "it's still okay to torture", it doesn't really change much.

    https://www.propublica.org/article/c...ole-in-torture

    This didn't come up in 2013?

  27. #24
    From The Hill:
    This puts Democrats in a potentially powerful position to swing Haspel’s confirmation.
    Yet early signs suggest that the minority is prepared to offer support, despite her controversial record, fierce opposition from human rights activists and the fact that she is a Trump nominee.
    The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), on Wednesday cited a “very good working relationship” with Haspel, currently the agency’s deputy director. Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.), a red-state Democrat who also sits on the Intelligence panel, said he was “very much open-minded.”
    Even one of the Senate’s harshest critics of “enhanced interrogation techniques” and the architect of the so-called torture report, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), signaled a surprisingly open reception to Haspel that could pull others off the fence.
    “We’ve had dinner together. We have talked. Everything I know is she has been a good deputy director,” Feinstein said on Tuesday, adding, “I think, hopefully, the entire organization learned something from the so-called enhanced interrogation program.”
    Feinstein in 2013 blocked Haspel’s promotion to run clandestine operations at the agency over her role in interrogations at a CIA “black site” prison and the destruction of videotapes documenting the waterboarding sessions of an al Qaeda suspect there.
    Did you catch that? Feinstein blocked Haspel in 2013, but now, under Trump, she’s open to an even bigger promotion.
    A few lawmakers have come out in opposition to Haspel – most prominently Paul and Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) – but it’s unclear how much influence they will wield. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday that he is not whipping votes to oppose Haspel.
    Ladies and gentlemen, meet “the resistance.”
    It’d be funny if it wasn’t so sad.


    To be fair, Schumer does have some concerns with regard to Pompeo. He might not be belligerent enough toward Russia.
    But Democrats stressed on Tuesday that their previous support for Pompeo did not automatically mean they would support him to be secretary of State.
    Schumer noted he wants to know if the former House member will be tougher on Russia if he’s confirmed to be the country’s top diplomat.
    You seriously can’t make this stuff up. Also, don’t forget that 14 Democrats supported Pompeo for CIA director back in 2016, and Democrats also supported increased surveillance state spying powers late last year. I find it fascinating that when it comes to mass surveillance and torture, suddenly the Democrats don’t want to “resist.”
    Meanwhile, across the Washington D.C. cesspool hordes of “respected leaders” are vigorously defending Gina Haspel using the same defense used by actual Nazi war criminals after WWII.
    From The Intercept:
    During the Nuremberg Trials after World War II, several Nazis, including top German generals Alfred Jodl and Wilhelm Keitel, claimed they were not guilty of the tribunal’s charges because they had been acting at the directive of their superiors.
    Ever since, this justification has been popularly known as the “Nuremberg defense,” in which the accused states they were “only following orders.”
    The Nuremberg judges rejected the Nuremberg defense, and both Jodl and Keitel were hanged. The United Nations International Law Commission later codified the underlying principle from Nuremberg as “the fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.”
    This is likely the most famous declaration in the history of international law and is as settled as anything possibly can be.
    However, many members of the Washington, D.C. elite are now stating that it, in fact, is a legitimate defense for American officials who violate international law to claim they were just following orders…
    Haspel oversaw a secret “black site” in Thailand, at which prisoners were waterboarded and subjected to other severe forms of abuse. Haspel later participated in the destruction of the CIA’s videotapes of some of its torture sessions. There is informed speculation that part of the CIA’s motivation for destroying these records may have been that they showed operatives employing torture to generate false “intelligence” used to justify the invasion of Iraq.
    John Kiriakou, a former CIA operative who helped capture many Al Qaeda prisoners, recently said that Haspel was known to some at the agency as “Bloody Gina” and that “Gina and people like Gina did it, I think, because they enjoyed doing it. They tortured just for the sake of torture, not for the sake of gathering information.” (In 2012, in a convoluted case, Kiriakou pleaded guilty to leaking the identity of a covert CIA officer to the press and spent a year in prison.)
    One who paraphrased it is Michael Hayden, former director of both the CIA and the National Security Agency. In a Wednesday op-ed, Hayden endorsed Haspel as head of the CIA, writing that “Haspel did nothing more and nothing less than what the nation and the agency asked her to do, and she did it well.”
    John Brennan, who ran the CIA under President Barack Obama, made similar remarks on Tuesday when asked about Haspel. The Bush administration had decided that its torture program was legal, said Brennan, and Haspel “tried to carry out her duties at CIA to the best of her ability, even when the CIA was asked to do some very difficult things.”
    Texas Republican Rep. Will Hurd used the precise language of the Nuremberg defense during a Tuesday appearance on CNN when Wolf Blitzer asked him to respond to a statement from Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.: “The Senate must do its job in scrutinizing the record and involvement of Gina Haspel in this disgraceful program.”
    Hurd, a member of the House Intelligence Committee and a former CIA operative as well, told Blitzer that “this wasn’t Gina’s idea. She was following orders. … She implemented orders and was doing her job.”
    Bipartisan support of torture using a literal Nazi defense. Unfortunately, I’m not even surprised.
    Now here’s the best part…
    Notably, Blitzer did not have any follow-up questions for Hurd about his jarring comments.
    Gotta love CNN.

    Fortunately, there’s a small flicker of actual resistance to Trump’s shameless neocon pivot. It just happens to be coming from Rand Paul.

    More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...refuses-resist
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment



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  29. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by loveshiscountry View Post
    So Haspel did not take charge of the base until after the interrogation of Zubaydah ended? Granted if her stance is, "it's still okay to torture", it doesn't really change much.

    https://www.propublica.org/article/c...ole-in-torture

    This didn't come up in 2013?
    Dont worry about torture little guy, you don't need to hurt your little head thinking about it, its all classified, it never happened, its all redacted, it was all approved by the highest level of government, the national security council, its not their fault for doing their job, its a dirty job but someone has to do it.

  30. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by nikcers View Post
    Dont worry about torture little guy, you don't need to hurt your little head thinking about it, its all classified, it never happened, its all redacted, it was all approved by the highest level of government, the national security council, its not their fault for doing their job, its a dirty job but someone has to do it.
    On Feb. 22, 2017, ProPublica published a story that inaccurately described Gina Haspel’s role in the treatment of Abu Zubaydah, a suspected al-Qaida leader who was imprisoned by the CIA at a secret “black site” in Thailand in 2002.
    The story said that Haspel, a career CIA officer who President Trump has nominated to be the next director of central intelligence, oversaw the clandestine base where Zubaydah was subjected to waterboarding and other coercive interrogation methods that are widely seen as torture. The story also said she mocked the prisoner’s suffering in a private conversation. Neither of these assertions is correct and we retract them. It is now clear that Haspel did not take charge of the base until after the interrogation of Zubaydah ended.
    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.
    We also found an online posting by John Kiriakou, a former CIA counter-terrorism officer, who wrote that “It was Haspel who oversaw the staff” at the Thai prison, including two psychologists who “designed the torture techniques and who actually carried out torture on the prisoners.”
    The nomination of Haspel this week to head the CIA stirred new controversy about her role in the detention and interrogation of terror suspects, as well as the destruction of videotapes of the interrogation of Zubaydah and another suspect. Some critics cited the 2017 ProPublica story as evidence that she was not fit to run the agency.
    Those statements prompted former colleagues of Haspel to defend her publicly. At least two said that while she did serve as chief of base in Thailand, she did not arrive until later in 2002, after the waterboarding of Zubaydah had ended.
    The New York Times, which also reported last year that Haspel oversaw the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah and another detainee, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, published a second story this week making the same point. It quoted an unnamed former senior CIA official who said Haspel did not become base chief until late October of 2002. According to the Times, she was in charge when al-Nashiri was waterboarded three times.
    James Mitchell, the psychologist and CIA contractor who helped to direct the waterboarding of both suspects, said in a broadcast interview on March 14 that Haspel was not the “chief of base” whom he described in his book as making fun of Zubaydah’s suffering.
    “That chief of base was not Gina,” Mitchell told Fox Business News. “She’s not the COB I was talking about.”
    Mitchell’s book, “Enhanced Interrogation: Inside the Minds and Motives of the Islamic Terrorists Trying to Destroy America,” referred to the chief of base in Thailand as both “he” and “she.”
    We erroneously assumed that this was an effort by Mitchell or the agency to conceal the gender of the single official involved; it is now clear that Mitchell was referring to two different people.
    ProPublica contacted Mitchell in 2017 to ask him about this passage in his book. Facing a civil lawsuit brought by former CIA detainees, he declined to comment.
    At about the same time, we approached the CIA’s press office with an extensive list of questions about the cables and Haspel’s role in running the Thai prison, particularly her dealings with Zubaydah.
    An agency spokesman declined to answer any of those questions but released a statement that was quoted in the article, asserting that “nearly every piece of reporting that you are seeking comment on is incorrect in whole or in part.”
    The CIA did not comment further on the story after its publication and we were not aware of any further questions about its accuracy until this week.
    The February 2017 ProPublica story did accurately report that Haspel later rose to a senior position at CIA headquarters, where she pushed her bosses to destroy the tapes of Zubaydah’s waterboarding. Her direct boss, the head of the agency’s Counterterrorism Center, ultimately signed the order to feed the 92 tapes into a shredder. Her actions in that instance, and in the waterboarding of al-Nashiri, are likely to be the focus of questions at her confirmation hearings.

    More at: https://www.propublica.org/article/c...ole-in-torture
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  31. #27
    loveshiscountry
    Member

    Quote Originally Posted by nikcers View Post
    Dont worry about torture little guy, you don't need to hurt your little head thinking about it, its all classified, it never happened, its all redacted, it was all approved by the highest level of government, the national security council, its not their fault for doing their job, its a dirty job but someone has to do it.
    Don't get your panties in a bunch because I outed your post as quoting an inaccurate statement.

  32. #28
    Support Justin Amash for Congress
    Michigan Congressional District 3

  33. #29
    Quote Originally Posted by loveshiscountry View Post
    Don't get your panties in a bunch because I outed your post as quoting an inaccurate statement.
    I stand by my heroes statement, Haspel is a tyrant who loves to torture, I don't care if they want to claim she wasn't the person because that information is classified, I say she did it, but it was classified so they claim "it never happened". You can tell by the interview when the fox anchor asks the guy if she was even at the facility, and he wont even answer that question.


  34. #30

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