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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsGina Haspel Observed Waterboarding at C.I.A. Black Site, Psychologist Testifies
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/04/26/gina-haspel-must-give-answers-before-becoming-the-cia-bossChilling read about US policy. Trump is just the latest in the line of amoral bureaucrats and politicians.
Response to jalan48 (Original post)
jalan48 This message was self-deleted by its author.
Hugh_Lebowski
(33,643 posts)What's the relevance, now, 4 years later, and over 1 year after she retired?
jalan48
(13,883 posts)a few days ago.It's in regard to the torture case in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Unfortunately there's a paywall. Haspel and her ilk are monsters.
some excerpts from the article..
Dr. Mitchell described how in late 2002 he and another C.I.A. contract psychologist, John Bruce Jessen, waterboarded Mr. Nashiri, who is accused of orchestrating the bombing of the Navy destroyer Cole in 2000. Seventeen American sailors were killed in the attack.
During three separate sessions, Dr. Mitchell held a cloth over the mans face and adjusted it to direct the water as Dr. Jessen poured.
Dr. Mitchell testified that Mr. Nashiri was so small that they thought he might slide out of his Velcro restraints during portions of the waterboarding. To let Mr. Nashiri breathe between pours, interrogators pivoted him 90 degrees, from lying on his back to a standing position, still strapped to a gurney.
The interrogation team shifted to other coercive techniques, including forcing the prisoner to spend time in a small confinement box. Dr. Mitchell said he had a general memory of what was done the detainee, who was nude and sometimes hooded, was probably slapped and had the back of his head slammed into a burlap-covered wall but testified that he did not have a blow-by-blow recollection of any of that stuff.
And although Ms. Haspels role as chief of base at the black site in Thailand is widely known, it is still considered a state secret.
The judge, Col. Lanny J. Acosta Jr., agreed to allow Dr. Mitchell to testify because the C.I.A. had destroyed videotapes that defense lawyers argue showed the psychologists torturing and interrogating Mr. Nashiri and another prisoner at the black site in Thailand. Defense lawyers said that deprived them of potential evidence, including something they might have wanted to show a military jury deciding whether to impose a death penalty.
Ms. Haspel has acknowledged her role in the destruction of those tapes as a chief of staff to the operations chief, Jose A. Rodriguez Jr. At her confirmation hearing, she said, I would also make clear that I did not appear on the tapes.
Solly Mack
(90,785 posts)in those trials.
The New York Times, and other news organization, recently (3 days ago) reported on the use of torture and Haspel's role in that torture regarding evidence in one of those trials.
The OP posted the wrong link, but I posted the correct link.
Doesn't matter how long ago she retired; she was still involved in torture.
Yes, her role, though not the full extent or even the exact extent, has been known for years.
As for the relevance of someone who was involved in torture and never held accountable...well, that is the relevance.
That the guilty got a pass for torture/war crimes/crimes against humanity remains the same gross mockery of "no one is above the law" and "we support human rights" it has always been and will always remain until justice is actually served.
Hugh_Lebowski
(33,643 posts)Thanks
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,431 posts)ETA: That was sarcasm, people!
Nevilledog
(51,197 posts)How is anyone surprised by this?
Solly Mack
(90,785 posts)No surprise.
Just continued disgust.