I'm really looking forward to former Democrat Joe Lieberman's OpEd on why Democrats need to confirm Torture Princess Gina Haspell. He hasn't published it yet, just one called Senate should fulfill constitutional duty, confirm Mike Pompeo. Pompeo has to move on the State before Haspell cn be voted on for his old job at the CIA. Lieberman hectored Democratic senators that the pro-Pompeo and anti-Pompeo votes are "breaking along partisan lines which is contrary to precedent for this important position and bad for our country because it sends a message of internal division to our allies and adversaries around the world." But he doesn't lecture the Republicans about serving the country by rejecting him-- only the Democrats about confirming him. "Pompeo’s academic and professional credentials," he insists, "are stellar. He graduated first in his class from West Point, and served as a U.S. Army cavalry officer. Later, he graduated from Harvard Law School, as an editor at the Harvard Law Review. Afterwards, he was successful in business, co-forming an aerospace company and serving as president of an oilfield equipment company. During Mike Pompeo’s three terms in the House of Representatives, he became known as a thoughtful voice on national security, serving on the House Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Intelligence Subcommittee on the CIA. While in the House, he focused on homeland security and the War on Terror, sponsoring numerous bills to contain Iranian aggression. Nothing that indicates he would be a good Secretary of State.
For the last 15 months, Pompeo has served as director of the CIA. His tenure there has been considered broadly successful, including efforts to pare bureaucracy and squeeze North Korea’s supply routes. Pompeo delivered President Trump’s daily intelligence briefings, giving him insight about emerging security threats and how the president comprehends them. These briefings earned him the trust of the president, crucial to the success of any cabinet member. This president’s confidence in Pompeo is such that he dispatched Pompeo to handle the sensitive portfolio of meeting with North Korean despot Kim Jong Un earlier this month.Given his strong background, Pompeo is certainly qualified to be secretary of State. His narrow path to confirmation in the Senate isn’t a reflection on his qualifications; instead, it reflects our country’s growing political polarization.
No-one doubts that had Democrats not driven Lieberman out of the Senate, he would be joining DINOs Joe Manchin and Heidi Heitkamp in supporting the nomination. He insists that "the Advise and Consent clause has become increasingly used in these hyper-partisan times as another way for senators to prove their conservative or liberal bona fides to their political bases. This risks turning every nomination into an exercise in ideological posturing. It is time to time to return to the traditional understanding of 'advise and consent,' putting the national interest above partisanship-- and judging simply if the candidate can do the job. Director Pompeo has shown he can. He deserves confirmation."So what about Gina? Did he read her college record from the University of Kentucky? How about her record as Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency? There must be a reason that more than 100 retired admirals and generals are raising serious concerns about her.I'd trust former CIA officer and torture whistleblower John Kiriakou, who personally knew her, far more than Lieberman. He told Amy Goodman at Democracy Now! that Haspel "tortured Just for the Sake of Torture." Perfect for Trump and his budding fascist state! And percent for Team Bolton! And Lieberman. What about Manchin and Heitkamp on this one?He's not a big fan of Pompeo either but feels we could have done worse with that nomination "Gina Haspel, however, is a problem, a big problem. I’ve been talking about Gina Haspel for more than a year. She was a dreadful choice to be the deputy director. She’s a worse choice to be the director. I think it’s wonderful that there’s a possibility of a woman heading the CIA, but there are 50 different women who are qualified to lead the CIA. It shouldn’t be Gina Haspel... We did call her Bloody Gina. Gina was always very quick and very willing to use force. You know, there was a group of officers in the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, when I was serving there, who I hate to even make the accusation out loud, but I’m going to say it: who enjoyed using force. Yeah, everybody knew that torture didn’t work. That’s not even the issue. Lots of different things work. Was it moral, and was it ethical, and was it legal? I think the answers to those questions are very clearly no. But 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."
[A] black site is a site that’s more or less off the books, meaning it doesn’t officially exist. It exists, but nobody is supposed to know that it exists. And in many cases, that includes the congressional oversight committees. So, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the CIA set up such black sites all around the world, with the idea being that if we captured someone from al-Qaeda or kidnapped someone from al-Qaeda, we could send him to one of these black sites, interrogate him without having to worry about the law, about ethics or morality or the FBI breathing down their backs. They could do whatever they wanted. And that’s how this torture program spiraled out of control. There were people who were murdered in the course of their interrogations.