The View from the Middle
Since the Senate confirmation hearings for Gina Haspel started about mid-morning yesterday and the public portion ended about noon, most Americans were unable to watch Gina Haspel “school” our pompous, pathetic and pitiful senators. And I use the word “school” intentionally. She clearly was the teacher in the room and the senators were the unruly students being put in their place. She was cool, calm and knowledgeable. Her 33 years of experience at every level of the CIA allowed her to answer any realistic question asked by the senators and even politely correct those who didn’t even come with their homework assignments done.
At one point, 84-year-old Diane Feinstein (what is the mandatory retirement age in the Senate?) asked about the tapes of interrogations that were erased. Diane was outraged that tapes of 92 people being questioned had been destroyed, until Ms. Haspel calmly informed her that it was 92 tapes of one person. This is something that Ms. Feinstein should have known as her stumbling, bumbling response quickly indicated. Yet Gina Haspel was composed and even kind in her handling of this obvious gaffe.
And then, of course, the Senators (at least the Democrat Senators) ran out of legitimate questions so they had to resort to hypothetical and even trick questions. One Senator asked her what she would do if Donald Trump asked her to waterboard some detainees tomorrow? Now, he already knew the answer to the question. She, in fact, had already said that she would not use that technique anymore, but she wouldn’t even put the CIA back into the interrogation business again. But this Senator just wanted to thump Trump, and she handled it perfectly. She suggested that she had met with President Trump several times and she was extremely confident that he would never ask her to do that, but she restated her plan to never use that technique again.
Finally, Kamala Harris, Senator from California, asked Ms. Hasper if she believed that waterboarding was “immoral”. The easy answer is “yes”, but then later on Ms. Harris would accuse Ms. Hasper of knowing committing an immoral act. But Gina Hasper didn’t fall for this cheap shot and simply stated that she supports America’s higher standard in the area of interrogation. This, of course exasperated Kamala who will now claim that Hasper would not admit that waterboarding is immoral. For Kamala, this was a win-win question since she planned to criticize Gina Hasper no matter what her answer was.
But here is the flaw in Kamala Harris’ line of questioning. First of all, Gina Hasper didn’t suggest the use of waterboarding or approve of its use. At the time she was put in charge of the interrogation station in Thailand, she was a low-level manager in the CIA, just following legal orders. If anyone should be asked that question it would be Nancy Pelosi or Jay Rockefeller, Democrat Senators who were briefed about all of the Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EIT’s) back in 2002.
If anyone should have taken the heat for the use of these EIT’s, it should have been John Brennan, who was the #4 guy at the CIA when they were approved and implemented in 2002. But instead, 49 out of 53 Democrat Senators voted to confirm John Brennan for the very job they are trying to deny to Gina Hasper. Total Hypocrisy!
Someone also needs to remind Kamala Harris that the likes of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed had just plowed three airplanes into the twin towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington DC, killing over 3,000 Americans. Also, KSM had videotaped his beheading of Daniel Pearl for all the world to witness. I certainly would define those things as immoral. Kamala, here’s a history lesson for you. Terrible things happen during war. Men, women and children get killed. Is that immoral? Would it have been immoral for our military or CIA to not use these EIT’s and thus allow thousands more of Americans to be murdered in follow-up attacks after 9/11. When the enemy is beheading our people, drowning them in cages and setting them on fire, I’m not sure if I would qualify splashing some water in KSM’s face as immoral.
Get off your high horse, Kamala, and get down in the trenches with Gina Haspel who just wanted to protect Americans from further violence. And tell your other Democrat Senators to get off their “resist, insist, persist and throw hissy fits” train long enough to confirm this very capable and qualified person to be our next Director of the CIA.
A final note that everyone should know. Hundreds of men in our military have been waterboarded as part of their training, and only three terrorists have experienced the same treatment. Kamala, get some perspective before you attack good people like Gina Haspel.
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