As the Haspel Nomination Looms, the World Is Watching
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John Kiriakou. (photo: The Washington Post)
John Kiriakou. (photo: The Washington Post)
As the Haspel Nomination Looms, the World Is Watching
By John Kiriakou, Reader Supported News
24 April 18
I had the great fortune of addressing a gathering of Greek parliamentarians
last week in Athens and meeting members of the European Parliament to
discuss
national security whistleblowing. The European Union is in the final stages
of drafting a new whistleblower protection law that would be the finest and
most comprehensive legislation of its kind in the world. Our country could
learn a lot from the Europeans.
At every free moment during the week that I was in Athens, with every single
interlocutor, their questions for me were the same: How in the world could
the U.S. government have a known torturer as director of the CIA? What is
President Trump thinking? Do we fully understand the message that the Haspel
nomination sends to the rest of the world? That the president of the United
States would name Gina Haspel as CIA director was utterly incomprehensible
to the Europeans. I couldn't disagree with them.
One Greek parliamentarian from the progressive ruling Syriza party told me
that he has a certain respect for Donald Trump because Trump's pledge to
"drain
the swamp" resonated in Greece, where corruption has been endemic for
generations and where, until 2014, governance passed back and forth between
the corrupt
conservatives and the equally corrupt socialists. Indeed, Greek prime
minister Alexis Tsipras, a Euro-Communist, was one of the first foreign
leaders to
visit Trump in the White House.
But what the Greeks (and the Germans, the Italians, the Belgians, and
others) just cannot get past is that Trump has named Gina Haspel as CIA
director.
Haspel, as you know, was instrumental in the implementation of the CIA's
torture program and was responsible for destroying video tapes of the
torture
at the insistence of her patron, the notorious former CIA Deputy Director
for Operations Jose Rodriguez.
(In the interest of transparency, I must tell you that I know Gina Haspel
and Jose Rodriguez personally. I don't like them and they don't like me.
Indeed,
after my conviction for blowing the whistle on the CIA's torture program,
and three or four days before I left for prison, Rodriguez tweeted at me.
"Don't
drop the soap," he said, showing the kindness, elegance, and class for which
he was known in the Agency. I responded, "Jose, I'm on the right side of
history
and you are not." That pretty much has defined our relationship over the
long term.)
Getting back to the Europeans, many of them have dealt with ugly periods in
their contemporary history, where their own citizens were victims of
torture.
The U.S. supported a brutal military dictatorship in Greece between 1967 and
1974 that was responsible for the murders of hundreds of innocent civilians,
the injuries of thousands, and the imprisonment of even more. Torture,
sometimes to death, was a common occurrence during the junta. The Greeks
haven't
forgotten.
The Germans are so ashamed of their Nazi past that even advocating
anti-Semitism or anti-immigrant policies is a crime in that country. The
federal prosecutor
in Germany is so appalled by the Haspel nomination that he has discussed
filing charges
against her so that, in the event she travels to Germany (or any other
European Union country), she can be arrested and prosecuted for crimes
against
humanity.
Almost all other EU countries have expressed similar or identical
sentiments.
That leads us to Capitol Hill. Haspel's confirmation hearings are set to
begin in an open session of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on
May 9
. We are likely in for the closest confirmation vote in the history of the
CIA. And it's clear that Haspel can be defeated.
Haspel needs 50 votes in the Senate, where the Republicans have 52 seats, to
become CIA director. If she gets 51 votes, she wins. If it's 50-50 and Vice
President Pence casts the tie-breaking vote, she wins. But it's a little
more complicated than that. Senator Rand Paul (R-Ken.) has already said that
he
will vote against Haspel and will filibuster the nomination. Taken alone,
that's not enough to block her. Democrats also must join the filibuster, and
none have yet done so. Furthermore, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer
(D-NY) said that he would not "whip" votes on Haspel, meaning that all
Democrats
are free to vote any way they want. Schumer will do nothing to block her.
But Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) is vocally opposed to torture. He could
vote
"no" or he could miss the vote because he's currently being treated in
Arizona for brain cancer.
With that said, many Democrats are lining up to vote "no." As soon as
Haspel's nomination was announced, Democrats Elizabeth Warren and Bernie
Sanders
indicated that they would oppose her. Good start. More importantly, Senators
Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Martin Heinrich (D-NM),
all members of the Intelligence Committee, released a statement
saying that they had asked the CIA five times for additional information on
Haspel's background and had been ignored. In the meantime, the CIA released
its own " background information " on Haspel, saying that she enjoys movies,
hockey, long walks on the beach . You get the idea. I was surprised that
they
didn't add that her pet peeves were "negative people" and other such
nonsense.
What the CIA hasn't told the Senate or the American people or anybody else
is exactly what Gina Haspel's role in the torture program was. Is it true
that
she oversaw one or more secret prisons? Is it true that she personally
watched or participated in the torture? Is it true that she ordered the
destruction
of the tapes? Why can't the CIA just come clean? Do they think they can fool
the American people? Obviously, they haven't fooled our friends and allies
abroad.
The Democrats are beginning to fall in line, whether Chuck Schumer wants
them to or not. The rumor in the press, though, is that the Republicans
could
pick up the Democratic votes they need to get Haspel approved. Democratic
senators running for reelection in states that Trump won in the general
election
are panicked and, to make themselves more palatable to Republicans in their
home states, are considering voting "yes." Those include Heidi Heitkamp
(D-N.
Dak.), John Tester (D-Mont.), Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.), and Claire McCaskill
(D-Mo.).
I've said this before and I'll say it again. We can win this thing. We can
take a real stand against torture by demanding that our elected officials
vote
"no" on Gina Haspel. Email or write to your senator right now. Or better
yet, call your senator at 202-224-3121. I spent years on Capitol Hill, and I
can
tell you that senators really do care what their constituents think. They
really do respond to the will of the people.
It'll only take a minute to make the call. Do it for human rights and for
the rule of law. Don't let Bloody Gina wreak any more havoc than she already
has.
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John Kiriakou is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former senior
investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John became the
sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the
Espionage Act - a law designed to punish spies. He served 23 months in
prison as a
result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administration's torture program.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work.
Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to
Reader Supported
News.
