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Veteran spy Gina Haspel will become the first female director of the CIA after six Democrats joined Republicans in a Senate confirmation vote that overrode concerns about her role in the spy agency's harsh interrogation program after 9/11.
Thursday's 54-45 vote split both parties, and the margin was the closest for a CIA nominee in the nearly seven decades that a nod from the Senate has been required. Haspel, who has spent nearly all of her 33-year CIA career in undercover positions, is the first career operations officer to be confirmed since William Colby in 1973.
Haspel, 61, is a native of Kentucky but grew up around the world as the daughter of an Air Force serviceman. She worked in Africa, Europe and classified locations around the globe and was tapped as deputy director of the CIA last year.
Source: Fox News
Also at the New York Times, CNN[warning: autoplay video], and Vox among others.
(Score: 5, Informative) by aristarchus on Saturday May 19 2018, @10:31PM (4 children)
Wrong. Illegal orders. Illegal under the Geneva and Hague conventions, illegal under the Convention Against Torture, illegal under 18 U.S. Code Chapter 113C. Just because some Regent alum "lawyer" says an order is "lawful" does not mean that it in fact is. In fact, it might be part of "lawfare" that the US Military is waging, where the lawyers are actually illegal enemy combatants. Nueremberg principle still apply:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Principles [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 19 2018, @10:44PM (3 children)
For example, the Geneva convention protects only the uniformed soldiers of nation-states that ratified the Geneva convention. I don't see ratification by Al Qaeda or the Taliban, and anyway they were not wearing uniforms.
Given that the United Nations Convention against Torture is ratified by nearly every country, it certainly can't mean what you think it does. I see it has been ratified by Libya, Egypt, China, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Tajikistan, Yemen, Venezuela, Russian Federation, Democratic Republic of the Congo... you know, I'm thinking the treaty must require torture.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 19 2018, @11:36PM (1 child)
Where's your proof that all of the detainees were even guilty? There was no due process, so they could have just kidnapped anyone and claimed they were terrorists.
That countries violate international law does not mean the law doesn't exist.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 20 2018, @01:59AM
That's exactly what happened in more than one case. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_Intelligence_Committee_report_on_CIA_torture [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Sunday May 20 2018, @10:24AM
Also not true. Once international law has been ratified by enough states, it becomes "customary International Law", binding upon all, even non-signatories. And combatants are combatants is they identify themselves as such, which means not necessarily a "uniform", but just a signifying mark, such as just an armband, or the open bearing of arms. And the right of non-state political communities to wage wars has been recognized at least since the Protocols Additional of 1970. Speak not of what you know not. You are playing into the neo-cons hands.