Move over, M! America now has its first-ever woman DCI

Citation:

Lerner KL. Move over, M! America now has its first-ever woman DCI. Taking Bearings. Harvard Blogs. 2018;(May 18).
Move over, M! America now has its first-ever woman DCI

Abstract:

Based on her intelligence, experience, demeanor, and capacity, I think Gina Haspel is the right person to be CIA Director. I was impressed with her testimony during confirmation hearings. I agree with her that "the C.I.A.'s post-Sept. 11 interrogation program " did damage to our officers and our standing in the world. " 

I do not equivocate on denouncing torture. Torture is the resort of the unskilled interrogator, the desperate, the sadistic and the cruel. I do not defend the policy of implementing Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EIT) post 9/11, nor rendition (all renditions are, btw, extraordinary) to black sites, but I understand why they were implemented. 

Arguments about their effectiveness are to me moot because, as I have written, in the long run torture does far more harm to the torturer. It should never be U.S. policy. 

As to the role DCI Haspel in running a black site prison while EITs were in practice. At the time, EITs were the law, and EITS were not considered torture. One can debate how severe or mild the EITs werecompared to other forms of torture routinely practiced in other parts of the world, but that begins to defend EITs in I ways I personally do not wish to defend them. It is straightforward enough to assert that they were the law and sanctioned by the DOJ as part of the post-9/11 reaction of a desperate, hurting, fearful and angry nation. 

While EITs were policy it was the CIA and officers within the CIA who led the push-back against use of EITs and lobbied for a reversal of DOJ policy and their eventual discard.

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Last updated on 03/22/2024