Senators Joe Manchin, Joe Donnelly, and Mark Warner, all Democrats, have publicly stated that they will vote to confirm Gina Haspel, Trump’s nominee to be CIA Director.
If they do, it is time to say goodbye to them.
The Democratic Party cannot support torture. The Democratic Party cannot support Nazism.
Opposition to torture spans ideological lines in America. There is a conservative case against torture. This is not a red state or blue state issue: this is an issue of basic human decency. This is an issue of international law & historical precedent.
Peter Van Buren, writing for the American Conservative, clarifies the stakes:
“Gina Haspel: As If Nuremberg Never Happened”
Haspel oversaw the torture of human beings in Thailand as the chief of a CIA black site in 2002. Since then, she’s worked her way up to deputy director at the CIA. With current director Mike Pompeo slated to move to Foggy Bottom, President Donald Trump has proposed Haspel as the Agency’s new head.
Haspel’s victims waiting for death in Guantanamo cannot speak to us, though they no doubt remember their own screams as they were waterboarded. And we can still hear former CIA officer John Kiriakou say: “We did call her Bloody Gina. Gina was always very quick and very willing to use force. 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.”
Gina Haspel is a proven torturer. Trump is pro-torture. She is Trump’s pick to run the CIA.
Why would any Democrat support her?
The answer: they sympathize with torturers. “Just following orders” is the defense Nazis used when the world tried them for their crimes. Gina Haspel should be in prison, not receiving bipartisan votes to lead the CIA.
She has claimed she won’t restart the torture program. The Week doesn’t buy it.
She did repeatedly insist that she would not restart the torture program, but we have zero reason to take her word on that. President Trump, after all, is a big torture advocate — and we already know what Haspel does when given an illegal order.
All American public servants have a duty to disobey unlawful orders — and especially ones about torture. As the Convention Against Torture reads: "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture … An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture."
For many in this country, American exceptionalism basically boils down to "if the American government does it, that means it is not illegal." The direct result of that view is now up for a Senate vote: a war criminal running the national intelligence service.
Any Senator who votes for her should be banished from Democratic Party politics. They should not receive a cent in party money, or PAC money. They should be primaried, and national Democrats should support their opponent.
There is no place for sympathizers of torturers or Nazis within the Democratic Party. If their allegiance is to Trump and his torture agenda, they do not deserve an ounce of our support.