{"id":360275,"date":"2018-05-08T19:21:45","date_gmt":"2018-05-08T18:21:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/vips-call-on-senate-intel-panel-to-vote-against-haspel-consortiumnews\/"},"modified":"2018-05-08T19:21:45","modified_gmt":"2018-05-08T18:21:45","slug":"vips-call-on-senate-intel-panel-to-vote-against-haspel-consortiumnews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/vips-call-on-senate-intel-panel-to-vote-against-haspel-consortiumnews\/","title":{"rendered":"VIPS Call on Senate Intel Panel to Vote Against Haspel \u2013 Consortiumnews"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

With torture-overseer Gina Haspel set to face the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday instead of a judge, the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity urge committee members to vote against her nomination. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

MEMORANDUM FOR: <\/b><\/span>Members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

FROM: <\/b><\/span>Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

SUBJECT: <\/b><\/span>Opposition to Gina Haspel as CIA Director<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

We, the undersigned intelligence, diplomatic, law enforcement, and military professionals, are writing to urge you to vote against Gina Haspel to lead the Central Intelligence Agency.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Putting Haspel in charge of the CIA would undo attempts by the agency \u2014 and the nation \u2014 to repudiate torture. The message this would send to the CIA workforce is simple: Engage in war crimes, in crimes against humanity, and you\u2019ll get promoted. Don\u2019t worry about the law. Don\u2019t worry about ethics. Don\u2019t worry about morality or the fact that\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>torture doesn\u2019t even work<\/span><\/span><\/a>. Go ahead and do it anyway. We\u2019ll cover for you. And you can destroy the evidence, too.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Described in the media as a \u201c<\/span><\/span><\/span>seasoned intelligence veteran<\/span><\/span><\/a>,\u201d Haspel has been at the CIA for 33 years, both at headquarters and in senior positions overseas. Now the deputy director, she has tried hard to stay out of the public eye. Former CIA Director Michael Pompeo has lauded her \u201c<\/span><\/span><\/span>uncanny ability to get things done<\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0and inspire those around her.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

That is true for those of Haspel\u2019s mindset. But many of the rest of us who knew and worked with Haspel at the CIA called her \u201cBloody Gina\u201d because of her direct involvement in the CIA\u2019s torture program.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The President\u2019s appointment of Haspel hurts morale among CIA officers who recognize that torture is wrong, inefficient, and counterproductive. It comforts people at the agency who still believe that \u201cenhanced interrogation\u201d is somehow acceptable. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The\u00a0message\u00a0it sends to our friends and allies (and the\u00a0countries we criticize in the State Department\u2019s annual\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>human rights reports<\/span><\/span><\/a>) is this:\u00a0We say we\u2019re a shining city on a hill, a beacon of respect for human rights, civil rights, civil liberties and the rule of law.\u00a0But that simply is not true. We…<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With torture-overseer Gina Haspel set to face the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday instead of a judge, the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity urge committee members to vote against her nomination. MEMORANDUM FOR: Members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity SUBJECT: Opposition to Gina Haspel as CIA Director […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2524,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-360275","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2524"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360275\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}