{"id":360288,"date":"2018-05-08T21:50:47","date_gmt":"2018-05-08T20:50:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/gina-haspel-and-torture-not-just-immoral-but-a-tool-for-more-war\/"},"modified":"2018-05-08T21:50:47","modified_gmt":"2018-05-08T20:50:47","slug":"gina-haspel-and-torture-not-just-immoral-but-a-tool-for-more-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/gina-haspel-and-torture-not-just-immoral-but-a-tool-for-more-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Gina Haspel and Torture: Not Just Immoral, but a Tool for More War"},"content":{"rendered":"
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With the nomination of Gina Haspel to be director of the CIA, there\u2019s rightfully some interest in her record<\/a> regarding torture<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Of course, there are questions of legality and ethics<\/a> and with respect to torture and it\u2019s possible as some have argued that the motivation of Haspel and others in overseeing torture and covering it up may be simple sadism<\/a>. <\/p>\n

But \u2013 especially given how little we know<\/a> about Haspel\u2019s record \u2013 it\u2019s possible that there\u2019s an even more insidious motive in the U.S. government practicing torture: To produce the rigged case for more war. Examining this possibility is made all the more urgent as Trump has put in place what clearly appears to be a war cabinet. My recent questioning<\/a> at the State Department failed to produce a condemnation of waterboarding by spokesperson Heather Nauert.<\/p>\n

Gina Haspel\u2019s hearing on Wednesday gives increased urgency to highlighting her record on torture and how torture has been \u201cexploited.\u201d That is, how torture was used to create \u201cintelligence\u201d for select policies, including the initiation of war.<\/p>\n

Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, has stated that neither he nor Powell were aware that the claims that Powell made before the UN just before the invasion of Iraq where partly based on torture. According to Wilkerson, Dick Cheney, and the CIA prevailed on Powell to make false statements about a connection between al-Qaeda and Iraq without telling him the \u201cevidence\u201d they were feeding him was based on tortured evidence. See my piece and questioning of Powell: \u201cColin Powell Showed that Torture DOES Work<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 2014 Senate torture report noted<\/a> (in an obscure footnote) the case Wilkerson speaks of: \u201cIbn Shaykh al-Libi\u201d stated while in Egyptian custody and clearly being tortured that \u201cIraq was supporting al-Qaeda and providing assistance with chemical and biological weapons. Some of this information was cited by Secretary Powell in his speech at the United Nations, and was used as a justification for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Ibn Shaykh al-Libi recanted the claim after he was rendered to CIA custody on February [censored], 2003, claiming that he had been tortured by the [censored, likely \u2018Egyptians\u2019], and only told them what he assessed they wanted to hear.\u201d (Libi<\/a> would in due course be turned over to Muammar Gaddafi during a brief period when he was something of a U.S. ally and be conveniently \u201csuicided\u201d in Libyan custody; see my piece \u201cTorture Did Work \u2013 to Produce War (See Footnote 857)<\/a>\u201d <\/p>\n

The Senate Armed Services Committee in 2008 indicates the attempt to use torture to concoct \u201cevidence\u201d was even more widespread. It quoted Maj. Paul Burney, who worked as a psychiatrist at Guantanamo Bay prison: \u201cA large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between<\/a> al-Qaeda and Iraq and we were not successful. The more frustrated people got in not being able to establish that link \u2026 there was more and more…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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

With the nomination of Gina Haspel to be director of the CIA, there\u2019s rightfully some interest in her record regarding torture. Of course, there are questions of legality and ethics and with respect to torture and it\u2019s possible as some have argued that the motivation of Haspel and others in overseeing torture and covering it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2519,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-360288","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\/360288","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\/2519"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360288\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}