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The Gina Haspel Confirmation and Appropriate American Ruthlessness
America is a nation steeped in a variety of contradictions. From its outset, the disconnect between Jefferson’s words penned in the Declaration of Independence…
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
…stand in stark contrast to the fact that many of the signatories to that Declaration were themselves owners of human chattel bereft of those rights.
America is a Republic of Ideas and in this and many ways the first of its kind. Frequently imitated but never successfully duplicated, the intellectual heritage to which we are heirs include a huge number of triumphs for mankind. But these achievements did not come without the sort of blots which I’ve already mentioned.
No matter how noble the ideals of the American Democratic Republican experiment are, the fact of the matter is that where the rubber of that idealism meets the road of reality, there is inevitable friction. The United States is, after all, a nation with things like borders, and a military and interests in the world both commercial and political. We are but one half of the equation in any conceivable interaction with the larger world, and our stated, high-minded ideals aren’t shared or universally admired by any stretch of the imagination.
That brings us to the fight over the Confirmation of Gina Haspel to become the CIA director.
For those who do not know, Haspel is the intelligence operative portrayed fictionally by Jessica Chastain in the film Zero Dark Thirty and played a major role in the location and killing of Osama Bin Laden and participated in “enhanced interrogation” techniques used on captured enemy combatants. These techniques have been described as “torture” – which is an inherently problematic word.
Haspel’s critics are in my opinion acting out of one of two motives – one is naked political opposition to the President’s Administration and the other is a good-faith statement about the nature of the ideals that this nation is called to live up to. I want to join the latter and in an ideal world, I certainly would. We do not live in an ideal world.
The actions in question principally involved the waterboarding of two particular enemy combatants — Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah — who were waterboarded five times each at CIA black sites after their capture. The question is whether or not such actions constitute “torture” — and this is where that word becomes problematic — and if the use of such techniques should disqualify a person from serving in such a high role in the government. (There is a separate but related controversy about Haspel destroying tapes of the incidents in order to protect the identity of the participants.)
I have little interest in debating the definition of the word torture, so I will stipulate for the sake of argument that waterboarding, sleep deprivation, barking dogs, loud music and various other enhanced interrogation techniques as were employed in the aftermath of 9/11 and the Afghanistan incursion are abnormal and would be unacceptable under normal circumstances. But those circumstances were hardly normal — and even these tactics were not morally reprehensible given the scale of the potential damage such individuals had already inflicted on the country.
Unfortunately, the reality of the world is grubby. Our enemies don’t play by the rules which we might otherwise agree to. They’re only acting rationally in that sense; Al Qaeda and their various heirs know that they cannot defeat the US in a straight-up military conflict, so they employ tactics meant to frustrate or go around our forward strength. Our response to that tactical fluidity cannot be to throw our hands up in frustration and say that there’s nothing we can do because our principles tie our hands.
We cannot also ignore the obvious double standard which comes up when comparing actions taken against malefactors in our custody like Mohammed or Zubaydah in comparison to things like President Obama’s “Kill List” of drone strike targets — a list which included American Citizen Anwar Al-Awlaki — all of whom were incinerated via Drone-mounted Hellfire Rocket sans any manner of due process. It seems incongruous to complain about “torture” while dozens of people are being blown up via remote control. But the Obama Administration mantra “rubble doesn’t make trouble” seems preferable to some in the long run, even in the event that potentially valuable human intelligence is lost in the process.
These sorts of hard choices are nothing new for our nation. A hundred years ago, the “Great War” came to a close, and I’m certain that if you had told a normal observer from that time that the United States would over the next 30 years firebomb multiple major cities, including using nuclear weapons on two population centers they would have been horrified. That horror would no doubt have been put in check once they were provided with the proper context of the other available options. With that knowledge in hand, it becomes obvious why the leadership made the terrible, but understandable choice to engage in the actions they ultimately did.
Annihilating Hiroshima and Nagasaki are surely far less defensible actions in a vacuum than those which Haspel and her compatriots pursued in the War against Terror. But we cannot consider those actions in a vacuum. Truman is thought of today as a great American President who brought the war and all of its attendant horrors to a swift conclusion. That sort of ruthlessness must be demonstrated from time to time if the American ideal is to survive.
President Lincoln once said of U.S. Grant (accused of being a slovenly drunk) “I cannot spare this man; he fights!” and so it has been throughout history. We cannot spare Gina Haspel.
Published in General
More heat than light is what you meant.
A wonderfully ambiguous statement.
I dunno, Jamie, I gotta disagree with you on that one. Even a small dose of jet liner crashing into a populated skyscraper is too much.
Your analysis is revisionism. We had taken a horrible terrorist hit and needed data to prevent the next one. KSM’s dunkings in the po0l, which did him no lasting damage whatsoever, gave us some valuable data. So I’m for it and I would laud any intelligencer who participated. Indeed, I am for making Waterboarding Terrorists an Olympic event.
Surely you understand where my sympathies lie in this case.
And if she destroyed the tapes to hide the identity of the water boarders, I applaud her. It would have been unconscionable for their identities to become known.
The article you cite says:
Also, again, quote from the article you cited:
Each of those sessions involved multiple waterboardings, from which the 183 figure for KSM was compiled.
I agree the 183-figure on its own can be misleading, as can the fifteen-figure on its own. It seems best to list both of them.
As a rough analogy, it’s like “I was beaten fifteen times during which I took a total of 183 punches.”
Yes, this is essentially like saying he had 183 doses of water poured on his head over the course of 5-15 individual incidents.
We obviously can’t be sure but I don’t think the actual number of incidents is material to those who are concerned about this, as “one” was apparently too many. The larger point is that when dealing with these non-state actors who move outside of both the rule of law and the rules of war, binding ourselves to the point of ineffectitude is essentially allowing our principles to form a suicide pact.
Appreciated.
If we’re evaluating the program, then it’s worth having an accurate understanding of it. I assume that’s why you mentioned the numbers in the first place.
A few responses to this:
* I morally condone torture in a genuine ticking-time-bomb scenario. Legally, I think it’s a case for prosecutorial discretion or pardons. These situations are exceedingly rare and, IMHO, neither of these cases quite rises to it.
Sure. I don’t think I misrepresented it. “5” seems to be within the agreed-upon range of values for the number of times this thing was done to KSM and AZ. The number of times they had water poured on them in each instance is material as well, but I think less important than the fact that it happened in the first place.
Also, the objection is not analog; it’s digital. The fact that it happened with a value n>0 is the problem which people are objecting to.
Now comes the part where you explain what your alternative to the things which occurred was. Just how nice should we have been to KSM and AZ once we captured them? Keep in mind, KSM is the guy who sawed Daniel Pearl’s head off on camera. Given that fact alone, it’s a travesty that he’s still alive. That we’re concerned about moderately rough treatment given to him in the aftermath of his capture should be the least of his concerns – in another parlance, it’s a “first world problem.”
How do you define such a scenario?
My opposition is specific to waterboarding and the legal justifications behind it; I am not troubled by the other techniques described as “harsh interrogation.”
I would have to go back and review myself, but my recollection from around the time of KSM’s capture was that he was actively involved in planning and carrying out AQ operations – that was his title, after all. So, extracting information from him regarding actively planned or pending terror attacks seemed entirely germane.
Haspel is in my opinion, making nice. Federal Judges are coy and evasive about these sorts of things as well when answering questions from Senators during confirmation hearings. They say things like “I can’t answer that because it might bias my later rulings” as if that person is pretending to be a tabula rasa on every case. We all know it’s theater. If called upon to do terrible, unsanctioned things in defense of our nation, I’m certain that Ms. Haspel will make the correct call – as she should – and she should not fear being called before a Star Chamber to answer why she ordered the “Code Red.”
I think it would be impossible to make hard and fast rules about such a thing which would have universal application under every conceivable scenario. American Soldiers summarily executed captured German Soldiers as a matter of course in the race to Berlin. Why? Because it was impractical to send them to some detainment facility and having uniformed enemy soldiers milling around behind your lines is a terrible idea.
Would I officially forbid people from engaging in that behavior to the point of court-martialing them for murder? No. That seems unwise. I wouldn’t encourage it either. War is (literally) the bleeding edge of moral decisionmaking, and each situation practically has to be considered within its unique context. So, I could imagine situations which could arise where such actions are conceivable, even if they might be frowned upon.
However, generally speaking, in a straight-up military conflict between two opponents obeying the agreed-upon rules of war, soldiers should have the expectation of being treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.
Agreed. KSM and other detainees should have been convicted and executed years ago. I’m not quite sure where the blame lies, but the military tribunal system appears to have been a total failure.
KSM’s awfulness and evil are stipulated but beside the point.
I think it’s fairly obvious. As a non-terrorist example, I think this case counts.
We are in agreement on this.
No, I think they’re germane to what happened here. We aren’t talking about some random gang-land murder performed by a Crip or Blood footsoldier. We’re talking about one of the masterminds of the most successful and destructive international conspiracy in history.
When Obama got up in front of everybody and intoned “America doesn’t torture” he was speaking out of both sides of his mouth. In the hand he had hidden behind his back he held a deck of cards of men whom he ordered killed – not inappropriately, mind you – and left unsaid or in parentheses was (but we’ll blast you to hell if you annoy us.)
Can you resolve this fundamental disconnect whereby it’s alright (conceivably) to immolate KSM with a Drone but it’s morally reprehensible to capture him and treat him harshly in order to find out what he knows? By this moral calculus, killing is more acceptable than capturing. I can think of a variety of reasons why that isn’t the case, but it is nonetheless still acceptable in certain situations to take these individuals out by those means when capture is impractical.
The “life-threatening danger” exception?
An uncommented-upon aspect of this is the notion that the mere threat of potential torture is frequently sufficient in these situations to produce results.
The trouble is, unless the threat is credible then it can be discounted. When confronting such people, allowing their imaginations to run wild with what might happen to them and what we could threaten them with is likely going to be more effective in the long run… but much like with diplomacy, if it isn’t backed by the credible threat of force, it’s worth less than the paper it’s printed on.
First — and it seems like we agree on this –there’s a fundamental difference between how one treats combatants in the field and how one treats them after capture.
Second, I’m not a fan of Obama’s drone-them-all policy. Among other problems, it reduces the chances of getting actionable intelligence, either through documents or interrogation.
Third, again, my objections are specific to waterboarding. I am not opposed to other techniques — harsh or otherwise — I am aware of that our intelligence and military interrogators have employed.
The choice here is not between waterboarding KSM and sending him to a Norwegian resort-prison.
Again, I condone the German deputy’s threats and would have condoned his actions had he made good on them.
Yes, but the threat has to be specific, known, and extremely time-sensitive.
Otherwise, you can justify anything with it.
Yes, with the previous provisos. Where we differ I suppose is on the use of this particular tactic. Given that SERE training involves the use of waterboarding on people who voluntarily undergo it, it hardly seems to pass muster as “torture” in the way we would normally define it.
Also worth noting is that it wasn’t indefinite. There was a fairly strict protocol for the conditions under which it was used and always under the supervision of a medical professional.
Clearly, it’s not a great idea for a couple’s retreat. But, as a tactic to be threatened with as a means of gaining intelligence or compliance, which doesn’t cause permanent injury? I’m unsure why this it differs from “Scaring them with mean dogs” or making them listen to Marilyn Manson all day… Thinking about that, give me the water.
Unfortunately, we seem to have elected to send him to Club Gitmo – your tropical resort to get away from the stress of Jihad.
I am happy to stipulate that waterboarding is an usual case and that there is legitimate controversy on the matter (Christopher Hitchens said as much in own researches on the matter). Speaking for myself, it’s either just barely torture or just barely not.
As for the argument that we do it to our own soldiers, airmen, and marines as part of SERE training… I’d find that argument more persuasive if the techniques applied in SERE were at all comparable to those applied to KSM. For what it’s worth, the CIA’s internal review of the matter agreed that the two are fundamentally dissimilar:
Did the multiple 9\11 attacks reasonably create such a threat in the minds of the interrogators?
Isn’t SERE training meant to prepare our soldiers for…torture?
Yes, but they can’t actually torture them in training. So, they find something that is torture-ish, but not quite.
Majestyk Shawn,
Well written piece. I agree.
Regards,
Jim