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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
That is one possibility, yes.
But “Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape” comprises a fairly broad set of skills.
In a word, no.
In more than a word:
Again, an internal CIA review found that “the SERE waterboard experience is so different from the subsequent Agency usage as to make it almost irrelevant.”
This was echoed by at least one former SERE instructor (article’s from 2007, FWIW):
Coincidentally, this youtube interview of James E Mitchell just popped up on my youtube feed:
“In this episode of The Mark Steyn Show, Mark talks to the man who waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, James E Mitchell. In an extended interview about his new book Enhanced Interrogation, Dr Mitchell recalls getting to know some of the world’s most high-value terrorists – and what happened to him when his own government decided he was the problem.”
Mark Steyn and James E Mitchell
Had KSM confessed to the existence of such a specific attack under torture, would the torture then have been justified? Or would the torture remain unjustified because the torturers weren’t certain of the existence of the attack before they began?
The latter.
This “specific attack” framework for justifying the use of torture gets us pretty close to “the ends justify the means” territory, does it not?
Having already answered four such questions from you, I’m not sure what’s to be gained from a fifth.
If you have something to add to the conversation, by all means do so.
What Haspel is accused of doing, whether it was legal or not, was not an indicator that she would be incompetent in the job, and it was not done for any sort of corrupt motive or gain. Those are the two disqualifiers that should actually matter. Those are the two we normally hear about in hearings like this. In this case it’s neither of these and seems to come down to concern for the human rights of terrorists. There isn’t even an allegation that she did what she did for a reason other than her desire to protect the country. That should be the end of it, given the grey area they were in legally. All the moralizing about this in the Senate is viewed by the savages who commit these atrocities as weakness and makes them even more vicious.
Sure. If I am correct in understanding your position, it’s that water-boarding is an inherently immoral act of torture that can be morally acceptable if it is likely to produce a specific, predictable and time-sensitive benefit (the ticking time-bomb analogy). I simply disagree with your analysis. If water-boarding is an inherently immoral act of torture then it can never be morally justified. If, however, it is not an inherently immoral act of torture, then its use should be {and has been) more broadly permitted than your ticking time-bomb analogy would allow.
Close. I argue:
I don’t believe I’ve argued that waterboarding and/or torture are inherently immoral.
As with homicide, the morality depends, in part, on the specifics. Generally, it is immoral to kill another human being. In some narrow situations — self-defense, war, etc. — we condone and even (rightly) praise it.
Generally, it is immoral to water-board another human being. In some narrow situations — self-defense, war, etc. — we condone and even (rightly) praise it?
Ms. Haskel is an outstanding candidate. Her peers, superiors, the president, members of the Senate and Congress have stated so. Read any book by agents or directors going back to the 1980’s, but especially 9/11, and you’ll understand that political motives, political correctness and defunding caused the world’s thugs to increase their power, that caused the USS Cole, Yemen, the first World Trade Center and so forth. They would know – they were in the trenches. After 9/11, they realized the tool box was outdated and ill-equipped. Ms. Haskel was not a part of the decision making of the interrogation of the 3 terrorists. I hope she is confirmed.
Correct.
Again, my point is not specific to waterboarding, but to torture in general: I believe it is only morally acceptable for ticking time-bombs.
As I said, I would have condoned (non-waterboarding) torture in the case of the German deputy. Would you?
I don’t think the German deputy specified the type of torture he had in mind. Personally, I’d probably draw the line at maiming, which is the best bright line I can find between enhanced interrogation and torture. But I still see the ticking-time-bomb scenario as problematic. There’s no apparent basis for it other than utility. Torture is permitted provided it’s the only way to get something we desperately need. You think the near-certainty of saving the life of an individual child is sufficient to permit torture; others may think the probability of saving of thousands of lives is sufficient to permit torture. There may be ways of objectively making such a call, but I don’t think the German court case you cite is one of them.
Whether you use the word “torture” or some other euphemism, the mistreatment of prisoners is both immoral and unwise.
When I’m on the battlefield, I want the enemy to surrender. If the enemy believes that he will get three hots and a cot and sit in leisure and comfort if he surrenders then he is much more likely to surrender than if he believes that he will be mistreated.
Treat them well, and more will follow.
However, if it is deemed so vital to our safety to violate laws of morality and common decency that a prisoner must be mistreated to get some information, then the mistreating actor should man up and face the penalty for doing so. Such behavior should never be officially condoned.
And don’t tell me that they are heroes and must be rewarded by letting their crimes go unpunished. Forty-eight men in my battalion were killed, and another 120 or so were hospitalized when I was in Iraq. They paid a much higher price than a few months or years in jail.
If someone thinks this mistreatment is so god awful necessary (and I don’t agree), then they should do their crime and the time.
I think this warrants attention.
Well, here’s something else to factor in.
One more point. It is a conceit to hold that islamic murderous fanaticism is attributable to one man or that one man has some vital leadership that if destroyed will end the movement. It should finally be clear to even the most stubborn that this is an ideological movement that does not depend on a singular leader. Killing bin Laden was a good thing but his death did not end the murders or the movement. This obsession with a few leaders and the resultant strategy of waging this war with small raids and special forces has prolonged the war. It is entire peoples that must be conquered and punished, not figureheads.
But I guess a successful raid buys votes.
Gina Haspel has been confirmed as the CIA Chief.