VS heeft ook voor eigen burgers een geheime moordlijst, gebaseerd op metadata, aldus voormalig hoofd NSA en CIA

Het is zonder meer een schande dat de VS middels drones 'standrechtelijk' al duizenden mensen heeft vermoord, waarbij meer dan 90% van de slachtoffers niet eens als verdacht te boek stond, dus veelal vrouwen en kinderen....... Deze gang van zaken kan niet anders dan als grootschalige terreur worden gezien!!

Nu blijkt ook nog eens dat de beslissing om mensen op de VS moordlijst te zetten, is gebaseerd op metadata, waar een algoritme diverse (onzekere, 'mysterieuze') zaken bij elkaar zoekt, daarop wordt de beslissing genomen of deze persoon vermoord mag worden (uiteraard gebruikt men het woord 'moord' niet, immers het moet allemaal legaal lijken)......

Hoe is het mogelijk dat de hele wereld toekijkt en amper of geen commentaar levert op de massamoord, die buiten elke rechtsgang om wordt gepleegd...... Als er al kritiek wordt geleverd is dit door landen als Pakistan, waar de VS mensen uitschakelt en zoals gewoonlijk zonder de regering te waarschuwen......

Hoe is het mogelijk dat het Internationaal Strafhof toekijkt terwijl de VS de zoveelste massamoord begaat.... Deze executies staan buiten elke fatsoenlijke rechtspraak, je kan dan ook gerust stellen dat de VS niet langer een rechtstaat is (dat is overigens al heel lang zo, neem het meer dan achterlijke 'plea bargain' >> zelfs als je niets hebt gedaan is het heel vaak aan te raden om schuld te bekennen daar je anders een lange gevangenisstraf staat te wachten.....)

Dan te bedenken dat Nederland desnoods zelfs eigen burgers uitzet naar de VS....... Schande!!!

Het volgende artikel van Tom Emswiler en Will Isenberg werd eerder geplaatst op de 'Boston Globe', hierin o.a. aandacht voor Bilal Abdul Kareem, een VS journalist die werkt in het Midden-Oosten, hij stelt dat de overheid hem wil vermoorden*. De schrijvers stellen dat de VS wetgeving moet maken waarmee het vermoorden van VS burgers wordt verboden, lullig dat ze niet zitten met het vermoorden van niet-VS burgers die worden verdacht in het buitenland...... Wat ongelofelijk kortzichtig......

Ach ja, VS burgers stellen zich ver boven de rest van de wereldbevolking en dat voor burgers die hun bestaan en land te danken hebben aan de grootste genocide ooit gepleegd, die op de oorspronkelijke bevolking van de Amerika's....... 

Your Government Has a Secret Kill List. Is that OK With You?

“We kill people based on metadata.” An algorithm collates a series of mystery factors and decides whether that person should be killed.

By Tom Emswiler, Will Isenberg

September 01, 2018 "Information Clearing House" -  Bilal Abdul Kareem, an American citizen, thinks the government is trying to kill him. And he might be right.

Kareem’s story, recently chronicled in Rolling Stone, neatly captures the havoc that the war on terror has wreaked on the legal system and the dangers of abandoning legal traditions that have served us well for centuries.

Kareem resides overseas and is struggling to determine why he is apparently on the government’s secret “kill list,” which targets terror suspects for drone strikes. Kareem finds that objects in his vicinity tend to explode with some frequency, and he has taken the issue to court, arguing that the American government cannot blow him up without due process.

Unfortunately, the federal judiciary so far has largely removed itself from this process by declaring the criteria for the kill list to be a political question outside the purview of judges. Kareem’s case continues to make its way through the courts, but lawmakers shouldn’t punt their responsibilities to the judiciary.

Congress should act, and pass a law that protects American citizens from extrajudicial killing by banning the executive branch from targeting American citizens for assassination. Further, here in Massachusetts and elsewhere, every candidate running for federal office should clearly state their position on the executive branch’s assumed authority to impose a unilateral death sentence on their potential constituents.

Why does it matter if a person is American if that person may be dangerous? Setting aside whether you trust the government’s criteria for designating someone a terrorist, the reason is that each of us is entitled to due process. That’s a phrase most Americans are probably familiar with, but few outside the legal community could define.

Due process is the right to be informed and the opportunity to be meaningfully heard before the government deprives you as a citizen of life, liberty, or property. The right to due process is granted to Americans by the Fifth and 14th Amendments. It is a cloak that swathes Americans in a wide range of protections, from requiring access to an attorney when a citizen is accused of a criminal offense to a period of public comment before an agency changes a policy.

Yet, shockingly, the basic right to be notified and heard regarding a death sentence is denied to all Americans residing outside our states, territories, military bases, and embassies. The government cannot convict you of trespassing without informing you of the charge — but it can arm a drone with a missile and shoot at you, even absent any evidence that you pose an imminent threat, based on criteria it refuses to make public.

The policy of using drones to kill American citizens developed under President Barack Obama, most notably with his administration’s 2011 killing of American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki. Democrats who might have criticized George W. Bush or Donald Trump for that constitutional violation stayed mum then and have since continued their silence.

To be sure, the evidence against al-Awlaki is damning — that he inspired both the Fort Hood shooter and the Boston Marathon bombing, among other crimes. But like a domestic killer, al-Awlaki deserved a day in court. The Obama administration denied this citizen due process.

While the criteria for determining who’s on the kill list are classified, those determinations appear be automated. The former head of the National Security Agency and CIA stated flatly in 2014: “We kill people based on metadata.” An algorithm collates a series of mystery factors and decides whether someone is a terrorist, and whether that person should be killed. Call it death by Spotify.

Sound extreme? Maybe. We don’t know. You don’t know. No judge, jury, or lawmaker, for that matter, seems to know. Americans and two out of three branches of our government don’t know who’s on the list, and that must end.

Sadly, politicians from both parties have been deafeningly silent on this issue of extrajudicial killings.

In 2013, Republican Senator Rand Paul filibustered the CIA director’s nomination to protest drone strikes against Americans on American soil (an event that has never happened). Paul has since offered conflicting positions on the issue of targeted assassination of Americans overseas.

Senator Elizabeth Warren has spoken movingly about the high cost of civilian casualties caused by drone strikes, but not the targeted killing of American citizens or made her position on Obama’s extrajudicial killing of al-Awlaki known.

Every candidate running for president, senator, or representative should be questioned about whether they support extrajudicial killing of citizens and, if not, what they intend to do about it.

The right to due process has been a bedrock of the judicial system, and one of the pillars that support a free society going back eight centuries to the Magna Carta. It is the birthright of every American.

Gaining a tactical advantage is not worth losing that heritage. To every candidate running for Congress right now, we should ask: Are you comfortable with secret kill lists and extrajudicial executions? Our fellow Americans: Are you?

This article was originally published by "Boston Globe" -
=============================
* Zie: 'VS (Murder Inc.) heeft journalisten op moordlijst........'

VS senator Rand Paul stelt n.a.v. NAVO-top dat men de zaak moet bekijken vanuit het Russische perspectief

Vorige week donderdag stelde senator Ron Paul dat men even moet nadenken voor de NAVO lidstaten, inclusief de VS, Trumps dictaten uitvoeren. Dictaten als wat de NAVO lidstaten te doen staat en wat de NAVO moet zijn in de (nabije) toekomst, dit n.a.v. de NAVO-top die vorige week plaatsvond.

In een artikel op USA Today wijst Paul op de belangen van Rusland en probeert dit te doen door erop te wijzen dat men e.e.a. door een Russische bril moet bekijken, ofwel te denken aan het Russisch perspectief aangaande de NAVO acties, zoals de ongebreidelde expansie van de NAVO richting Moskou........ Een uitbreiding die bovendien ook nog eens volkomen in tegenspraak is met de afspraak die de VS maakte met Sovjet president Gorbatsjov in 1991...... Paul stelt geheel terecht (al is het een cliché van hier tot Timboektoe) dat actie reactie uitlokt......

Paul stelde verder dat men in de VS eerdere jaren een robuust en bedachtzaam debat voerde over diplomatie, dit om oorlogen te vermijden........ ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! Ik vrees dat Paul een alien is en 'niet helemaal begrijpt' waarvoor de VS staat en dat al vanaf de oprichting van deze vereniging van terreurstaten en dat is.... oorlogvoeren!! Als dit gestolen land ook maar de idee heeft dat haar belangen worden geschaad (of die van haar grote bedrijven, multinationals en olie-industrie) start het de zoveelste illegale oorlog, wel of niet voorafgegaan door een economische oorlog, het organiseren van een opstand die tot een staatsgreep moet leiden, of botweg zo'n staatsgreep uitvoeren..... Waar ik nog geheime militaire operaties van de VS in een groot aantal landen vergeet te vermelden, acties georganiseerd en geregisseerd door de CIA.......

De agressieve acties van de VS (en die van de NAVO dat in feite wordt geleid door de VS) leiden niet tot meer veiligheid in de VS, zoals de politiek en de reguliere media in de VS keer op keer hardop liegen..... Integendeel, veel van de acties brengen de VS juist in gevaar (denk bijvoorbeeld aan een kernoorlog, die niemand kan winnen en toch denkt men er hard over na er één te beginnen, sterker nog: 'vredesduif' Obama, Hillary Clinton, Trump en de Britse premier May hebben gezegd, niet uit te sluiten om als eerste kernwapens in te zetten (tijdens een op handen zijnd 'conflict')........

We should be aware of Russia's perspective

Rand Paul 

Published 12:36 p.m. UTC Jul 12, 2018

Sen. Rand Paul

MICHAEL REYNOLDS/EPA-EFE

Whether or not to expand NATO is a question that deserves debate. Would it help or hurt U.S. national security?

Does adding countries such as Albania and Montenegro increase our security or ensnare us in possible regional disputes? Are we willing to risk war with Russia by including countries that already are mired in military conflict with Russia?

To understand what NATO expansion does to our relations with Russia, one must at least be aware of Russia’s perspective. Such awareness does not mean we agree with their point of view, but rather that we are aware our actions lead to reactions, and that NATO expansion does not occur in a vacuum.

We once had robust and thoughtful debate in our country over diplomacy and our desire to avoid war. Both parties now tend to shake their fists and declare to our adversaries: “Take this sanction.” “Take this expansion of NATO.” “Take this travel restriction” — under the misguided notion our unilateral actions will lead to capitulation.

Instead, we’ve often seen rising tensions, increased nationalism and a ratcheting up of a Cold War-like fever.

There was a time when many cautioned against reckless expansion.

OUR VIEW: Donald Trump's tirades weaken NATO and please Vladimir Putin

Perhaps the most famous diplomat of the last century, George Kennan, wrote that NATO expansion would be a “fateful error” that would “inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion” and “restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations.”

Similarly, Daniel L. Davis, retired lieutenant colonel with Defense Priorities, said, “Extending NATO membership to Georgia — or Ukraine, as others advocate — in no way strengthens U.S. security, but rather unequivocally increases America’s strategic risk.”

I prefer we think of our interests first, and that the U.S. Senate return to being a deliberative body on foreign policy, where ideas are considered, and dissent is heard and debated.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was one of two senators who opposed Tuesday’s nonbinding motion to support and expand NATO.

=============================
Zie ook:
'VS torpedojager arriveert in Zwarte Zee terwijl de boel daar op scherp staat........'

'Porosjenko (Oekraïne) roept de NAVO op tot oorlog tegen Rusland'

'Oekraïne kondigt staat van beleg af vanwege 'Russische agressie' in de Zee van Azov'

'Election ploy? Poroshenko declares martial law in Ukraine after Kerch standoff'

'Putin en Trump halen spanning uit de lucht >> de westerse wereld schreeuwt moord en brand......'

'Afspraken met de VS maken? Voor je het weet heb je te maken met een 'verspreking' van de president..... ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!'

'Oekraïne, Georgië en Moldavië hebben oud bondgenootschap doen herleven, in voorbereiding op NAVO lidmaatschap en verdere actie tegen Rusland........'

'Van Kappen (VVD en ex-opperhoofd mariniers) over de doos van Pandora en Oekraïne....... OEI!!!'

Voorstel VS Senaat om Trumps oorlogvoeren te beteugelen, geeft hem juist meer macht om oorlog te voeren........ Noodsprong van het Vierde Rijk?

Een ongelofelijk staaltje volksverlakkerij waar je steil van achterover slaat: De Senaat heeft een wetsvoorstel ingediend waarmee de macht van Trump zou worden ingeperkt om oorlog te kunnen voeren, terwijl deze hem juist meer macht geeft om illegale oorlogen te starten...!!

Landen die Al Qaida, IS of de Taliban steunen kunnen met de vernieuwde Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) wetgeving, gesteund door Republikeinen en Democraten, simpel door de president als vijand kunnen worden aangemerkt, waarna deze kan besluiten het betreffende land (of zelfs landen) aan te vallen, pas na 60 dagen wordt er dan geëvalueerd...... Uiteraard zal men dan niet het onderste uit de kan halen en eisen dat de troepen worden teruggetrokken, immers je loopt dan al snel de kans te worden uitgemaakt voor laffe verrader van 'de heroïsche VS troepen (ofwel de grootste terreurorganisatie op aarde...).....

Bovendien kan de president ook nieuwe terreurgroepen aanwijzen als vijand in de oorlog tegen terreur...... In de lijst van 9 terreurgroepen die nu wordt gebruikt, is vreemd genoeg ook Al Qaida Syrië opgenomen, terwijl deze terreurgroep vorig jaar nog van de VS zwarte lijst met terreurgroepen werd gehaald, blijkbaar 'zijn de banden wat verwaterd', sinds dit feit bekend werd gemaakt........ De president kan deze groepen zelfs aanvallen als ze zich naar de mening van bijvoorbeeld de CIA in een bepaald land verbergen (zonder deze soevereine staat daar eerst in te kennen, waar bijvoorbeeld Pakistan als kandidaat voor een illegale VS oorlog kan worden aangemerkt.........).....

Lees hoe de VS tot in de (verre) toekomst oorlog zal blijven voeren en reken maar dat de champagnekurken hebben geknald bij dit nieuws (in de directie burelen van de wapenfabrikanten en het Pentagon wel te verstaan...)

SENATE PROPOSAL TO CONSTRAIN TRUMP’S WAR MAKING WOULD ACTUALLY EXPAND PERPETUAL WAR

Senator Tim Kaine introduced a new authorized use of military force resolution with Sen. Bob Corker. (Photo via AFGE on Flickr)

KEVIN GOSZTOLA

23APR2018

A new authorization for the use of military force proposed by Democratic and Republican senators would further entrench the United States in endless war. It would also streamline the ability of President Donald Trump and future presidents to expand the “war on terrorism” to additional countries and broaden a list of “associated forces” that are “co-belligerents” of al-Qaida, the Taliban, or the Islamic State.

Under the proposed AUMF [PDF], which was drafted to replace the 2001 and 2002 AUMFs still in effect, military force against the Taliban, al-Qaida, ISIS, and “designated associated forces” is renewed.

On January 20, 2022, and every four years after, the president is to submit a report on the “use of military force,” which includes a “proposal to repeal, modify, or leave in place” the current AUMF.
It removes some of the ambiguity previously in the phrase “associated forces” by naming the groups: al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), al-Qaida in Syria (including al-Nusra), the Haqqani Network, and al-Qaida in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

When the president determines that a “new organization, person, or force is an associated force covered,” a report should be submitted to the “appropriate congressional committees and leadership.”

A similar procedure is to be followed when adding new foreign countries to the list of places where the U.S. is at war. “New” countries are any countries other than Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, and Libya.

The AUMF proposal was put forward by Republican Senator Bob Corker and Democratic Senator Tim Kaine* with the bipartisan support of Republican Senators Jeff Flake and Todd Young and Democratic Senators Chris Coons and Bill Nelson.

In 1973, Congress passed the War Powers Resolution as a response to the Vietnam War. The resolution was intended to ensure the President of the United States could only deploy U.S. military forces abroad through declarations of war, “statutory authorizations,” or in the case of a national emergency.

What the proposed AUMF would effectively do is cement Congress as the war clerk for the Executive Branch. It would represent a complete abdication of responsibility over matters of war, as granted by the separation of powers in U.S. government. The president would come to leaders of congressional committees with a report that is reviewed, filed, and updated accordingly, with Congress’ only task to make sure they can fit the latest war making into the parameters laid out for perpetual war.

Trump’s latest strikes against Syria renewed attention on Congress’ failure to assert authority over war making by the Executive Branch. Several Democrats, like Representative Nancy Pelosi, made process critiques and argued there must be an AUMF for Syria before Trump pursued more war. Yet, the proposed AUMF does not really deal with the issue of military action against sovereign countries.

It does not provide authority for the president to use military force against any nation state, but it also does not contemplate what Congress should do if the president is engaged in actions, like the strikes on Syria, which senators or representatives never approved.

Additionally, the proposed AUMF grandfathers in the war in Yemen, where the United States military has played an integral role in supporting a coalition led by Saudi Arabia that has brutally attacked Yemenis and blockaded civilians.

Senators Chris Murphy, Mike Lee, and Bernie Sanders attempted to force a vote on withdrawing U.S. military support for the war in Yemen because Congress has not authorized war in the country. Corker took great offense to this, and through the proposed AUMF, he and other senators are ensuring Murphy, Lee, and Sanders cannot challenge U.S. military action in Yemen again by retroactively approving war.

Out of 535 members of Congress, Democratic Representative Barbara Lee was the only person to vote against the 2001 AUMF. She previously opposed bombing Iraq in the 1990s and committing U.S. troops to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s intervention in Kosovo.

Lee declared, “This resolution, even though it was focused on the World Trade Center attack, is open-ended. It doesn’t have an exit strategy; it does not have any reporting requirements. And the president already has authority to use force [internationally for 60 days without congressional approval] under the War Powers Act. So what was this about?”

Her caution went unheeded by elected officials. The Executive Branch used the open-ended AUMF to develop a targeted assassination program, where the groups it believed it could attack with drones or other aircraft under the AUMF were kept entirely secret from the public.

Lee opposes the proposal from Corker and Kaine because she believes it will “continue our state of perpetual war.”

“Rather than reining in the Trump Administration’s blank check for war, the Corker-Kaine AUMF would continue all current military operations, allow any president to unilaterally expand our wars, and effectively consent to endless war by omitting any sunset date or geographic constraints for our ongoing operations. This legislation also further limits Congress’s role in war making by requiring a veto-proof majority to block military action from the president,” Lee declared.

Republican Senator Rand Paul also outlined his opposition to the proposed AUMF while he was on CNN on April 17. “It is a good idea to debate whether we should be at war or not. Unfortunately, the [AUMF] they’re putting forward actually expands the president’s ability to commit war.”

He continued, “For the first time, it will list six or seven groups that we’re at war with. If you remember, after 9/11, we were at war with those who attacked us and who aided and abetted them. But now, this is for the first time gonna codify six or seven groups, maybe 10-15 countries that we can be at war in. Really it’s limitless.”

“If we detect any of the groups having any activity in any country, the president can go to war there. He just has to submit a notice saying, hey guys, we’re now at war in a new country. And that to me is not a limitation. It’s an expansion of war making, and I think, a huge mistake,” Paul concluded.

Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley opposes the proposed AUMF for similar reasons. “This new AUMF has no sunset clause – meaning it can be used indefinitely by President Trump and his successors to continue expanding the scope and geography of U.S. military action around the world. The absence of a sunset clause all but guarantees that this AUMF will be stretched by the executive branch to avoid coming to Congress for future authorizations, which is completely unacceptable.”

“Even more concerning, this legislation allows the president to unilaterally expand the scope of the authorization, both in the specific groups being targeted and in the countries in which the United States takes military action. The clear constitutional vision was for Congress and Congress alone to have the authority to initiate war. This AUMF stands that on its head, giving the President that power and leaving Congress with the impossible task of overriding presidential actions.”

“I cannot support an authorization that gives a blank check for endless war and turns Congress’s power over to the president. The Senate should indeed debate a new AUMF, but it must be one that has built-in timelines, mandates congressional approval, and limits the scope of the conflict.”

That is, for the most part, the extent of public opposition to the proposed AUMF, as of April 22.
Its supporters, like former Democratic Party vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine, actually contend it will end the notion that the president has a “blank check to wage war.”

Democratic Senator Bill Nelson is gung-ho about the proposed AUMF, sounding like President George W. Bush’s administration in the days after 9/11.

“Terrorists groups such as ISIS pose a serious threat to our national security. This bill will give the president the clear legal authority he needs to target these groups in Iraq, Syria or anywhere else they may be hiding,” Nelson said.

Efforts to repeal and update the AUMF have occurred multiple times in the past decade. Most prominently, in 2015, President Barack Obama provided legislation for an AUMF that would cover strikes against ISIS. The proposal lacked limitations like this recent proposal. Congress never voted on the authorization, and Obama continued to rely on the 2001 AUMF to claim authority for military action.

“Over the last sixteen years, we have witnessed the consequences of unfettered executive power in matters of war,” Lee stated. “Instead of further endorsing perpetual war, we need to insist on an AUMF that is narrow, clearly defined, and respects Congress’s constitutional duty to debate and authorize military action.”

Senators appear to be appropriately concerned about the ways in which Trump could abuse his authority, unlike under the Obama administration. But that concern seems increasingly likely to translate into a measure that will transform Congress’ efforts to challenge the imperial presidency into even more of a charade.
==================================

* Tim Kaine, de ex-running mate van hare kwaadaardigheid Hillary Clinton.

Washington haalt valse Befehl ist Befehl cliché van stal voor nieuwe CIA directeur 'Bloody Gina.....'

Tijdens de Neurenberg processen werd het excuus 'Befehl ist Befehl' onderuit gehaald als onzin, immers je hebt je ten allen tijde aan de (internationale) rechtsorde te houden en als dat niet kan valt het toch echt onder jouw eigen verantwoording als je je schuldig maakt aan (oorlogs-) misdaden..... Ondanks deze juridische geschiedenis, gebruikt Washington dit valse 'Befehl ist Befehl' excuus voor de nieuwe directeur van de CIA, Gina Haspel.......  

Gina Haspel, een psychopaat die niet alleen toezag op martelingen, maar ook voor de lol zelf mensen martelde in een geheime CIA gevangenis in Thailand, is dus door Trump benoemd tot de nieuwe directeur van de CIA....... Dit nadat Mike Pompeo, tot nu directeur van de CIA, een al even grote psychopaat en voorstander van het disfunctionerende martelen, tot minister van buitenlandse zaken werd benoemd....... 

Pompeo heeft meermaals gezegd dat martelen wel effectief is (wetenschappelijk bewezen onjuist) en dat alles volgens de (VS) wet is toegestaan...... (dat is niet zo, maar slimme juristen vinden wel een zwak punt in de wet, waarmee bij wijze van spreken alles gerechtvaardigd kan worden, ook als het bijvoorbeeld gaat om martelen.....)

Lees de volgende stap van de VS in het proces richting het Vierde Rijk (dat al net zo fascistisch zal zijn als het Derde Rijk, dat blijkt ten overvloede weer uit het volgende artikel van The Intercept):

WASHINGTON BREAKS OUT THE “JUST FOLLOWING ORDERS” NAZI DEFENSE FOR CIA DIRECTOR-DESIGNATE GINA HASPEL

Written by Jon Schwarz

Mar. 15

DURING THE NUREMBERG TRIALS after World War II, several Nazis, including top German generals Alfred Jodl and Wilhelm Keitel, claimed they were not guilty of the tribunal’s charges because they had been acting at the directive of their superiors.

Ever since, this justification has been popularly known as the “Nuremberg defense,” in which the accused states they were “only following orders.”

The Nuremberg judges rejected the Nuremberg defense, and both Jodl and Keitel were hanged. The United Nations International Law Commission later codified the underlying principle from Nuremberg as “the fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.”

This is likely the most famous declaration in the history of international law and is as settled as anything possibly can be.

However, many members of the Washington, D.C. elite are now stating that it, in fact, is a legitimate defense for American officials who violate international law to claim they were just following orders.

View of some of the Nazi leaders accused of war crimes during World War II during the war crimes trial at Nuremberg International Military Tribunal court, held between Nov. 20, 1945 and Oct. 1, 1946. Photo: Stringer/AFP/Getty Images

Specifically, they say Gina Haspel, a top CIA officer whom President Donald Trump has designated to be the agency’s next director, bears no responsibility for the torture she supervised during George W. Bush’s administration.

Haspel oversaw a secret “black site” in Thailand, at which prisoners were waterboarded and subjected to other severe forms of abuse. Haspel later participated in the destruction of the CIA’s videotapes of some of its torture sessions. There is informed speculation that part of the CIA’s motivation for destroying these records may have been that they showed operatives employing torture to generate false “intelligence” used to justify the invasion of Iraq.

John Kiriakou, a former CIA operative who helped capture many Al Qaeda prisoners, recently said that Haspel was known to some at the agency as “Bloody Gina” and that “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.” (In 2012, in a convoluted case, Kiriakou pleaded guilty to leaking the identity of a covert CIA officer to the press and spent a year in prison.)

Some of Haspel’s champions have used the exact language of the popular version of the Nuremberg defense, while others have paraphrased it.

One who paraphrased it is Michael Hayden, former director of both the CIA and the National Security Agency. In a Wednesday op-ed, Hayden endorsed Haspel as head of the CIA, writing that “Haspel did nothing more and nothing less than what the nation and the agency asked her to do, and she did it well.”

Hayden later said on Twitter that Haspel’s actions were “consistent with U.S. law as interpreted by the department of justice.” This is true: In 2002, the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department declared in a series of notorious memosthat it was legal for the U.S. to engage in “enhanced interrogation techniques” that were obviously torture. Of course, the actions of the Nuremberg defendants had also been “legal” under German law.

John Brennan, who ran the CIA under President Barack Obama, made similar remarks on Tuesday when asked about Haspel. The Bush administration had decided that its torture program was legal, said Brennan, and Haspel “tried to carry out her duties at CIA to the best of her ability, even when the CIA was asked to do some very difficult things.”

Texas Republican Rep. Will Hurd used the precise language of the Nuremberg defense during a Tuesday appearance on CNN when Wolf Blitzer asked him to respond to a statement from Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.: “The Senate must do its job in scrutinizing the record and involvement of Gina Haspel in this disgraceful program.”

Hurd, a member of the House Intelligence Committee and a former CIA operative as well, told Blitzer that “this wasn’t Gina’s idea. She was following orders. … She implemented orders and was doing her job.”

Hurd also told Blitzer, “You have to remember where we were at that moment, thinking that another attack was going to happen.”

This is another defense that is explicitly illegitimate under international law. The U.N. Convention Against Torture, which was transmitted to the Senate by Ronald Reagan in 1988, statesthat “no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.”

Notably, Blitzer did not have any follow-up questions for Hurd about his jarring comments.

Samantha Winograd, who served on President Obama’s National Security Council and now is an analyst for CNN, likewise used Nuremberg defense language in an appearance on the network. Haspel, she said, “was implementing the lawful orders of the president. … You could argue she should have quit because the program was so abhorrent. But she was following orders.”

Last but not least there’s Rich Lowry, editor of National Review, who issued a ringing defense of Haspel in Politico, claiming she was merely acting “in response to what she was told were lawful orders.”

Remarkably, this perspective has even seeped into the viewpoint of regular journalists. At a recent press conference at which Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul criticized Haspel, a reporter asked him to respond to “the counterargument” that “these policies were signed off by the Bush administration. … They were considered lawful at the time.”

It fell to Paul to make the obvious observation that appears to have eluded almost everyone else in official Washington: “This has been historically a question we’ve asked in every war: Is there a point at which soldiers say ‘no’? … Horrendous things happened in World War II, and people said, well, the German soldiers were just obeying orders. … I think there’s a point at which, even suffering repercussions, that if someone asks you to torture someone that you should say no.”

(Thank you to @jeanbilly545 and Scott Horton for telling me about Hurd and Paul’s remarks, respectively.)

Top photo: Gina Haspel speaks at the 2017 William J. Donovan Award Dinner.

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Voor een begeleidende video, zie het origineel

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