If you haven't heard of Gina Haspel, there might be a very good reason. I mean, she was a spy for most of her career. I'm sorry, a highly decorated agent in the clandestine services. By all accounts she has spent the majority of her professional life as a measured, capable, smart member of elite people who sacrifice some level of normalcy to gather an utilize intelligence about international goings-on. Then the current president, who goes through staff faster than I go through cheese, needed a new director of the CIA. The first female director, which is great,e specially because she is, by all accounts, great at her job. Experiences, level headed etc.
But. For a week during the Bush administration she over saw a Bangkok black site where a man was waterboarded three times. Later, against the recommendation of some, she penned a memo for her boss directing the tapes of some waterboarding to be destroyed.
There is a lot in those two sentences, a lot to unpack. Waterboarding is torture, and torture is wrong. Bad. Problematic. A lose-lose. Most experts agree that torture does not get useful information, and is against the Geneva Conventions. It is a violation of human dignity.
That being said, when Gina Haspel was in Bangkok, we had a president and an administration who considered waterboarding okay. They called it 'enhanced interrogation' to skirt the law, and they said it was necessary to prevent a mushroom cloud in Manhattan or something. Before Gina Haspel arrive at the Thai facility she briefly oversaw, another detainee was waterboarded more than 80 times. That poor man lost consciousness and actually died, and had to be resuscitated. The descriptions are horrifying. Haspel took over, briefly, over saw the same horrific act conducted 3 times, and then shut the site down and moved on with her career.
I am not here to assuage her guilt, or defend water boarding. But I can't help but feel like holding this woman, who over saw a tiny fraction of the horrific acts done in the name of U.S. national security and actually worked toward stopping it but shutting the Bangkok facility down, is misguided. We had a president who supported it 2002, and we have a president who claims we should do more than water board suspects now, and no one is questioning either of those men. Nor is anyone bothering to speak to the man who was in charge of Gina Haspel's conduct, who placed her in Thailand for those weeks in 2002. Nor is anyone questioning the individual who actually did the actual water boarding. Or who actually destroyed the tapes.
We are questioning, haranguing, the woman in the middle, between the men with all the power and the men who follow orders, and holding her responsible. To me, that seems like we are asking Gina Haspel to answer for our national sins, our election of these presidents and their appointed cabinets, because we still can't.
Talk about emotional labor.
Seriously. I understand that she is being elevated to a high position, that deserves a high degree of scrutiny. But can we all agree that she didn't decide to waterboard anyone? Why is no one asking any of these tough questions of our current or past president, both of whom rationalized and excused torture when it was convenient, and sacrificed the humanity of others to stay in power, to look strong.
It is so much easier to rest it all on the shoulders of Ms. Haspel, because even though she neither gave the orders nor took the action, she is the woman we can all turn to and ask if it is ever going to happen again.
I mean, do we all need a national mommy that bad? Maybe we should elect one, then.
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