Columnist’s justifications for CIA’s Haspel fall short
Published 1:30 am Friday, May 25, 2018
The fact that so many knowledgeable people have indicated that torture does not work insofar as gaining truthful or accurate information, Debra J. Sanders blithely asserts that such practices under the watch of Gina Haspel is what kept our country safe (“Putting security first shouldn’t disqualify CIA pick,” The Herald May 7). Torture, according to Sanders, is merely “doing your upmost to uncover what they need to know to protect this country.”
As common sense suggests, those being tortured will tell you anything they think you want to hear in order to stop the pain. If you want to get the information you already want, it will work most likely as long as you have no concern for the truth. Furthermore, it does not really matter, to this way of thinking, because it is legal, which is to say you can get away with it. Is this the America we fight for and love?
She mentions drones under President Obama to buttress her argument that two wrongs actually do add up to one right. Even so, there is a difference that proven terrorists, to the best of our knowledge, are the targets here rather than unproven even innocent folks who presumably have information we might like to have. If we could prove their guilt, there would be no need to torture to get it. In other words, a convicted killer may be found in need of dying but to torture another human just to “uncover what they need to know?” Do we no longer value a human life?
Should we not want the truth first, with punishment later? She mocks those who have such concerns. How much more acceptable are the remarks on the same page by David Ignatius. Even if efficiency is to trump morality, Haspel’s superior knowledge of Russia is a strong credential. Despite the currency, is this truly so important? I wonder if a background in cyberwarfare might be more applicable. I wonder if terrorism as a global export from the Middle-East might be more relevant a fear than a stable opponent like Russia. And, if so, would she not again institute torture, no longer a “distant memory” to be “breezily” dismissed but another version of racially-profiled fear?
Competence and high intelligence are virtues, of course, unless they march down the wrong road. With her sneering opposition to human rights organizations, let her not lose sight of the human beings these groups discuss. Sheds and barns are collateral damage, not legs, arms and bodies of human beings nor souls of the perpetrators.
Sharon Robinson
Blaine
