{"id":3643,"date":"2020-12-24T08:57:03","date_gmt":"2020-12-24T08:57:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=143069"},"modified":"2020-12-24T08:57:03","modified_gmt":"2020-12-24T08:57:03","slug":"no-joe-dont-roll-out-the-red-carpet-for-torture-enablers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/12\/24\/no-joe-dont-roll-out-the-red-carpet-for-torture-enablers\/","title":{"rendered":"No, Joe, Don\u2019t Roll out the Red Carpet for Torture Enablers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It was painful enough to live through the U.S. invasion of Iraq that caused untold devastation and human misery for no justifiable reason.<\/p>\n

Now we are again reminded of the grim Bush legacy with President-elect Biden\u2019s nomination of Avril Haines for Director of National Intelligence. Haines, who has an inside-the-beltway reputation for being nice and soft spoken, was a little too nice to CIA agents who hacked the computers of Senate Intelligence Committee investigators looking into the CIA use of torture\u2014waterboarding, sleep deprivation, hypothermia, rectal feeding, whippings, sexual humiliation\u2014at prisons in Guatanamo and Afghanistan during the Bush War on Terror.<\/p>\n

As Deputy Director of the CIA in the Obama administration, Haines chose not to discipline those CIA hackers who violated the separation of powers, crossing the boundary line and beaching the firewall between the executive and legislative branches. To add insult to injury, Haines led the team that redacted an exhaustive 5-year, 6,000-page Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture until it was reduced to a censored, 500-page summary smeared with black ink to cover up the screaming horrors and shield those responsible.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why torture survivors and their advocates have just released a damning Open Letter <\/a>urging Senators to vote \u201cNo\u201d on Haines when her nomination lands in their laps in mid-January or February after the cyber pomp and circumstance of a virtual Presidential inauguration. The letter, signed by several decade-long detainee\/survivors of torture at Guantanamo, also objects to the possible nomination of Mike Morell, a CIA analyst under Bush, for CIA Director.<\/p>\n

\u201cElevating torture apologists to a leadership position within the Biden administration will damage the USA\u2019s standing and give the world\u2019s dictators succor and comfort,\u201d said Djamel Ameziane, a Guantanamo detainee from Algeria who was tortured and held without charge from 2002-2013, until he was finally released from prison.<\/p>\n

Morell\u2019s traction may be on the wane with the Biden administration, however, after progressives launched a campaign against Morell, the former Deputy and Acting CIA Director under Obama, and Senator Ron Wyden\u2014a powerful Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee\u2014called him a \u201ctorture apologist\u201d and said his appointment to head the CIA was a \u201cnon starter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Objections to Morell include his defense<\/a> of the Agency\u2019s \u201cenhanced interrogation\u201d<\/a> practices: mock drownings, \u201cwalling\u201d\u2014repeatedly slamming prisoners against a wall, whipping detainees with electrical cords, dumping freezing cold water on detainees naked except for diapers.<\/p>\n

Morell refused to call these practices torture. \u201cI don\u2019t like calling it torture for one simple reason: to call it torture says my guys were torturers,\u201d Morell admitted to VICE<\/em> reporters in 2015. \u201cI\u2019m gonna defend my guys till my last breath,\u201d said Morell, who put his CIA buddies above truth, the law and basic decency.<\/p>\n

Morell doesn\u2019t call it torture, but Guantanamo survivor Moazzam Begg knows exactly what torture is. Begg, who signed a false confession while tortured, is Outreach Director for CAGE, a UK-based organization serving communities hard hit by the War on Terror. Begg recollects his days in US custody. \u201cThey tied me up with my hands behind my back to my legs, kicked me in the head, kicked me in the back, threatened to take me to Egypt to be tortured, to be raped, to be electrocuted. They had a woman screaming in the next room whom I believed at that time was my wife. They bought pictures of my children and told me I would never see them again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Contrary to the Senate report and the CIA\u2019s own internal review, Morell justified the torture by insisting that it was effective in thwarting future plots against Americans. Senate staffers said Morell got names, dates and facts all mixed up, and was dead wrong on the effectiveness of torture.<\/p>\n

Torture Survivor and award-winning writer Mansoor Adayfi, sold to U.S. forces in Afghanistan for bounty money and imprisoned without charge at Guantanamo for 14 years, knows firsthand that torture doesn\u2019t work. \u201cIn Guantanamo, when they put you under very bad circumstances\u2014like 72 hours under very cold air conditioning, and you are tied to the ground and someone comes and pours cold water on you\u2014you are going to tell them whatever they want you to say. I will sign anything, I will admit anything!\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to soft-pedaling the use of torture, Morell helped shield the abusers from accountability by defending the CIA\u2019s 2005 destruction of nearly 90 videotapes of the brutal interrogation of Abu Zubaydah and other detainees in CIA black sites.<\/p>\n

Progressives should know soon whether Morell\u2019s cozy relationship with Bush-era CIA agents buries his nomination for good.<\/p>\n

Biden is expected to nominate his candidate for CIA director any day now. For Jeffrey Kaye, author of Cover-Up at Guantanamo<\/em> and a signatory to the Open Letter, the President-elect must pass on Morell and the Senate must reject Haines. \u201cMorell and Haines have put loyalty to CIA torturers above adherence to US treaties and domestic law, as well as basic morality. To allow them to serve in government would send a message to all that accountability for torture is pass\u00e9, and that war crimes will always be dismissed with a wink from those in high office.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other signatories to the letter objecting to Morell and Haines include:<\/p>\n

* Mohamedou Ould Salahi, Guantanamo prisoner held without charge for 14 years; beaten, force fed, deprived of sleep; released in 2016, author, Guant\u00e1namo Diary<\/a>;<\/p>\n

* Major Todd Pierce (U.S. Army, Retired), Judge Advocate General attorney on the defense teams for Guant\u00e1namo military commissions defendants;<\/p>\n

* Sister Dianna Ortiz, a US missionary, teacher of Mayan children, who was tortured by members of the CIA-funded Guatemalan army;<\/p>\n

* Carlos Mauricio, College professor kidnapped and tortured by US-backed right-wing death squads in El Salvador; Executive Director: Stop Impunity Project;<\/p>\n

* Roy Bourgeois, Roman Catholic priest who founded School of the Americas Watch to protest US training Latin American military officers in torture techniques;<\/p>\n

* Colonel Larry Wilkerson, Whistleblower and Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell;<\/p>\n

* John Kiriakou, former CIA officer imprisoned after exposing classified information about CIA waterboarding;<\/p>\n

* Roger Waters, musician formerly with Pink Floyd, whose song \u201cEach Small Candle\u201d is a tribute to a torture victim<\/p>\n

Progressives have been lobbying against the inclusion of torture apologists in the Biden administration since the August Democratic National Convention, when 450 delegates delivered a letter<\/a> to Biden urging him to hire new foreign policy advisors and reject Haines. CODEPINK later launched a petition signed <\/a>by over 4,000, and organized Capitol Hill calling parties with Muslim Delegates and Allies to leave \u201cNo on Haines, No on Morell,\u201d messages at the offices of Senate Intelligence Committee members slated to question Haines during confirmation hearings.<\/p>\n

\n

Torture apologists DO NOT belong in the White House.@JohnKiriakou<\/a> joins @medeabenjamin<\/a>, @marcywinograd<\/a> & @HaniehJBarnes<\/a> to discuss the potential nomination of Morell & Haines to Biden’s cabinet. Join us for the webinar, followed by a calling party! https:\/\/t.co\/5GHWuxSxyo<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 CODEPINK (@codepink) December 20, 2020<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

For months, Morell was considered the frontrunner for CIA director, but opposition to his disgraceful defense of torture has cast a pall on his nomination. Now anti-war activists say they want to make sure his nomination is off the table, and that Biden and the Senate also understand Avril Haines must be rejected for her complicity in suppressing evidence of CIA torture.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s more, too.<\/p>\n

Both Morell and Haines supported Trump\u2019s nomination of Gina Haspel to CIA Director\u2014a nomination that then-Senator Kamala Harris, other prominent Democrats, and Senator John McCain vigorously opposed. Haspel supervised a black site prison in Thailand and drafted the memo authorizing the destruction of CIA videotapes documenting torture.<\/p>\n

In the words of Colonel Wilkerson, Chief of Staff for Bush\u2019s Secretary of State Colin Powell, \u201cKidnapping, torture and assassination have no place in a democracy and turn the CIA into a secret police\u2026 Abuses of the kind documented in the Senate\u2019s report could happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n

And they could\u2014if Biden and the Senate elevate torture apologists and whitewashers to the White House.<\/p>\n

We need intelligence leaders who acknowledge that torture is illegal under international law<\/a>; that is inhumane; that it is ineffective; that it puts at risk U.S. military personnel captured by adversaries. The American people must send a clear message to President-elect Biden that we will not accept torture enablers in his administration.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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