President Trump’s nominee to head the CIA, Deputy CIA Director Gina Haspel, has been under sustained assault in the Senate for her actions as an actual, rather than a Valerie-Plame-esque, covert CIA officer in the aftermath of 9/11.

She has an impeccable operations background rather than the recent trend of selecting directors from among the feces scratchers of the analyst community.

Why is she being attacked? President Trump lets us know:

My highly respected nominee for CIA Director, Gina Haspel, has come under fire because she was too tough on Terrorists. Think of that, in these very dangerous times, we have the most qualified person, a woman, who Democrats want OUT because she is too tough on terror. Win Gina!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 7, 2018

For background read my two posts here | here.

Haspel’s sin seems to be her involvement in the CIA’s “black site” prison system, and enhanced interrogation, and the destruction of tapes of some of the interrogations.

I haven’t followed the story because both sides are slinging tons of bullsh** about but I don’t care. I like extraordinary rendition. I like black site prisons. I like enhanced interrogation. (I’m with John Yoo, if you come away with no major broken bones or organ damage you haven’t been tortured.) I like the idea of terrorists being swept up and disappeared. I like the discomfort that causes their families, friends, and associates. I like the idea that when a terrorist is captured he has no idea what is going to happen to him. I see the allegations against Haspel as resume enhancers. As features, not bugs.

Now there is a twist in the plot. The architect of the 9/11 attacks is demanding to testify against Haspel and her confirmation hearing:

President Trump’s nomination of Gina Haspel to lead the C.I.A. has revived debate over the agency’s post-Sept. 11 interrogation program and still-murky questions about her involvement. Now, on the eve of her Senate confirmation hearing, a striking voice is trying to join that fray: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.
…
In the weeks after his capture, an Intelligence Committee report said, Mr. Mohammed was subjected to the suffocation technique called waterboarding 183 times over 15 sessions, stripped naked, doused with water, slapped, slammed into a wall, given rectal rehydrations without medical need, shackled into painful stress positions and sleep-deprived for about a week by being forced to stand with his hands chained above his head.
…
On Monday, Mr. Mohammed submitted a request to the judge overseeing pretrial hearings in that case, Army Col. James Pohl, Colonel Poteet said. While the file is not public on the commissions docket, Colonel Poteet said it consisted of an expedited motion for permission to provide the information to the committee about Ms. Haspel.

This is obscene. The fact that someone at Guantanamo is taking this toad’s bullsh** seriously rather than shoving his complaint up his fat butt is a sign that our military has undergone a massive softening and degradation. If the Senate agrees to accept his “materials” then we have stopped deserving a freedom. More importantly, will the Democrats call this guy as a witness or demand that his testimony be entered into the record?

Tom Cotton has a great response:

Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the 9/11 mastermind, can testify to the Intelligence Committee after every 9/11 widow, widower, & child testifies about what they think of him vs. Gina Haspel & the CIA. Until then, he can rot at Gitmo & then he can rot in hell. https://t.co/LQ5U10zUCL

— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) May 8, 2018

And I’d like to offer my own humble suggestion. We should cut the interrogation videos into one-hour increments, 183 waterboardings should make up at least three or four 22-hour episodes, and run it on PPV. We could create a “director’s cut” and sell it separately. And let Americans make up their own minds while paying down the national debt in a substantial way.

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