WaPo Positions Support for Torturer as Vote for Feminism (I am going to be ill. what BS)

"The brutality inherent in the business of building and maintaining the US empire isn’t one we should be praising women, nor anyone else, for their role in."


WaPo Positions Support for Torturer as Vote for Feminism

"It should be the role of the media to draw attention to Haspel—and the CIA at large—for their work perpetuating the country's long, bloody campaigns around the world, rather than cheerleading her as some kind of feminist hero."

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Central Intelligence Agency Deputy Director Gina Haspel is sworn in before the Senate Intelligence Committee during her confirmation hearing to become the next CIA director in the Hart Senate Office Building May 9, 2018 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

As the war over Gina Haspel’s nomination to lead the Central Intelligence Agency has waged on this week, we’ve been gifted an incredible batch of corporate media apologias for the CIA’s decades-long legacy of torture, extrajudicial killings and civil liberties violations. Perhaps most remarkably, these outlets have spent hundreds of words arguing that Haspel should be confirmed as the next director of the CIA—despite having overseen a black site prison where detainees were brutally tortured, and directing the destruction of evidence of this illegal and inhumane practice—because it’s the feminist thing to do.


This was the perfect line for the Trump administration’s Haspel push—a notion informed both by the Republicans’ elementary understanding of identity politics and their obsession with calling out perceived liberal hypocrisy: After all, how could any self-respecting Democrat vote against a woman to usher the United States’ international spying apparatus into its next no doubt sinister phase?
White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders made this point plainly in a tweet last week, saying: “Any Democrat who claims to support women’s empowerment and our national security but opposes her nomination is a total hypocrite.” One small step for Gina Haspel is one giant leap for little girls everywhere who dream of growing up to become government interrogators! Trump himself touted that, in addition to being “the most qualified person” for the job, Haspel is also a woman—a convenient data point for an administration that’s handed a staggering 80 percent of its top jobs to men (most of them also very wealthy and white).

And, shamefully enough, members of the media fell right in line to push this abominable narrative, with two of the most egregious examples published by the Washington Post. On Tuesday, Post features writer Ian Shapira published a story (5/8/18) highlighting all the brave female spies who’ve fought for our freedom—an honorable legacy that would count Haspel as its heir apparent, if only the Senate would confirm her—under the headline: “Gina Haspel Isn’t the CIA’s First Woman to Face Sharp Skepticism—or to Fight Back.” The bulk of the piece is dedicated to highlighting characters like Virginia Hall, the legendary spy who evaded capture by the head of the Gestapo on just one leg, and the role of women like Jennifer Matthews, who led a team of operatives hunting Osama bin Laden before she was killed in Afghanistan along with six other CIA operatives.

The piece just once mentions the most weighty criticism of Haspel—that she ran a secret CIA black site prison in Thailand and was deeply involved in carrying out and covering up the agency’s illegal torture program. Before Haspel’s arrival at the notorious black site, Abu Zubayah, a Saudi-born Palestinian citizen who’s now considered a “forever prisoner” of Guantanamo Bay, was subjected to water torture 83 times. Under her direct supervision, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi-born Palestinian citizen, was also subjected to prolonged torture and brutal interrogation in Thailand.

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https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/05/12/wapo-positions-support-torturer-vote-feminism