Ted Galen Carpenter
An especially insidious snare for a liberal democracy in the
conduct of its foreign policy is the temptation to adopt the
strategies and tactics of one’s adversaries. President Donald
Trump’s appointment of Gina Haspel as the new director of the
Central Intelligence Agency highlights that problem. A longtime CIA
veteran, Haspel ran one of the Agency’s infamous “
black sites ” (in Thailand) during George
W. Bush’s administration. Those sites specialized in
conducting “enhanced interrogation” (torture) of Al
Qaeda suspects. Such techniques included subjecting prisoners to
sleep deprivation lasting for days, hanging them in stress
positions for hours at a time, and most controversial of all,
waterboarding—repeated simulated drowning—of suspects.
Haspel …read more
Source: Cato Institute
