Wednesday 14 March 2018

Thumbs down for Gina Haspel?


I'd have thought that arch-feminist Katty Kay would have been delighted that a woman has been appointed to head the CIA (the first woman to head the organisation), but, alas, her Twitter feed has shown no interest in this feminist angle. Her lone tweet about Gina Haspel's appointment by President Donald J. Trump is this re-tweet:


And John Simpson has similar concerns:


And the following 'Analysis' on the BBC News website uses some telling adjectives:
A return to dark practices?

Analysis by Tara McKelvey, BBC News, Washington

The White House shakeup has profound implications - and particularly for the CIA. The agency's work is conducted with nominal oversight, and many decisions hinge on the discretion of the director. This morning the president spoke approvingly of the acting director, Gina Haspel, pointing out that she's a woman in a high leadership position.
As an intelligence officer, she was known for her harsh views: she ran a notorious black site in Thailand, a place where prisoners were waterboarded. She's now working for a president who's been ambivalent about the matter. He said in the past he wanted to bring back waterboarding. James Mattis, the defence secretary, convinced him otherwise.
The president could change his mind again - if Ms Haspel and other intelligence officials said they believed it was necessary. In this way the US could return to its dark practices of black sites and brutal interrogations.
It looks as if the BBC will be voting against Gina Haspel's appointment at the Congressional hearings...

...though actually, come to think about it, they don't have a seat in the Senate, so they can't. Oh well.

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