People's Republic

We are starting this week with a discussion of Donald Trump’s nominee for CIA director, Gina Haspel. In 2002, Haspel became a chief of base for a CIA black site in Thailand, codenamed “Cat’s Eye,” where she oversaw acts of torture against al Qaeda suspects. Three years later, she would oversee the destruction of 92 tapes of evidence related to the torture of Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. Haspel has been described as “quite literally a war criminal” by Jameel Jaffer of the ACLU, and the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights has called on German officials to issue an arrest warrant against Haspel. But instead of facing a day in prison over her egregious violations of human rights under international humanitarian law, Haspel has instead been nominated to lead the very agency she used to carry out these crimes. Two Democrats - Joe Donnelly, and Joe Manchin III - have announced their support for Haspel, while only two Republicans - Rand Paul and the ailing John McCain - are currently oppo