It would be hard to find someone with more experience to run the CIA. And that’s why she’s a terrible choice.
The Banality of Haspel
read more
Waterboarding
More Torture Questions for Haspel
Can the nominee to head up the CIA at least meet the higher standard on torture set by Joseph McCarthy?
Leading Republicans Are Promising to Commit War Crimes — and Their Base Loves It
In its failure to prosecute bona fide war criminals, the Obama administration has left the door open for all manner of rights abusers to succeed it.
There’s Still Time to Prosecute the Torturers
I served two years in prison for exposing the CIA’s torture program. Why are the men responsible for it walking free?
Six Americans Who Said No to Torture
Meet six heroes who defied the military and the CIA to defy and expose America’s illegal torture program.
Torture Covers a Multitude of Sins
Torture comes in many forms from excruciating pain to death — of the soul, if not the body — by a thousand cuts.
The Return of Waterboarding?
During the recent Republican presidential primary debates, three candidates said without hesitation that they would authorize waterboarding as an interrogation technique if elected president. In their recent memoirs, both George W. Bush and Dick Cheney admitted with evident pride that they had approved the technique.
Justice Department Gives Torturers a Pass
The Romans had an expression for it: “Nulla poena sine lege,” no punishment without a law. But people sometimes forget that the opposite is also true: Without punishment for offenders, a law itself can die.
The CIA’s Lawyer Problem
Citizens on both sides of the political divide are outraged at the recently released Department of Justice report on the Bush administration’s torture memos, and what it shows about the lawyers who compiled those legal weapons and subverted the law. But while debate rages over whether or not legal pugilists John C. Yoo and Jay S. Bybee ought to be subjected to disciplinary action for their loose interpretation of laws prohibiting torture, the media is ignoring an equally disturbing issue. Buried in the weighty study from the department’s Office of Professional Responsibility is evidence that points directly at the Central Intelligence Agency. When it came to “enhanced interrogation techniques” — the carefully parsed phrase for torture — the lawyers at Langley don’t seem to have applied a sniff test to these controversial policies.