Let's Hear It For Cruella Haspel, The Terrorists' Terror

I have often thought that water-boarding should be an Olympic event.

The NY Slimes has a predictable pearl clutching piece on Ms. Haspel's appointment, which incidentally has come close to shattering the intelligence community's glass ceiling...a promotion that was canceled five years ago because of her involvement in enhanced interrogations.

WASHINGTON — As a clandestine officer at the Central Intelligence Agency in 2002, Gina Haspel oversaw the torture of two terrorism suspects and later took part in an order to destroy videotapes documenting their brutal interrogations at a secret prison in Thailand.

We have only the one secret prison? I'm disappointed. What do I pay taxes for?

On Thursday, Ms. Haspel was named the deputy director of the C.I.A.

The elevation of Ms. Haspel, a veteran widely respected among her colleagues, to the No. 2 job at the C.I.A. was a rare public signal of how, under the Trump administration, the agency is being led by officials who appear to take a far kinder view of one of its darker chapters than their immediate predecessors.

The actual dark chapter of that period was when our intelligence agencies were forbidden to share information under the policies and procedures espoused and championed by Jamie Gorelick, former Deputy Attorney General under the Clinton crime spree Administration.  Ms. Gorelick was a member of the 9/11 Commission whose participation was heavily criticized as she was:

"personally responsible for instituting a key obstacle to cooperation between law enforcement and intelligence operations before the terrorist attacks raises disturbing questions about the integrity of the commission itself. Ms. Gorelick should not be cross-examining witnesses; instead, she should be required to testify about her own behavior under oath. Specifically, commission members need to ask her about a 1995 directive she wrote that made it more difficult for the FBI to locate two of the September 11 hijackers who had already entered the country..."

God forbid someone like Gorelick would be placed in a position of responsibility at the CIA. I would much rather see someone who takes the safety and security of this nation seriously enough to discomfort a few terrorists.