Fake News about Torture

Last February, both the NY Times and ProPublica published reports stating that CIA officer Gina Haspel was involved in the waterboarding of Abu Zubaydah at a CIA black site in Thailand in 2002. That became relevant again when President Trump nominated her to be the next CIA Director.

On Feb. 22, 2017, ProPublica published a story that inaccurately described Gina Haspel’s role in the treatment of Abu Zubaydah, a suspected al-Qaida leader who was imprisoned by the CIA at a secret “black site” in Thailand in 2002.

The story said that Haspel, a career CIA officer who President Trump has nominated to be the next director of central intelligence, oversaw the clandestine base where Zubaydah was subjected to waterboarding and other coercive interrogation methods that are widely seen as torture. The story also said she mocked the prisoner’s suffering in a private conversation. Neither of these assertions is correct and we retract them. It is now clear that Haspel did not take charge of the base until after the interrogation of Zubaydah ended…

Rocinante wrote:It’s interesting that you didn’t read either of the two retraction stories, as both say that although the Zubaydah report was incorrrect, the rest of it is accurate, including her push to destroy evidence (which happened) and her “enhanced interrogation” of other subjects. She’s a relic of war crimes. Just because they were wordsmithed to pseudo legality at the time, doesn’t mean they’re hunky dory.

LooseGoose wrote:

Rocinante wrote:It’s interesting that you didn’t read either of the two retraction stories, as both say that although the Zubaydah report was incorrrect, the rest of it is accurate, including her push to destroy evidence (which happened) and her “enhanced interrogation” of other subjects. She’s a relic of war crimes. Just because they were wordsmithed to pseudo legality at the time, doesn’t mean they’re hunky dory.

lol, so if they're 50% right it's OK with you?