Haspel Nomination: Torture? Let’s Also Not Forget the CIA’s Core Program of Assassination
NOVANEWS
By Jacob G. Hornberger
The Future of Freedom Foundation
The nomination of CIA operative Gina Haspel to be CIA director has, fortunately, given rise to powerful arguments against the U.S. government’s participation in torture, a practice that is common to tyrannical regimes. The critics of Haspel’s nomination are right: The United States should never be engaged in evil conduct, and the torture of a human being is without any doubt whatsoever evil conduct. That’s why torture is inevitably associated with such regimes as Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and North Korea. It has no place in a country whose very own founding document, the Constitution, expressly prohibits the federal government from inflicting “cruel and unusual punishments” on people.
Unfortunately, though, ...