GAZA -- NAKBA

THE ABSURD TIMES

 

 

 

 

 

There is not anything more sickly so far from Israel and the Trumps than what is going on right now on the border with Gaza.  The report covers it pretty well, so there is no need to get into details.  All we can add is a reflection: back during Watergate, Hunter Thompson asked how low must one get to become President in this country.  So far, one wishes that we have the answer now, but an equal fear is that there is a possibility of sinking even lower.  To contemplate it, however, is the path to madness.

 

Dr. Jill Stein ‏Verified account @DrJillStein 52m52 minutes ago

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Israel killing scores of Palestinian protesters in Gaza isn't a "clash", it's a massacre. A US-backed massacre of an occupied people crying out for their human rights. The occupation of Palestine is an atrocity. Stop $10 million/day US support for Israeli military NOW.

 

Here is the report.  It is accurate in every single detail as of this morning:

 

We go to Gaza for a live update from Sharif Abdel Kouddous as tens of thousands of Palestinians have gathered near the heavily fortified border with Israel for nonviolent protests against the U.S. Embassy's opening in Jerusalem. At the time of our broadcast, the Israeli military had killed at least 30 Palestinians, and least 1,000 had been injured. "No one is carrying any weapons here. There are no bullets being fired by Palestinians on Israeli soldiers. … And yet these killings continue," Kouddous says. This comes as senior members of the Trump administration have gathered in Jerusalem for the embassy's opening.

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Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We begin today's show in Gaza, where the Israeli military has killed at least 30 Palestinians, at this count, today, amidst the massive nonviolent protests against the U.S. Embassy's opening in Jerusalem, later, after this broadcast. At least 1,000 people have been injured. Israeli soldiers are currently firing live ammunition into the crowd of tens of thousands of Palestinian protesters, who have gathered in Gaza near the heavily fortified border with Israel. The Israeli military has also been dropping tear gas from drones over Gaza.

This comes as senior members of the Trump administration have gathered in Jerusalem for the opening of the U.S. Embassy, including President Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump, White House senior adviser; her husband, senior adviser Jared Kushner; and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. Jared Kushner is expected to lay out the Trump administration's plan for Middle East peace in the coming weeks. The Trump administration's decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem has sparked widespread international condemnation, while it's been praised by the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who spoke on Sunday.

PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: Move your embassies to Jerusalem, because it advances peace. And that is—that's because you can't base peace on a foundation of lies. You base peace on the foundations of truth. And the truth is that not only has Jerusalem been the capital of the Jewish people for millennia, and the capital of our state from its inception; the truth is that, under any peace agreement you could possibly imagine, Jerusalem will remain Israel's capital.

AMY GOODMAN: Two controversial pastors have been chosen by the Trump administration to lead prayers at the U.S. Embassy's opening. The right-wing preacher Robert Jeffress, who has previously said, quote, "Islam is a false religion inspired by Satan," and that, quote, "You can't be saved by being a Jew," he's anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic, anti-Mormon, anti-gay.

For more, we go to Gaza, where we're joined by Sharif Abdel Kouddous, independent journalist, Democracy Now! correspondent.

Sharif, welcome back to Democracy Now! Explain what's happening in Gaza right now, as the U.S. Embassy is about to be opened, symbolically, in Jerusalem.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, Amy, there's just a simply massive protest all along the eastern border of Gaza, the border with Israel, throughout the entire length of the Strip, from the north in Beit Hanoun, to the south in Rafah. I was at the biggest protest site, which is just east of Gaza City. There are thousands of people converging on the site—men, women and children. And it's a really surreal scene. There are people gathering, mostly young men and boys, up near the border, where there is barbed wire, three sets of barbed wire. And you can see, just a couple of hundred yards away, Israeli soldiers, you know, under these canopies, on mounds of sand, sometimes in jeeps, and they are picking people off with—snipers are literally picking people off. I've seen people who weren't even close to the fence being shot. Most of the people are being shot in the lower extremities, in their legs. I saw one person shot in the throat. The latest numbers—they keep going up—somewhere between 28 and 30 killed, including a paramedic and a disabled person. There's a thousand wounded today, including nine journalists. That brings the total, since this movement began, this kind of somewhat unprecedented movement in Gaza, since March 30th, to 74 people killed and over 9,000 injured.

And, you know, there's—no one is carrying any weapons here. There are no bullets being fired by Palestinians on Israeli soldiers. There's nothing I have seen that poses any threat to the Israeli military. Not a single Israeli soldier has been injured. And yet these killings continue. People insist that this is peaceful. There are no military uniforms allowed. There are no weapons allowed. Despite the fact that there are very heavily armed groups in Gaza, this was a decision that was made by a group of—by the committees that are running this movement. People throw rocks. They burn tires, large tires, which send huge plumes of black smoke into the air, to try and block the view of the snipers. They also send these kites and balloons, which have either a burning rag or an improvised Molotov cocktail dangling off the end, and they try and guide it over, over the border.

And what most people are doing, it's just the very act of walking to the border. Some people go and place the Palestinian flag on the barbed wire. Some people do go and cut the wire and try and cross, saying that they are implementing the right of return themselves. But it's also a way—you know, we have to remember that people are trapped in Gaza. There's really no way out. Many people have never left the Strip, because all border crossings are closed to them, and they're not allowed to leave. And so this is a way of pushing their bodies up against their confinement. And this is also happening, all of this, in a buffer zone. We have to remember that Israel imposed a buffer zone a couple of hundred meters from the border in Gaza. And so, over the years, farmers and people living on that side of the Gaza Strip have been regularly shot at by Israeli troops from the other side. And so, even reclaiming this space in Gaza itself is, in itself, an achievement. But it's a very—it's a very difficult situation.

And as you mentioned, there are—well, and they're using these high-velocity sniper bullets, which cause a lot of damage. Also, a couple of doctors told me that they're using fragmentation bullets, which break apart upon impact. And they have seen injuries with fist-sized holes in the exit wounds. And most of this is being—people are being shot in the legs. They were talking about nearly 10,000 people injured, many of them by live ammunition, many being hit in the legs. You know, it kind of reminds me of the first intifada. Israelis would break the arms of Palestinians who were throwing stones. And now it's Palestinians walking towards the border, and so they're taking out their legs. We were in Shifa Hospital. If you just walk there, I mean, there was a wailing of pain in the orthopedic wards and young men and boys walking around on crutches, many of them lying in beds, their legs bandaged up with rods and pins protruding out. One doctor told me that they're creating a new generation of cripples. There's been almost 30 amputations.

And also there's the fact of the tear gas. Tear gas comes in three different ways. It's fired by jeeps, which fire in multiple rounds, five at a time, at the crowd. They're also fired by the normal kind of rifle, that goes much further. But there's a new method, which I saw twice today, is tear gas being fired from drones. And this is a new method that Israel experimented with just a couple of weeks before these protests started. It was first used in Gaza in March. And military officials were reported as saying that they were experimenting with this, but it looks like it's now operational. And this also fits a trend of Israel kind of experimenting its tools of occupation on the bodies of Palestinians. And those tools are usually exported elsewhere. And I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing tear gas drones in other places, as well. But a really chaotic situation here.

AMY GOODMAN: So, you're talking about what's happening on the Gaza-Israel border. The embassy is opening in Jerusalem, Sharif. Do you know about any protests there? It's opening just after the broadcast, actually, of this show. The protest in Gaza, while today is the most deadly day of the Israeli military gunning down Palestinian protesters—the numbers, we think, around 30, as you said—we're nearing 80 Palestinians killed by Israeli snipers and the Israeli military since the ongoing nonviolent protest of March 30th, that are supposed to be culminating tomorrow, although expected to go on from there.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, Amy, being here in Gaza, it's hard to know what's happening in Jerusalem, just with everything that's happening on the ground and also a lack of access to the internet. But what I can tell you is that Jerusalem is a main factor in what's driving this. You know, there's a number of reasons that this kind of new movement is happening in Gaza. It's the accumulation of a number of things and the convergence of a number of events.

You know, first of all, there's the siege, of course, where the situation in Gaza—I've been coming here since 2011, and every time I come, the situation is much worse. It's really now intolerable. This has been a siege for 11 years. It has affected everything—the economic situation, humanitarian situation, the right to travel. On top of that, in summer, the Palestinian Authority and President Mahmoud Abbas imposed sanctions on Gaza, worsening the economic situation and things like electricity, in a bid to force Hamas's hand. And, you know, everyone knew that this was unsustainable. People were talking about it. And so, that's one of the reasons this has risen up.

But another one, in a broader context, and from speaking with a lot of people here, there's a sense that the very core of the Palestinian cause is under threat, that the essence of the Palestinian cause is under threat. So you have Jerusalem, which is at the very core of the Palestinian cause, with Trump moving the embassy to Jerusalem, the U.S. Embassy, and recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and that is a huge insult to Palestinians. And there's also the issue of the right of return. Many people here spoke of what's called the deal of the century, that's supposedly being worked on by Trump and other countries. There's been several leaked versions of it. But many of them do away with the right of return, and treat Palestinian refugees as a humanitarian situation. If you take away Jerusalem and the right of return, you know, what's left for the Palestinian cause? So that's really driving this, as well.

And it also comes in a context of a divided leadership, Palestinian leadership, with Fatah and Hamas really nowhere near reconciliation, that was supposed to happen a few months ago. It comes in a context of a region where Arab countries, like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, are aligned with Israel, in many ways. And it's coming on the 70th anniversary of the Nakba, of 70 years of waiting for the right to return not being realized.

And finally, Gaza has seen itself, historically, as responsible for the national cause. Yasser Arafat is from Gaza. Gaza gave birth to the first intifada. It gave birth to Fatah. It gave birth to Hamas. It gave birth to Islamic Jihad. It is—all of this came out of Gaza, and it sees itself as part of—you know, responsible for the Palestinian cause. And so, that's why the demands here are not just lifting the siege. They go to the very essence of it, and they're calling for the right of return, as well.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about the significance of the opening of the embassy in Jerusalem. An anti-gay, pro-Trump pastor from Dallas, Pastor Robert Jeffress, was chosen by the Trump administration to lead the prayer at the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem. Pastor Jeffress has a history of making hateful comments against Muslims, Jews, Catholics, Mormons, the LGBTQ community. This is just a few of the statements he's made over the years.

DONALD TRUMP: Where is Pastor Jeffress? He's around here someplace. What a good guy! Where is he? Well, come here. I love this guy!

PASTOR ROBERT JEFFRESS: Here's the deep, dark, dirty secret of Islam. It is a religion that promotes pedophilia, sex with children. … Mormonism is not Christianity. It has always been considered a cult by the mainstream of Christianity.

ANDERSON COOPER: Hindus and Buddhists, Islam—cults?

PASTOR ROBERT JEFFRESS: Yes, absolutely. … Muhammad was nothing but a bloodthirsty warlord who beheaded 600 Jews who would not follow him into battle.

IMAM MOHAMMAD ALI ELAHI: That is not true.

PASTOR ROBERT JEFFRESS: Islam is wrong! It is a heresy from the pit of hell. Mormonism is wrong. It is a heresy from the pit of hell. Judaism, you know, you can't be saved, being a Jew.

JIM ACOSTA: And Mormons do say they are Christians.

PASTOR ROBERT JEFFRESS: Yeah.

JIM ACOSTA: They say that. They believe in Jesus Christ.

PASTOR ROBERT JEFFRESS: Well, a lot of people say they're Christians, and they're not. … Homosexuality is degrading. It's a degenerative practice. .. Homosexuality is a perversion. They are engaged in the most detestable, unclean, abominable acts you can imagine. … Marriage should be between a man and a woman. Whenever you counterfeit something, you cheapen the value of the real thing. … Around the world today, you have Muslim men having sex with 4-year-old girls, taking them as their brides, because they believe the prophet Muhammad did it.

AMY GOODMAN: That's Reverend Jeffress, in that compendium put together by Media Matters. Mother Jones reports Jeffress, who runs the First Baptist Dallas megachurch in Texas, has referred to both Islam and Mormonism as a "heresy from the pit of hell," believes Islam, Mormonism, Hinduism and Buddhism are all cults, that Catholicism represents the genius of Satan. Jews, he believes, are going to hell. "You can't be saved by being a Jew," he said. Islam, he said, "is a religion that promotes pedophilia, sex with children," he said, among other things. This is the man who will be doing the opening prayer today at the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, Sharif. Also, President Trump's children, son-in-law and daughter, Ivanka Trump and Jared [Kushner], will be there, along with the treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin. Apparently, Jared Kushner, who's under investigation in the United States, his son-in-law, will be unveiling a Middle East peace plan in the next few weeks, Sharif.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, what can you say? I mean, you know, Jerusalem, it goes to, like I said, the very core of the Palestinian issue. And this is being done—I mean, speaking with people here in Gaza, you know, and not just—well, I mean, the fact that the decision was made in this way, but also the arrogance in the way that it is being done, will not be, I think—you know, pass easily here. It's not something that Palestinians are just going to let slide.

You know, there's been a slow and very determined movement to displace Palestinians from Jerusalem. Palestinians who live in Jerusalem have a separate kind of identity card. They have to constantly prove what's called a "center of life" there. If they travel abroad for a length of time, they can lose that residency, and then it will go to a Jewish person, a settler. If they marry someone from the West Bank, then they can't live together in Jerusalem. So there's a whole raft of laws and rules and different ways that they've been slowly chipping away to take over Jerusalem.

And then, you know, this, the move of the embassy, is just another kind of slap in the face. And it's one of the main three issues that Palestinians have been calling for. And it's also recognized under international law, you know, that it's not going to go to either state, that it's going to be a shared capital, if we go by what the United Nations resolutions have said. So, you know, what can you say when—and also you get this kind of pastor here?

And I've just been handed, Amy, the death toll number here in Gaza has now just gone up to 37 just today. So this killing continues.

And, you know, I just have to point out also, in a lot of the coverage I've seen, it's always Gaza is equated with Hamas, and it's just that this is a Hamas movement and so forth. And, you know, Gaza is much more than Hamas. And especially what's happening now, this is a mass movement of all sectors of Palestinian society. Hamas is involved, but so is Fatah, so is PFLP, so is Islamic Jihad, you know, all those political parties. But more than that, there are women's committees, youth committees, civil society committees, legal advocates. All of them are taking part and making these decisions of how to move forward and how to run this movement. There are no party flags allowed. I didn't see any Hezbollah flags. They're not allowed. Only the Palestinian flag. And in the back of the protest, further away from the border just a couple of hundred yards, there's a festive atmosphere. There's cultural events. There's art. There's music. There's celebrations of Palestinian heritage. So, this is really more of a broad-based, grassroots movement. I don't think, even if Hamas wanted this to stop, that it could stop it. And—

AMY GOODMAN: Sharif?

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Go ahead.

AMY GOODMAN: We just have this report from AP. You were describing the drones that are releasing tear gas, and you've got the butterfly bullets that explode within a person's body. The latest number of people dead since March 30th is, we believe, around 84. Just today alone, in the deadliest day of the Israeli military's attack on this nonviolent protest in Gaza, 37 people dead. And AP is saying, "Witnesses say Israeli drones have dropped incendiary materials, setting ablaze tires that had been collected for use in a planned Gaza border protest. They say the drones set tires ablaze in two locations early Monday, releasing large clouds of black smoke."

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: I wouldn't be surprised. This morning, drones flew over and set fire to, early in the morning, two encampment sites, trying to set fire to the tents themselves. Some sewage water was sprayed in the tent encampment in Khan Younis. And, you know, when we talk about crossing borders, the military does regular incursions into Gaza all the time and commits these things.

But, yeah, I mean, these—you know, Israel is always coming up with kind of these new weapons. And the drones, I saw one, you know, for the first time today. It flew over, and then, all of a sudden, maybe six canisters, tear gas canisters, dropped out of the drone. They're spinning, because they're spewing out the gas, and so they kind of spread over a large area. And you have people, you know, men, women and children, just kind of fleeing everywhere. It's quite, quite terrifying. And again, you know, this is—the resistance of this movement is really—it's just rocks, it's kites and balloons, it's some Molotov cocktails. But nowhere near can they reach the Israeli soldiers, who are sitting behind these ramparts and picking people off with sniper rifles.

So, you know, and the burning of these tires, there have been kind of changes of tactics. You have what they call the tire brigade, and you'll see all these young men and boys run up with all these tires, and they put them in these holes that they've dug in the ground, so they can hide down and not be hit by the bullets. And then they'll light one on fire, and a young man will drag it, sprinting out to the front and hoping not to get shot, and then run back. And then, once that tire is burned, there's a huge plume of black smoke, and it really does bar the view of the snipers. And so, there's this kind of, you know, resistance that's trying to counter this violence. But again, yeah, today, as I said, the number now is up to 37, so, by far, the bloodiest day. And tomorrow there's also supposed to be a massive mobilization. Tomorrow is the 70th anniversary of the Nakba. And we don't know what will—

AMY GOODMAN: And when you say Nakba, Sharif, just to be clear, the 70th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel, for Palestinians, seeing this as the 70 years starting with the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Explain what Nakba means.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Yeah, Nakba was what—how Palestinians refer to the founding of Israel and the forced expulsion and mass displacement of something like 750,000 Palestinians from Palestine. And so, you know, this year marks the 70th anniversary of that. You know, in Gaza itself, over 80 percent of the residents of Gaza are refugees or the descendants of refugees who fled from their homes and were forced into Gaza back in 1948.

So, you know, you have these young men who keep trying to cross. They say, "I want to go back home," even though they've obviously never been there. But they say, "This is our land." And I asked one of them, you know, "You're going to cut this wire, and you're going to cross. You don't have anything with you." I said, "You're going to get hurt, or you're going to die." He said, "I knew I was going to get hurt. But I'm not afraid, and I'm going to go." So there's also a sense of despair involved, as well. I mean, there's these young men going, knowing that they're going to be either crippled or be killed, but they kind of keep doing it.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Sharif, we will continue to talk to you tomorrow, as this massive mobilization continues. Today, on this day of the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, opposed by many countries around the world, Palestinians protesting by the thousands. Sharif Abdel Kouddous, independent journalist, Democracy Now! correspondent, reporting to us from Gaza.

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TORTURE, INSANITY, AND NUKES

THE ABSURD TIMES

Torture does work: The man who confessed that recruited black panthers from Montana to join Al-Quaeda, Isis, and the Talaban under torture. Now really, how else would one get such a startling bit of information?

Torture and Insanity

This is the fourth attempt. If this does not work, it means that Microsoft has declared that this information is classified and to be kept secret. Perhaps by now, a lobbyist has managed to bribe someone in the Trump regime to let it out. We shall see. If we get that far, we will can think about the Iran vandalism (we could not call it a policy decision, for obvious reasons). Trump's decision there has given Israel the authority to bomb Syria viciously and in violation of all civilized behavior.

Even more so, it gives a valuable lesson to other countries: get your own nuclear weapons. If anyone thinks that North Korea is foolish enough to abandon nuclear weapons now, either they or North Korea is insane. Of course, both could be. Yet we have the history of Iraq which never had nukes, but Condelezza Rice kept talking about some mushroom cloud over a horizon and Colin Powell giving his chemical warfare presentation at the UN as examples. Even more, we have the case of Gaddafi who abandoned nuclear weapons in order to make peace with the west and we know how well that turned out. In fact, we know how well both turned out for the U.S. as well. Right now, we see the results of Iran suspending its program as Israel bombs Syria. The lesson all countries will take from this is obvious.

But what we need to talk about is the torture program advocated by the Trump people. Below is a discussion of this by Jeremy Scahill of the INTERCEPT. He is the one who broke the Blackwater story and made other crucial breakthroughs.

It is not clear how much more of this can even be tolerated. Gina Haspel is now nominated for Director of the CIA, yet she can not bring herself to say that torture is immoral. In other words, she disagrees with the Nuremberg decision and all the rules and judgments we made about Nazi Germany. There is really no other logical explanation of it, although this would be sharply contested by any establishment organ or figure.

The warning is clear: avoid at all costs any information sent via American mass media and the BBC is not much better. So far, we have been told that China people have millions of jobs here in the United States as a result of the work of Cocaine Mitch, Senate Majority leader. The term China people reminds one of the very old Flash Gordon movies where the Clay People would attack Flash, Dale, and Dr. Zarkoff (I guess we were at war with Germany at the time, so Russia was our ally?) There was really no chance of this person being even nominated, but the media tried its best to make it look so in order to generate interest and thus increase ratings.

We also learn, from a Trump supporter, one of the Africa People, that slavery was a choice. One tries to imagine the lines of natives from African lining up to catch a ship to Dixie in order to pick cotton and be whipped. Just sign on the dotted line. Are we really supposed to take this seriously?

Well, as the descendant of the Germany people, I can tell you that we got a raw deal during World War II. (I'm not saying who 'we" are, however.)

New these are terms we have come to expect and hardly flinch at these days. This is the Zeitgeist in the Age of Trump. He has released the inhibitions on the worst aspects of human nature, the sort of things used to keep poor white people thinking they are being attacked by even poorer people rather than the upper 1% or less of our population, the rich and greedy.

Many think there is not much difference between the two parties, and they are right. The only difference is that the Republican Party is evil and the democrats are bad. Until such a time as we can actually get beyond good and evil, we are stuck with a choice between evil or bad. We will not be safe at all until the Republicans are once again reduced to a small minority. We can only hope that Trump can do today what Goldwater and later Nixon did for their party in the past.

Now can we say that torture does not work? Nope. For example, Khaled Sheik Mohammed who was water boarded over 80 times finally came up with the statement that the Black Panther Party in Montana was working with Al-Quaeda, Isis, and the Talaban. I mean, things like that just don't pop into your head, do they?

On Capitol Hill Wednesday, President Trump's nominee to head the CIA, Gina Haspel, announced she would not restart the CIA's interrogation program. But she repeatedly refused to call the CIA's post-9/11 treatment of prisoners "torture," and declined to state whether she believes torture is immoral. Haspel's comments came in testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee, as she made her case to become the first woman to head the agency. Haspel is a 33-year CIA veteran who was responsible for running a secret CIA black site in Thailand in 2002, where one prisoner was waterboarded and tortured in other ways. Haspel also oversaw the destruction of videotapes showing torture at the black site. At least two Republican senators have come out against her—Rand Paul and John McCain, who said her "role in overseeing the use of torture is disturbing & her refusal to acknowledge torture's immorality is disqualifying." But Haspel may still be confirmed with the help of Democratic lawmakers. Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia has already announced he will back Haspel. We speak with Jeremy Scahill, co-founder of The Intercept and host of the weekly podcast "Intercepted."

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Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: On Capitol Hill, President Trump's nominee to head the CIA, Gina Haspel, announced she would not restart the CIA's interrogation program. But she repeatedly refused to call the CIA's post-9/11 treatment of prisoners torture, and declined to state whether she believes torture is immoral.

Haspel's comments came in testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee as she made her case to become the first woman to head the agency. Haspel is a 33-year CIA veteran who was responsible for running a secret CIA black site in Thailand in 2002, where one prisoner was waterboarded and tortured in other ways. Haspel also oversaw the destruction of videotapes showing torture at the black site.

This is Democratic Senator Kamala Harris of California questioning Haspel.

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS: Do you believe that the previous interrogation techniques were immoral?

GINA HASPEL: Senator, I believe that CIA officers to whom you referred—

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS: It's a yes-or-no answer. Do you believe the previous interrogation techniques were immoral? I'm not asking, "Do you believe they were legal?" I'm asking, "Do you believe they were immoral?"

GINA HASPEL: Senator, I believe that CIA did—

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS: It's a yes-or-no answer.

GINA HASPEL: —extraordinary work to prevent another attack on this country, given the legal tools that we were authorized to use.

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS: Please answer yes or no: Do you believe, in hindsight, that those techniques were immoral?

GINA HASPEL: Senator, what I believe, sitting here today, is that I support the higher moral standard we have decided to hold ourselves to.

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS: Can you please answer the question?

GINA HASPEL: Senator, I think I've answered the question.

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS: No, you've not.

AMY GOODMAN: Gina Haspel's confirmation hearing was repeatedly interrupted by anti-torture protesters.

PROTESTER: The question is: What do you do to human beings in U.S. custody? Bloody Gina! Bloody Gina! Bloody Gina! Bloody Gina! You are a torturer! Bloody Gina!

AMY GOODMAN: Another protester who interrupted Haspel's hearing was retired 27-year CIA officer Ray McGovern. In dramatic video posted online, police can be seen dragging the 78-year-old McGovern out of the room, throwing him to the ground and dislocating his arm.

POLICE OFFICER 1: Stop resisting us!

RAY McGOVERN: I'm not resisting.

POLICE OFFICER 1: Yes, you are! Give me your—

RAY McGOVERN: No, I'm not! I'm lying on the ground.

POLICE OFFICER 1: Give me your arm! Give me your arm!

RAY McGOVERN: I'm lying on—

POLICE OFFICER 1: Give me your arm!

RAY McGOVERN: It's dislocated, man!

POLICE OFFICER 1: Give me your arm!

RAY McGOVERN: My left arm is—

POLICE OFFICER 1: Give me your arm!

RAY McGOVERN: My left arm is dislocated, damn it!

POLICE OFFICER 1: Give me your arm!

RAY McGOVERN: Don't you understand?

WITNESS: Stop hurting him!

POLICE OFFICER 1: Stop fighting.

RAY McGOVERN: Don't you understand? My left arm is—ahhh!

POLICE OFFICER 2: Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.

POLICE OFFICER 1: Stop fighting.

RAY McGOVERN: I'm not fighting. I'm on the ground.

POLICE OFFICER 2: Hold on, guys. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.

RAY McGOVERN: And if you'd let me get my glasses on, I could see what's happening.

POLICE OFFICER 2: Let's get him up. Let's get him up.

WITNESS: You're hurting him!

POLICE OFFICER: Let's get him up first.

RAY McGOVERN: You guys are hurting me.

WITNESS: Stop hurting him!

RAY McGOVERN: I'm immobilized. I'm immobilized. You're going to dislocate my shoulder again. And, look, would you pick up my glasses, before you step on them?

AMY GOODMAN: A lawyer who spoke to Ray McGovern in jail said he's being held overnight and faces arraignment this morning. Ray McGovern, long time worked for the CIA, one of the top briefers for President George H.W. Bush years ago.

On Wednesday night, President Trump tweeted, "Gina Haspel did a spectacular job today. There is nobody even close to run the CIA!" he tweeted.

But at least two Republican senators have come out against Haspel: Rand Paul and John McCain. McCain said her, quote, "role in overseeing the use of torture is disturbing & her refusal to acknowledge torture's immorality is disqualifying." But Haspel may still be confirmed with the help of Democratic lawmakers. Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia has already announced he'll back Haspel.

For more, we're joined by Jeremy Scahill, co-founder of The Intercept, host of the weekly podcast Intercepted, author of the books Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army and Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield, and the Oscar-nominated film Dirty Wars.

Jeremy, welcome back to Democracy Now! Talk about what happened yesterday, and talk about Gina Haspel's record.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, first of all, I think that if we look at the fact that we're 17 years removed from 9/11, and we look at how this country has not come to terms with all of the acts of torture, kidnapping, extrajudicial killing, that was done with the veneer of legalism, put over it by very creative, albeit creative in a sort of evil way, lawyers in the Bush administration, what has resulted in not holding those torturers accountable is that one of them is now ascending to the highest post in the CIA.

And, you know, Amy, the CIA is generally prohibited from engaging in operations inside of the United States, and also prohibited from engaging in propaganda aimed at the American people. And yet, to me, this whole Gina Haspel nomination really seems like a CIA operation itself. You know, the CIA, throughout history, from its origins—and this was the case with its predecessor, the OSS—has had a mastery of coups and interventions and interfering in affairs of other nations and waging propaganda battles. Gina Haspel, when she was nominated for the CIA, was the recipient of an enormous amount of support from the CIA's social media accounts, Twitter and others. And it was a propaganda campaign that was aimed at all of us, at the American people. It was aimed at lawmakers, it was aimed at journalists, where they sort of tweeted a—and they did it over and over and over, and they even did it once Haspel was technically in charge of the CIA, where they're giving her biography, making her sound like some combination of like Lara Croft, Tomb Raider, with Jack Bauer. I mean, it was really kind of incredible.

And then they selectively—the CIA—declassified documents, including one from a Hillary Clinton supporter, Mike Morell, the former acting director of the CIA, that sought to exonerate Gina Haspel of any wrongdoing in the destruction of the CIA tapes, pinning all of the blame on her boss, Jose Rodriguez. The reason I'm bringing all of this up is because Gina Haspel is—has been embraced by Republican and Democratic nominees, everyone from John Brennan, who was sort of Obama's killer priest—you know, they always said, "Oh, John Brennan, it's like he's like priest-like. He has this great conscience." This man ran a global assassination program. Michael Hayden, Bush's former CIAdirector, I actually respect his intellectual honesty, because, unlike Brennan and Clapper and others, Hayden says, "I support torture, and torture works, and that's part of why I support Gina Haspel." What we saw yesterday was a CIA propaganda operation. Gina Haspel's answers were very carefully prepared, the way she refused to answer Kamala Harris's questions about the immorality of torture.

And, you know, one of the things I found was astounding was she said the CIA has historically not been in the business of interrogations. What on Earth is she talking about? And why wasn't she pressed on that? I believe that what she was doing was relying on a technicality, which is that the CIA traditionally outsources those interrogations, or they will have people like those mental health professionals, Mitchell and Jessen, who were essentially the ones that came in and said, "Here's how we can reverse-engineer the tactics that we use to train our own personnel to resist torture or to face torture. Let's reverse-engineer that and actually apply it in an offensive manner against prisoners."

So, the fact that—this hearing was a farce, where, unfortunately, some of the Democrats and all of the Republicans engaged in a collective endorsement of what is, in my view, quite clearly, a CIA propaganda operation. It's a coup of sorts to have someone like Gina Haspel, who has been involved with destroying evidence, torture, kidnapping, and refuses—refuses—to denounce any of it. I mean, it's incredible that 17 years after 9/11 and—and, I'm sorry, Obama plays a huge role in how this happened. The moment Obama said, "We need to look forward, not backward," was the moment that Gina Haspel was able to become a viable candidate for CIA. And, I mean, this is a very, very serious development and the result of a probably extralegal propaganda campaign and an operation aimed at the domestic American public.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, I want to go back to who you mentioned, Democratic Senator Kamala Harris of California, questioning Gina Haspel at Wednesday's hearing.

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS: Would you agree that given this appearance of conflict or potential conflict around the classification or declassification of these documents, that—would you agree that Director Coats, instead, should have the responsibility for declassification decisions regarding your background?

GINA HASPEL: Senator, I think one important thing is that this committee plays a unique role to review the classified record. And we have sent over every piece of paper we can lay our hands on about my classified record, all of my evaluations over a 33-year career. And I hope every senator has had the opportunity to look at that classified material.

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS: Indeed, I have.

GINA HASPEL: But there are—

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS: And I have another question for you, then, because I only have a few minutes left—I only have a few seconds left. The president has asserted that torture works. Do you agree with that statement?

GINA HASPEL: Senator, I don't believe that torture works. I believe that in the CIA's program—and I'm not attributing this to enhanced interrogation techniques—I believe, as many people, directors, who have sat in this chair before me, that valuable information was obtained from senior al-Qaeda operatives, that allowed us to defend this country and prevent another attack.

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS: Is that a yes?

GINA HASPEL: No, it's not a yes. We got valuable information from debriefing of al-Qaeda detainees. And I don't—I don't think it's knowable whether interrogation techniques played a role in that.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Jeremy, if you could respond to what Gina Haspel said, and also elaborate on what exactly she was responsible for at that CIA black site in Thailand?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, the CIA black site in Thailand was called Cat's Eye. And, you know, at the time, Gina Haspel was—I mean, they describe her as a mid-level officer in the CIA. But let's remember, this was the most closely guarded, sensitive program of the immediate aftermath of 9/11, and they chose Gina Haspel—the CIA chose Gina Haspel to be in charge of one of the main black sites that the CIA was using when they would either kidnap individual—I mean, they call it "rendition," it's kidnap—when they would kidnap individuals, purchase them from warlords or receive them from allied forces either in the Middle East or in Afghanistan and Pakistan. And her job was to oversee the interrogation, the debriefing, as she puts it, of prisoners that were snatched off the battlefield.

And the rationale for it was, A, we need to find out who knows what about how 9/11 happened and who planned it, and, B, are there more attacks planned. And if you remember, at that time, 17 years ago, there was a lot of concern that there was going to be another attack. There was the whole anthrax thing going on. I mean, there was real hysteria. So, that is the part of it that they—that at yesterday's hearings everyone up the focus on. It was like, "Let's remember what was going on at that time." So, Haspel is sent there. And my understanding is that prior to her arriving there, there was some extreme torture used against prisoners. And then, during her time there, what they've publicly acknowledged is that at least one individual was waterboarded dozens and dozens of times.

AMY GOODMAN: And slammed against a wall and—

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, I mean, the whole focus has been on waterboarding, and Gina Haspel yesterday said, "Well, I will follow the U.S. Army Field Manual," which has been on the books for a long time, and remains on the books, of what DOD personnel are allowed to do during an interrogation. And that includes extreme sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, putting people in very confined spaces. I mean, let's remember, they would put people in boxes, the CIA would. They sometimes would place inside of those boxes insects and tell them they were poisonous. They would do walling, where they would have a chain on one side of the wall, the prisoner is attached to that chain on the other side of the wall, with a hole in it, and they could yank them and then slam them against a wall. And then you had, of course, waterboarding.

Now, you know, the question was, though: Is this a moral? And Gina Haspel kept saying, "Well, it was legal." There's no record that Gina Haspel protested, expressed concern. And there is a record that at other sites—and, in fact, at that site later—that interrogators did sort of rebel and say, "Wait a minute. Are we really supposed to be doing this?" I mean, you know, as Trump became president, I've spent a lot of time over the past year, year and a half, studying World War II and the aftermath of World War II. And, of course, everyone has heard of the Nuremberg trials, where the Nazis were put on trial. And it was everyone from very high-ranking people all the way down to lower-ranking people. In fact, very recently, in the past years, the Israelis and the United States have both tried to apprehend people that were guards at facilities, people that weren't even accused of directly killing anyone. And the Nuremberg principles dictate that saying you were just doing your job is not a defense. And yet, that is the primary defense of Gina Haspel.

And, Amy, final point on this, in Japan, after World War II, the tribunal was called the Tokyo Trials. And, yes, they prosecuted very top-level people. They also prosecuted—this was U.S. prosecutors—they also prosecuted Japanese soldiers for waterboarding, for waterboarding American POWs. And I read the primary testimony of some of those soldiers. Ted Kennedy, actually, in 2006, on the floor of the Senate, read some of the testimony of American soldiers who had water sprayed up their nostrils, doused on their faces. Some of those people were executed. And among the charges they were executed for was waterboarding—not solely waterboarding, but waterboarding was one of the main charges. And others were sentenced to 15 years of hard labor. What's Gina Haspel's sentence? Oh, to be nominated as Central Intelligence Agency director.

AMY GOODMAN: So, let's go to Jack Reed, the Democratic senator of Rhode Island, questioning Gina Haspel.

SEN. JACK REED: If one of your operatives were captured, subjected to waterboarding and enhanced interrogation techniques, which you, I believe, supervised, would you consider that to be moral, since perhaps the other entity did not have legal restrictions, and good tradecraft, as you appeared to do when you were involved in it previously?

GINA HASPEL: Senator, I don't believe the terrorists follow any guidelines or civilized norms or the law. CIA follows the law.

SEN. JACK REED: Excuse me, madam, you seem to be saying that you were not following civilized norms and the law or anything else, when you were conducting those self-same activities, if that's the analogy you're going to draw.

GINA HASPEL: Sir, I'm sorry, can you—I—

SEN. JACK REED: Very simple. You have an operations officer who is captured. He's being waterboarded. I've asked you, very simply: Would you determine that to be immoral and something that should never be done, condoned in any way, shape or form? Your response seems to be that civilized nations don't do it, but uncivilized nations do it, or uncivilized groups do it.

UNIDENTIFIED: The United States does it to the soldiers.

SEN. JACK REED: A civilized nation—a civilized nation was doing it, until it was outlawed by this Congress.

GINA HASPEL: Senator, I would never, obviously, support inhumane treatment of any CIA officers.

AMY GOODMAN: And let's turn to Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine questioning Gina Haspel.

SEN. SUSAN COLLINS: As a candidate, President Trump repeatedly expressed his support for waterboarding. In fact, he said we should go beyond waterboarding. So, if the CIA has a high-value terrorism suspect in its custody, and the president gave you a direct order to waterboard that suspect, what would you do?

GINA HASPEL: Senator, I would advise—I do not believe the president would ask me to do that.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Gina Haspel doesn't believe that the president would ask her to do that. This is Donald Trump while he was running for president.

DONALD TRUMP: Don't tell me it doesn't work. Torture works. OK, folks? Torture—you know, have these guys: "Torture doesn't work." Believe me, it works, OK? And waterboarding is your minor form. Some people say it's not actually torture. Let's assume it is. But they ask me the question: What do you think of waterboarding? Absolutely fine. But we should go much stronger than waterboarding. That's the way I feel.

AMY GOODMAN: "I would go much stronger than waterboarding," says President Trump. Jeremy Scahill?

JEREMY SCAHILL: You know, my question for anybody watching or listening right now is: When you hear the phrase "speaking truth to power," you know, who do you think of? You think of people like Martin Luther King. You think of, you know, activists. You think of people of conscience. That is the phrase that lawmakers, you know, the people that introduced her, former CIA directors—they say, "Gina Haspel is the person that you want speaking truth to power." And there's this sort of hashtag #resistance view of Gina Haspel that exists, which is, "Well, Haspel already knows all of this stuff. She understands. She's been in the CIA for 30 years. She's going to be able to sort of do that dance with Trump and stand up to him." No. We already know how she views these. There were people that were interrogators that protested. There were CIA officers and State Department people who resigned. Gina Haspel followed the orders. And so, whether it is George Bush and Dick Cheney or it's Donald Trump, the track record of Gina Haspel is that she does what she's told, even if it's a heinous act of torture.

AMY GOODMAN: And what about the destruction of the videotapes? Explain what she did.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, first of all, Gina Haspel claimed, in this hearing, that there were 92 tapes and that it was 92 tapes of one individual. You know, Jason Leopold, who is a BuzzFeed news journalist that has done really incredible work FOIAing information—he and Marcy Wheeler have tracked this stuff more than anyone else—said that it was tapes of two individuals. Gina Haspel claims that they took the—that they had these recordings, that there was concern because the program—meaning the extraordinary rendition program and the black sites program—had started to seep out into the media. It was being reported on in The Washington Post, New York Times, Sy Hersh, other people. And they said, "Oh, well, we can't have these things leaked, because it's going to put at risk the agents in the field."

And Haspel and her boss, Jose Rodriguez, who openly brags—he goes on his book tours and stuff, openly brags that he jump-started the torture program, said it worked, etc. Haspel was his deputy at the time that these tapes were ordered destroyed. And Haspel had to actually draft the memo for Jose Rodriguez. Now, her defenders portray it as though she was like Rodriguez's secretary and was doing it. No, she was one of the people that ran the site where these tapes were filmed.

And she said, openly, in the hearing, which actually contradicted a lot of what her defenders said about her—she said she absolutely supported destroying the tapes. Now, and then she's asked during the hearing—now, mind you, this is someone who is up for CIA director. She is asked, "Why didn't you preserve a copy of it in a secure way? OK, we understand that you wanted to destroy any tapes that may have been not held securely. Why didn't you preserve a copy?" She says, "Oh, I'm not a technical person." Huh? You're not a technical person, and you're going to be the director of the CIA? This is what I'm saying. This whole thing is a PSYOP against us.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, let's turn to Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein of California questioning Gina Haspel yesterday.

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN: Were you an advocate for destroying the tapes?

GINA HASPEL: Senator, I absolutely was an advocate, if we could within and conforming to U.S. law and if we could get policy concurrence to eliminate the security risk posed to our officers by those tapes. And the consistent legal—

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN: And you were aware of what those tapes contained?

GINA HASPEL: No, I never watched the tapes.

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN: No, but you—

GINA HASPEL: But I understood that our officers' faces were on them and that that was very dangerous at a time when there were unauthorized disclosures that were exposing the program.

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN: But it also exposed how the program was conducted.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So that's Gina Haspel responding to questions by Feinstein. I wanted to ask, Jeremy, given what you said earlier about the history of the CIA and their not only participation in programs of torture, but also intervening in other countries, overthrowing various governments, whether anyone in the CIA would not be complicit in what Gina Haspel has been complicit in, or variations of the same. And then, second, the point that Trump made about, you know, waterboarding and worse. What about the fact that the CIA, for worse things than waterboarding, principally rendered—or, as you say, kidnapped—detainees and sent them to places like Syria, Iraq, Jordan, etc., where they knew the torture would be much more brutal?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, first of all, yes, there are people who worked in the CIA—a lot of people who worked in the CIA that I don't think you could say, "Oh, these people are responsible for torture." But even if we want to look at sort of—and I'll answer that question directly in a second. But even if you want to look at sort of grades of involvement, Gina Haspel is like at the top. You know, she was one of the people who was running one of the early sites where the United States was doing this. So, it's clear that—and the fact that she refuses to call it immoral or to say that the tactics that the senators were specifically citing was torture—she kept saying, "Well, you know, we got this valuable information. Uh, it's a mystery. I don't know. Maybe it was attributable to that, maybe it wasn't."

But, you know, in general, the CIA is divided into two big camps. I mean, there's lots of little nuance, but two big camps: the analytical side and the operations side. The operations side is sort of the dark side, the Dick Cheney view of it. Those are the people that were conducting the operations that Gina Haspel was involved with. Then you have people that are on the analytical side. And those were the people that the neocons said was like a liberal think tank. They would have been the people that were pushing back internally against, for instance, the information that was put in front of Colin Powell when he went to the United Nations to sell the Iraq War for the Bush administration. Ray McGovern, who was dragged out of that hearing and had his arm dislocated, you know, this is a man who's almost 80 years old. Ray McGovern came out of the analytical division at the CIA. Glenn Carle, another person who was also a CIA interrogator—he actually was on the operations side—was against torture and spoke out about torture.

So, you know, I certainly don't mean to be heaping any praise on the CIA. But to directly answer your question: of course. And there were people that were very seriously protesting, including people who were in the same position as Gina Haspel after her, who were saying, "Uh-uh, this is not right."

AMY GOODMAN: What do you feel is the critical question that wasn't asked, as we wrap up?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, I think that the Democrats should have shut the entire thing down and refused to participate anymore until Gina Haspel answered the question about is waterboarding torture, and not get into some legalistic thing of what John Yoo, a man who would justify all manner of torture and say, "Well, anything short of killing them is not actually torture"—

AMY GOODMAN: Who's at UC Berkeley Law School.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Who's at—yeah, ironically. Look—

AMY GOODMAN: Jay Bybee, federal judge.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Yes, also. I mean, they had all these—

AMY GOODMAN: John Brennan.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Exactly, right. And, you know, Hitler also had a lot of lawyers that could make things legal. And people say, "Oh, you're comparing the United States to Nazi Germany." No, they're doing it. They're doing it by using the very excuse that war criminals the world over attempt to use. So, I think they should have pushed her on the idea that: Do you think that just doing your job is an excuse? Your conscience plays no role in this? You know, have you ever heard of a conscientious objection? But the fact—and I think John McCain, as discredited as he is on a lot of issues, the man was tortured and understands this issue and has made the point that the United States prosecuted Japanese war criminals for doing these same things. His point was good. It is totally disqualifying, no matter what you think, if you're a Republican, Democrat, not to say that was immoral.

AMY GOODMAN: And she gets to classify or declassify the documents. She's in charge of the CIA right now, right? Acting director.

JEREMY SCAHILL: She is. And I also—and the other point—I mean, look, this was all they talked about yesterday, for the most part, this and then, you know, Marco Rubio and others sort of saying, "Oh, we love the CIA, and you're all so great." They didn't talk about any other issues. Gina Haspel at one point mentions the relationship between the Joint Special Operations Command and the CIA has never been closer. I mean, to me, the elephant in the room of all of this is that the CIA and the U.S. military's darkest elements, they're in a golden era right now. I mean, Trump is an ideal person for them. All of this stuff about the deep state is trying to destroy Trump—establishment neocons hate the man, but they love what's going on right now. And, unfortunately, they're in an alliance increasingly with liberals.

AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Scahill, I want to thank you for being with us, co-founder of The Intercept, host of the weekly podcast Intercepted, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield and The Assassination Complex.

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