In the wake of World War II, the Tokyo Trials were convened to prosecute Japanese war criminals for their treatment of American prisoners of war and their utter disregard for the human rights of those captured and detained in horrifying conditions. One of the common crimes for which these perpetrators were convicted (and sentenced to as many as thirty years in prison) was the act of water boarding. This practice has been internationally recognized as torture and has been universally condemned as barbaric by the vast majority of the civilized world.
Today the Senate of the United States of America, voted to confirm as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency a person who presided over the implementation of a policy of systematic and regular water boarding and other means of 'enhanced interrogation' (a grim euphemism) in a CIA Black Site facility in Thailand during the dark days of rendition in the aftermath of 9/11. Gina Haspel also supervised and ordered the destruction of video evidence of these crimes and thereby thwarted proper adjudication in the future.
In so doing, the United States senate has confirmed an individual who stands aligned with her Japanese counterparts of nearly eight decades ago who were found guilty of crimes against humanity and who today, instead of standing in front of an international tribunal, is taking her place atop the largest intelligence gathering and spy agency on the face of the Earth. Standing beside the newly confirmed CIA director is a president who declared with proud arrogance in 2016 that he 'fully supported water boarding...and much, much worse'. Today's action gives renewed, sobering, and clearer meaning to Santayana's ominous admonition: 'Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it'.
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