"What is clear is that the majority today forecloses future reliance on Sosa and shuts the courthouse doors to almost any claimed violation of international law under the [Alien Tort Statute]."

"That includes torture. See, e.g., Filartiga v. Pena-Irala, 630 F. 2d 876, 878 (CA2 1980) (ATS suit brought by plaintiff alleging that his son had been kidnapped and tortured to death in retaliation for the plaintiff’s political beliefs). It includes forced labor. See, e.g., Licea v. Curacao Drydock Co., 584 F. Supp. 2d 1355, 1359 (SD Fla. 2008) (ATS suit alleging that the defendant trafficked Cubans to Curacao, held them in captivity, and forced them to work repairing ships and oil platforms). It also includes perhaps the most universally condemned crime in the modern era: genocide. See, e.g., Kadic v. Karadzic, 70 F. 3d 232, 236–237 (CA2 1995) (ATS suit alleging 'brutal acts of rape, forced prostitution, forced impregnation, torture, and summary execution, carried out by Bosnian-Serb military forces as part of a genocidal campaign'). 'Like the pirates of the 18th century,' whose conduct so concerned Blackstone and the First Congress, 'today’s torturers, slave traders, and perpetrators of genocide are "hostis humani generis, an enemy of all mankind."' Nestlé, 593 U. S., at 647 (opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J.). As to each of these offenses, as to each of these enemies of mankind, the majority decides that there is simply no way that a suit could possibly proceed without offending Congress. Noticeably absent from the majority’s analysis is any evidence that Congress would be offended by these suits. Of course, there may be reasons why allowing an individual ATS suit to proceed would be unwise. That possibility, however, should be addressed on a case-by-case basis...."

Writes Justice Ketanji-Brown Jackson, dissenting in Cisco Systems v. Doe, announced this morning.

"But as the show gassed on, it also started to feel like zealotry porn: There were only so many fingers you could watch chopped off, only so many gouged-out eyes."

"After a while, the red robes started to look more like cringe cosplay than a pointed protest symbol. When the series finale aired last year, I didn’t bother watching, especially after reading that the titular handmaid, June, never reunites with the daughter she’s spent the entire series trying to rescue.And now we learn why: Because without that loose end, there could be no 'Testaments.' Our new protagonist is June’s teenage daughter, Agnes, who is being raised by a wealthy Gilead family and trained to become a perfect upper-class Gilead wife. Daily, she and the other 'plums' get on a big purple bus and go to the weirdest finishing school in suburban Maryland. Mostly they spend their days learning needlepoint and flower arranging, but sometimes they break up the monotony by ecstatically cheering while watching a petty criminal lose his hand to a buzz saw...."

From "A 'Handmaid’s Tale' sequel answers questions the original forgot to ask/'The Testaments' extends the authoritarian thought experiment that began with Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel by turning focus to the enforcers" (WaPo).

Yikes. Zealotry porn. Are there really so many people who feel drawn to observe bloody amputations? And then they think the show is criticizing other people, not them. Are they titillated... by the amputations and by seeing how terrible those other people are?

Anyway... Daily, she and the other 'plums' get on a big purple bus... sounds like something in a song by Prince. I racked my brain, but all I could think of was "The bus came by and I got on, that's when it all began..."

And, yeah, it's "racked my brain," not "wracked my brain." The rack is a torture device.

"He remember... the night he thought his hair would turn white listening to the sound of Russian guards battering prisoners with fists and metal piping..."

"... knowing it would be his turn in the morning. Or the feeling of constant hunger, and the terrible disappointment of waking from a dream in which he was eating his favourite meal. Or the Russian pop song Forever Young, Forever Drunk, which one commandant would play as he selected who to beat...."

From "I was a PoW in Russia — guards played pop music before beatings/Ukrainians released in prisoner swaps with Putin struggle to understand or even remember the horrors they experienced" (London Times).

And here's a YouTube link, if you want to listen to Forever Young, Forever Drunk, the song chosen to intensify the fear of torture.

"As prisoners arrived, they were stripped, searched and deloused, a process overseen by Dr. Zimbardo, who played the role of prison superintendent."

"Initially there were a few giggles among the participants, but as the guards began enforcing rules, the mock prison began to feel very real. Though critics have accused Dr. Zimbardo of coaching the guards to act sadistic, he told the guards only to 'create feelings of boredom, frustration, fear and a "sense of powerlessness,"' according to a defense of the study on his website. They were, he said, given no 'formal or detailed instructions about how to be an effective guard.' Within a day, the guards had become abusive and were engaging in psychological torture: making the prisoners defecate in buckets, waking them up repeatedly through the night, forcing them to simulate sodomy. Several prisoners suffered emotional breakdowns. But Dr. Zimbardo kept the study going...."

From "Philip Zimbardo, 91, Whose Stanford Prison Experiment Studied Evil, Dies/ His provocative research made him a popular figure on campus. But his exploration of how good people can turn evil raised ethical questions" (NYT).

"At one feast, he had several of his guests lashed to a water-wheel, which turned slowly and drowned them as their horrified fellow diners looked on."

"In another... he released dozens of leopards and lions among his guests once they had finished eating. On one occasion, he let poisonous snakes loose among the crowds at the gladiatorial games, causing widespread death and injury.... Elagabalus was also known to dress entirely in precious silks and draped himself with gems.... Elagabalus was rumoured to have consulted his physicians about an early version of a sex-change operation, and he took a series of male lovers. He was said to have spent his days in the company of women in his palace, singing, dancing, weaving and wearing a hairnet, eye make-up and rouge. 'The soldiers were revolted at the sight of him,' wrote one ancient historian. 'With his face made up more elaborately than a modest woman, he was effeminately dressed up in golden necklaces and soft clothes, dancing for everyone to see in this state.'"

From "Cross-dressing Roman Emperor was transgender, woke Hertfordshire museum declares: Elagabalus, the savage teenage hedonist who once set leopards and snakes on dinner guests for a prank, 'must be referred to as she'/The North Hertfordshire Museum refers to the 3rd-century AD ruler as 'she'" (Daily Mail).

Which group wants to have this sadistic torturer identified as one of them? This "woke" museum isn't doing the group it is trying to favor any favor. Quite the opposite. 

"I think we need to rip off the Band-Aid. I think we need to move on with new leadership that can be trustworthy.... Nobody trusts Kevin McCarthy."

That's Matt Gaetz.

I'm reading "Gaetz Says He Will Move to Oust McCarthy for Working With Democrats/A day after the Republican speaker turned to Democrats for help passing a stopgap spending bill to avert a shutdown, the far-right congressman promised to try to remove him from his post" (NYT)

In an interview that aired on CNN on Sunday, Mr. Gaetz, Mr. McCarthy’s main tormentor, said he would do just that. By bringing up a measure called a “motion to vacate,” he can call a snap vote on whether to keep Mr. McCarthy in his post.

I like the phrase "main tormentor." Seems like the writer wanted to say "arch nemesis" and knew she needed to tone it down for NYT standards. 

"The Taliban’s brutality toward women in Afghanistan is a 'suffocating crackdown' that goes beyond the widely condemned bans on work and school to include..."

"... sex slavery, forced marriages, violence, torture, and disappearances, according to Amnesty International, which published a new report on the subject Wednesday. Women detained after protesting for their rights describe horrific treatment, including electrocution, beatings with cables, and being deprived of food, water, and medical care. Taliban 'whistleblowers' say the number of women detained for 'moral crimes' (being outside with a man who is not a relative) is growing.... Women protesters who were detained and beaten showed their injuries publicly. That prompted a change of tactics, according to women quoted in the Amnesty report, who said they were later beaten on areas of their bodies, such as breasts and the pubic area, that they could not show publicly. 'They did this to us so that we couldn’t show the world. A soldier who was walking next to me hit me in my breast, and he said, "I can kill you right now, and no one would say anything." This happened every time we went out: we were insulted—physically, verbally and emotionally,' the report quotes one woman as saying...."

From "Afghan Women Are Worse Off Than Ever/A new Amnesty report lays out the Taliban playbook for erasing half the population: electrocutions, beatings, detentions, and disappearances" (Foreign Policy).

"Ian Fishback, an Army whistle-blower whose allegations that fellow members of the 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq routinely beat and abused prisoners prompted the Senate..."

"... to approve anti-torture legislation in 2005, died on Nov. 19 in Bangor, Mich. He was 42. His family, which announced the death in a statement, said the cause had not been determined. In the climax to a distinguished but abbreviated career that the family said had begun to unravel as a result of neurological damage or post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, he died in an adult foster care facility where he had been admitted following court-ordered treatment with anti-psychotic drugs after he became delusional and created public disturbances.... He began receiving psychotropic drugs and was involuntarily committed in September, when his behavior became erratic, resulting in an arrest at a football game."

The NYT reports.

Tortuous path or torturous path?

 Oh, New York Times.... you have made the classic booboo:

The mistake is in the headline and the article: 

The path to that tender moment had been torturous. Not long after the princess and Mr. Komuro announced their engagement four years ago, the public began to question her choice.... Princess Mako’s father withheld approval of the marriage, citing the curdled public opinion. The paparazzi chased Mr. Komuro, 30, after he left for New York to attend Fordham Law School and tracked his shaggy hair and food truck habits. Savage attacks on social media left the princess suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.... The media and the public were shocked, simply shocked, by the fact that he arrived from New York sporting a ponytail.... In some surveys, as many as 80 percent of respondents have said they opposed the marriage. Yet after waiting three years for Mr. Komuro to finish law school and start a job at a New York law firm....

Law school is a challenge, but it's not torture. A "torturous path" would involve torture. A "tortuous path" is a long and winding road. I know that any law student — even a ponytailed Fordham student — can crank out a defense of the use of "torturous path" here by stressing that the process was indeed painful for the princess so it's not really a mistake, just hyperbole. But the "tortuous path"/"torturous path" mixup is really well known. It's one of the most discussed word substitution issues, so even if you really wanted to say that the princess's path was torture, you should resist out of realizing that language mavens will say you were wrong.

And by the way, since I'm talking about law students, there's also "tortious." These words — "torturous," "tortuous," and "tortious" — all go back to the idea of twisting. In French, you probably know, "tort" means wrong, but that got started out of the idea of twisting. Think about the idea that wrong is twisted, distorted. Language itself is always twisting — twisting the night away — new meanings twining out of old ones. In the long scheme of things, we've benefited from the twists, the wrongs, but the mavens policing the lines — defending the distinctions — are part of the tortuous path of the language we love.

And best wishes to the happy couple! Let me quote the groom, because this is damned cute: "I love Mako. I would like to spend my one life with the person I love."

The authorities have decided that Martha Sepúlveda — that Colombian woman who was planning to get euthanized today — must live.

WaPo reports: 

[A] medical committee determined that she no longer met the conditions because her health had apparently improved.... She had no idea health officials were even meeting to review her case. She had been quietly living out her final hours, and had tuned out media coverage of her case. 

“She canceled her phone plan because she thought she was going to die tomorrow,” her lawyer, Camila Jaramillo, said on Saturday night. Jaramillo’s law firm, the Laboratory of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (DescLAB), has vowed to fight the decision, which it described as “illegitimate and arbitrary,” and one that violated her right to a “dignified death.”...

Here's my post from 2 days ago, based on WaPo's story about the planned event. The authorities say their new decision is based on the "high probability" that her disease — ALS — wouldn't kill her within 6 months, but it's very hard not to suspect that the news reports — especially the big WaPo article — caused the authorities to retreat from strong support for euthanasia. It's not just that the public was put in a position to express disapproval. It's also that she participated in publicity, providing evidence that the committee relied on:

Sepúlveda appeared on television smiling and laughing as she dined at a local restaurant this month.... 

ADDED: The authorities seem to have unwittingly inflicted something like the torture of a mock execution. Not exactly like, of course, unless there have been some victims of mock execution who, preparing to die, genuinely wanted to die.

"One night I was at party and was introduced to a woman named Reparata, so..."

"... I mentioned this record and group and she said, 'Yeah; that was me. I'm Reparata.' I thought I'd smoked something funny at the party, but she and I ended up talking about music and it was quite apparent she indeed was Reparata! She was very cool."

From the comments at...

 

Here's the Wikipedia page for Reparata and the Delrons. "Whenever a Teenager Cries" came out in 1965, and I don't know why it's not familiar to me, since I listened to everything on the radio in the actual year 1965 and have spent many hours listening to the 60s satellite radio channel in the last 20 years. 

I stumbled into that song as I was researching the great song from 1960, "Angel Baby," originally by Rosie and the Originals. Looking that up on Spotify, I saw there was a version by Reparata and the Delrons. With a name like that, I thought they were some sort of tribute to or spoof of girl groups, maybe from the 1970s. But no, they were a real 60s group:

That's Mary "Reparata" Aiese on the right.

They asked Mary Aiese to choose a stage name to make the group name more interesting and marketable. She chose Reparata, her confirmation name, which she had taken from one of her favorite teachers at Good Shepherd Catholic grammar school.

Reparata sounded vaguely punk to me, but in fact, it is a saint's name: 

"The feminist rage that fuels The Handmaid’s Tale is still omnipresent, as is the harrowing depiction of the torture inflicted by the authority figures of Gilead."

"In the third episode, the first of three this season directed by [Elisabeth] Moss, June is subjected to some especially intense punishments that avoid tipping over into torture porn, but just barely.... While the last two seasons meant sitting through a lot of ugly conflict with no relief, this season brings some truly emotional rewards...

From "The Handmaid’s Tale Gets Its Mojo Back" — a Vulture review of the new seasons — the 4th season — of "The Handmaid's Tale." Did you realize that was still on?! 

The key phrase in that review summarizes why I have never wanted to watch: torture porn.

The review — purporting to resist "spoilers" — gives no information on what the "emotional rewards" might be. Not the titillation of torture porn, one presumes. But what? 

When a person has focused for so long on escaping an oppressor, what do they do when they finally emerge and get to breathe real, liberating oxygen again? That quandary taps right into the “what now?” vibe of 2021, when the Trump era is (at least in theory) behind us and we’re starting to see signs of light at the end of our pandemic tunnel.

The signs I'm seeing are that people don't want to "breathe real, liberating oxygen" when it is available, that they'll go out of their way to construct restraints out of nothing. When people are really locked down, they can long — convincingly — for freedom. But set them free, and they long for captivity.

FROM THE EMAIL: Whiskey Mike — reading the last 2 sentence of this post — sends me this Biblical quote, Numbers 14:1-4: 

And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night. And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in this wilderness! And wherefore hath the LORD brought us unto this land, to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should be a prey? were it not better for us to return into Egypt? And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt.

"At the end of the class, inmates are asked 'is there a God?' The only permitted answer is 'no.'"

"Every waking moment is an onslaught on their cherished beliefs and traditions. The half-starved inmates are even forced to eat pork and drink alcohol, in defiance of their Muslim faith. Afternoon brings interrogations. To break their mental resistance, inmates are forced to watch others being tortured before their own sessions of questioning. They are made to denounce friends and family, to confess to fictitious crimes such as bomb-making and espionage, and to express abject contrition — even for such harmless acts as having a copy of the Koran. Any resistance brings beatings, electric shocks and sleep deprivation. Nakedness is another dehumanising tactic. Nudity is taboo in Islam, but prisoners of all ages are made to parade before each other and in view of the guards. For women, humiliating gynaecological inspections are mandatory. Rape is routine. The prettier younger women disappear at nights and weep silently during the day. An injection every 15 days appears to be forced contraception — monthly periods cease. Worst of all is the dreaded orange tabard. Prisoners assigned these soon disappear, never to be seen again. Rumour has it that they are murdered for their organs — kidneys, corneas, hearts and livers are looted from their bodies, to fund the lucrative international black market, or serve the needs of the Communist Party elite."

From "'A naked brutality worthy of the Nazis': EDWARD LUCAS on the harrowing evidence of Beijing's concentration camps dedicated to 're-educating' a million or more Muslims" (Daily Mail).

"The container the suspects called 'the treatment room' contained a dental chair with straps to lash one's arms to its armrests and handcuffs at its footrest."

"Bags were also found in the so-called torture chamber, the statement said, containing 'pruning shears, loppers, branch saws, scalpels, pliers, extra handcuffs, finger cuffs, tape, balaclavas and black cotton bags that can be pulled over the head.'... According to the prosecutor's office, amid their investigation police intercepted encrypted phone messages, some of which contained photos of the containers and the dental chair. 'If I have him on the chair more will come,' one of the messages said, according to the National Prosecutor's Office, 'but the dog is missing.'"

From "Dutch police discover 'underworld' prison with torture chamber in shipping containers" (UPI).

"The fumie...were brass images, sometimes set in wooden boards, depicting either the Christ or Mary. Every single person that lived in Nagasaki was ordered..."

"... to go through the [annual] practice of stepping on the fumie.... 'It was an obligation, the commoners, the samurai, the Buddhist monks, even sick people couldn't miss it - they would bring the wooden board to their house. Every single person had to do this... It was quite well thought out because at the time, Christians relied a lot on images. People prayed in front of an image - Mary, Jesus - so many thought that part of the God was inside the image. It was a link to the divine... for them to tread upon this, was something very fearful.'... The Christians who refused to tread on the fumie were killed, or, more commonly, tortured. 'They would sometimes torture them by hanging them over a pit filled with excrement. They would cut slits around their temples to release [the pressure] so they wouldn't die'.... In 1858, the fumie practice was abolished in Nagasaki. In 1873, Japan's long ban on Christianity was finally lifted - more than two centuries after it was first put in place. 'When Japan opened up its borders again, around 20,000 Christians reappeared and came out of hiding,' said Mr Mullins. 'In that sense, the [fumie] policies were effective. You'd gone from around 500,000 to 20,000 Christians.'...  'It is only because some made an existential decision to trample on the fumie, despite their belief that this action was gravely sinful, that Christianity in Japan was able to survive.'"

From "The Japanese Christians forced to trample on Christ" (BBC). This article coincides with a visit to Nagasaki by Pope Francis.

"I was very much afraid to sign... It said there that if I did not fulfill my task, or if I did not obey the rules, I would get the death penalty."

"The document stated that it was forbidden to speak with the prisoners, forbidden to laugh, forbidden to cry and forbidden to answer questions from anyone. I signed because I had no choice, and then I received a uniform and was taken to a tiny bedroom with a concrete bed and a thin plastic mattress. There were five cameras on the ceiling – one in each corner and another one in the middle. [For less privileged inmates:] There were almost 20 people in a room of 16 square meters [172 sq. ft.]... There were cameras in their rooms, too, and also in the corridor. Each room had a plastic bucket for a toilet. Every prisoner was given two minutes a day to use the toilet, and the bucket was emptied only once a day. If it filled up, you had to wait until the next day. The prisoners wore uniforms and their heads were shaved. Their hands and feet were shackled all day, except when they had to write. Even in sleep they were shackled, and they were required to sleep on their right side – anyone who turned over was punished."

From "A Million People Are Jailed at China's Gulags. I Managed to Escape. Here's What Really Goes on Inside/Rape, torture and human experiments. Sayragul Sauytbay offers firsthand testimony from a Xinjiang 'reeducation' camp" (Haaretz). There are much worse things in that article than what I've excerpted.

"When an inmate contends that a state’s method of execution violates the Eighth Amendment... he must show that there is an alternative method of execution that would 'significantly reduce a substantial risk of severe pain'..."

"... but that the state has – for no good reason – refused to adopt. This requirement applies, Gorsuch explained [writing for the majority of the Supreme Court], even though Bucklew is only challenging the constitutionality of the state’s use of lethal injection to execute him, rather than the constitutionality of lethal injection more generally.... In this case... Bucklew had made only a 'bare-bones proposal' to use death by nitrogen gas, depriving the body of oxygen, as an alternative to lethal injection. In Gorsuch’s view, that proposal 'falls well short' of showing that the alternative could be 'readily implemented' because Bucklew had not offered any evidence on what Gorsuch deemed 'essential questions': 'how nitrogen gas should be administered (using a gas chamber, a tent, a hood, a mask, or some other delivery device); in what concentration (pure nitrogen or some other mixture of gases); how quickly and for how long it should be introduced; or how the State might ensure the safety of the execution team, including protecting them against the risk of gas leaks.'...  Justice Clarence Thomas filed a concurring opinion in which he reiterated that, in his view, a method of execution only violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment if it is 'deliberately designed to inflict pain.'"

From "Opinion analysis: Divided court rejects lethal-injection challenge by inmate with rare medical condition" by Amy Howe (at SCOTUSblog).

How any good news for Trump will be reported — the rule is quite clear.

I'm seeing 2 big examples of how the media are reporting good news for Trump this weekend. It's really embarrassing for them because the 2 stories are very big and very good for Trump and, in both, the same move is made to turn it into something negative and ominous.

1. The Mueller investigation has concluded, and though we can't read it yet, we know that it means that there will be no charges against Trump or any of his people that have to do with colluding with Russians to affect the election. Though some Russians were charged and some of Trump's people were charged with lying to investigators, the whole reason for the special investigation seems to have been a phantom. After 2 years of uncertainty and anxiety, this is an immense relief and vindication for Trump. Fantastic, upbeat news. Now, here's how the NYT is presenting the story on the top, left corner of its front page:

As Mueller Report Lands, Prosecutorial Focus Moves to New York

The work by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, may be done, but prosecutors in Manhattan and elsewhere are pursuing about a dozen other investigations.

It all but ensures that a legal threat will continue to loom over the Trump presidency.

2. Under Trump, the Islamic State has been ousted entirely from the territory it had taken over. This is a distinct, satisfying military victory in what has been a long and difficult war. It is the second story on the NYT front page right now, where it looks like this:

THE ISLAMIC STATE

Its Territory May Be Gone, but the U.S. Fight Against ISIS Is Far From Over

• Thousands of Islamic State fighters are still at large in Iraq and Syria, rearming and regrouping.

• The U.S. and its partners still face significant battles against the group elsewhere, in Afghanistan, West Africa and the Philippines.

So watch for it. The rule is: When something good for Trump happens, find the nearest bad thing and make that the focus of the news report.

AND: At WaPo, it's "Trump’s legal troubles are far from over even as Mueller probe ends" and — though it's crowded with many headlines — there's nothing about ISIS on the front page at all. The closest thing is:

Looking for news of the victory against ISIS, I went to the page for Middle East news. There were 15 headlines, and only one, the 9th, related to ISIS. It was: "Iraqi and Kurdish authorities are torturing children to confess ISIS membership, report says."

"Sen. John McCain is 2,200 miles from Washington and hasn’t been on Capitol Hill in five months, but he showed this week that he remains a potent force in national politics and a polarizing figure within the Republican Party."

"From his home in Sedona, Ariz., where he is receiving treatment for an aggressive and typically fatal type of brain cancer, McCain has challenged and praised the Trump administration’s actions on national security — his voice limited to news releases and Twitter. But his declaration Wednesday in opposition to Gina Haspel, President Trump’s nominee for CIA director, has uniquely roiled the political scene. The denunciation has prompted reactions from fellow senators and a former vice president, as well as intemperate remarks from some Republicans aligned with Trump, including a White House aide. It has revived the fierce debate over torture and its effectiveness in extracting information in the years since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — from a man who speaks from experience. McCain was held for 5½ years in a North Vietnamese prison, often deprived of sleep, food and medical care, after a jet he piloted was shot down over Hanoi...."

So begins "Speaking out on torture and a Trump nominee, ailing McCain roils Washington" (WaPo).

Also at WaPo: "John McCain is the single greatest political leader of our time" (by Dana Milbank). Excerpt:

McCain is still with us, and this is no obituary. But as Trump loyalists besmirch this good man, I thought I would put in writing what I have often thought over the years: John McCain is the single greatest political leader of our time. He is, in a way, not of our time, for his creed — country before self — is unfamiliar to many who serve in office and utterly foreign to the man in charge.

Only once during the nearly quarter of a century I’ve been covering politics did I think I could work for a politician, and that politician was McCain. I first got to know him in early 1999, when there were just a few of us driving around New Hampshire with him in an SUV, before the “Straight Talk Express” rolled. Had he beaten George W. Bush (he surely would have defeated Al Gore), and had he been president on Sept. 11, 2001, I know he would have done great things with the national unity Bush ultimately squandered....

"John McCain Urges Senate To Reject Gina Haspel’s Nomination For CIA."

HuffPo reports.

In his statement, McCain said he understood “the urgency that drove the decision” to resort to torture as a method of interrogation after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. “But as I have argued many times, the methods we employ to keep our nation safe must be as right and just as the values we aspire to live up to and promote in the world.”

He continued: “I believe Gina Haspel is a patriot who loves our country and has devoted her professional life to its service and defense. However, Ms. Haspel’s role in overseeing the use of torture by Americans is disturbing. Her refusal to acknowledge torture’s immorality is disqualifying. I believe the Senate should exercise its duty of advice and consent and reject this nomination.”

ADDED: Here's the key discussion of morality:

Kamala Harris: So one question I have not heard you answer is, do you believe that the previous interrogation techniques were immoral?

Haspel: Senator, I believe that CIA officers to whom you refer—

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?

Haspel: Senator, I believe that CIA—

Harris: It’s a yes or no answer.

Haspel: —did extraordinary work to prevent another attack on this country given the legal tools we were asked to use.

Harris: Please answer yes or no. Do you believe in hindsight that those techniques were immoral?

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

Harris: Can you please answer the question?

Haspel: Senator, I think I’ve answered the request, the question.

Harris: No, you have not. Do you believe the previous techniques, now armed with hindsight, do you believe they were immoral? Yes or no?

Haspel: Senator, I believe that we should hold ourselves to the moral standard outlined in the Army field manual.

Harris: Okay, so I understand that you have not answered the question, but I’m going to move on.