>>1323851

Because Google is going to tell you. O.o

>>1323864

The roots are human and non human

The CIA and the White House have rushed to support Gina Haspel, who reportedly mulled withdrawing from her nomination to the top spy post, amid public scrutiny of her alleged deep involvement in the agency's torture practices.

Unwilling to further discredit the CIA’s already quite controversial 'enhanced interrogation' techniques used on suspected terrorists, 61-year-old Haspel reportedly asked, at a White House meeting on Friday, to have her nomination as the next CIA director withdrawn, both the Washington Post and Reuters reported, citing sources.

Fearing that Wednesday's Senate confirmation hearing could shed unnecessary light on classified torture programs that could potentially amount to war crimes and taint her career and the work of the US intelligence community, Haspel was allegedly ready to throw in the towel, before the White House and the CIA rushed to her aid over the weekend.

Haspel's nomination attracted controversy, not least because of her role in 2002 as chief of a CIA black site in Thailand, in which prisoners were 'questioned' under the Rendition, Detention and Interrogation Program authorized by George W. Bush in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The 33-year-old veteran of the force served most of her career almost entirely undercover and much of her record is classified. While the CIA recently agreed to shed light on some of her records, the intelligence agency maintained that certain details about her career must remain classified.

Considering Haspel's apparent readiness to withdraw her candidacy and the CIA's refusal to offer transparency into her career, some now wonder how much worse the CIA torture program might actually be. While many continue to endorse her nomination, some members of the social media community demand her withdrawal, insisting that, if the Senate Intelligence Committee confirmation hearing is held with due diligence, Haspel stands absolutely no chance of passing the scrutiny.

READ MORE: CIA agrees to partially declassify Haspel documents

"The takeaway for every United States Senator should be that they need a lot more information about Haspel than they're currently getting," Faiz Shakir, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), pointed out; last week, he demanded CIA records on Haspel, under the Freedom of Information Act.

"You countenanced torture and then hid behind the Nuremberg defense of 'only following orders'," retired Detroit banker John Hicks wrote. "Your confirmation hearing will only serve to damage the CIA, an institution you profess to love."

In the face of the criticism of Haspel's candidacy, the CIA on Sunday rushed to defend their prodigy. "When the American people finally have a chance to see the true Gina Haspel on Wednesday, they will understand why she is so admired and why she is and will be a great leader for this agency," CIA spokesman Ryan Trapani said in a statement Sunday.

"Acting Director Haspel is a highly qualified nominee who has dedicated over three decades of service to her country," Raj Shah, the White House principal deputy press secretary, said in a statement Sunday. "Her nomination will not be derailed by partisan critics who side with the ACLU over the CIA on how to keep the American people safe."

Earlier the White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders also –a bit overzealously– dashed to defend Trump's nominee, facing harsh criticism for playing the feminist and women's empowerment card way too openly.

"There is no one more qualified to be the first woman to lead the CIA than 30+ year CIA veteran Gina Haspel," she tweeted. "Any Democrat who claims to support women's empowerment and our national security but opposes her nomination is a total hypocrite.”

https://www.rt.com/usa/425992-haspel-withdraw-cia-nomination/

US President Donald Trump's aides hired a private intelligence firm to uncover compromising info on key foreign policy advisers to Barack Obama in a bid to undermine the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, the Observer reports.

"The idea was that people acting for Trump would discredit those who were pivotal in selling the deal, making it easier to pull out of it," a source told the UK newspaper, which has published an exclusive report based on unnamed sources.

According to documents seen by the Observer, the targets included Ben Rhodes, a top national security adviser to then-US President Barack Obama, and Colin Kahl, a former deputy assistant to Obama, and VP Joe Biden's national security adviser.

The brief was to investigate the two men's "personal relationships, any involvement with Iran-friendly lobbyists, and if they had benefited personally or politically from the peace deal."

Additionally, the Israeli agency, also not named, would be charged with investigating if Obama's staff revealed any classified information as they attempted to create what Rhodes himself called an "echo-chamber" of media and political influencers who would whip up support for the deal.

The report admits that "it is not clear how much work was actually undertaken, for how long or what became of any material unearthed," and if this was just one strand of attacks on the agreement, which Trump has repeatedly called "the worst deal ever."

The White House has not denied the veracity of the documents, issuing a "no comment" in response to the UK report.

Target says wife approached by intelligence agency

Kahl has revealed a "creepy" story on his social media feed that in his view tallies with the claim that he was targeted by a foreign special ops team.

In a series of tweets, he explains that his wife was approached last year by a supposed UK benefactor who was surprisingly well-informed about her fundraising activities at her local school in the US. The person, who was represented by a professional but "shallow" website, which has since disappeared, repeatedly tried to set up a meeting. Kahl said it seemed akin to "an approach by a foreign intelligence entity."

"The fact that I even have to think about the possibility that my family was targeted by people working for the President is yet another sign of the fundamental degradation of our country that Trump has produced," the former official, who now lectures at Stanford, tweeted.

The other ostensible target, Rhodes, said that he was "not aware" of anything and called the entire undercover investigation "a chillingly authoritarian thing to do."

If such a dirt-digging investigation did take place, its most notable aspect is the choice of the foreign and private entity to carry it out. This highlights both the current administration's apparent distrust of its own security agencies, and the close alignment of views over Iran with Israel, which has expressed outrage over the accord from the start, and reportedly spied on US negotiators as it was being agreed upon. 

Earlier this week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a dramatic presentation, unveiling various intelligence revelations concerning Tehran's behavior both before and after signing the deal, which he summarized as "Iran lied, big time."

Netanyahu insisted that 55,000 documents and 183 CDs of captured files show that the Islamic Republic has preserved a military nuclear program within the confines of the agreement, which restricts the scale and techniques used by its nuclear program.

The White House rushed to claim that it was sufficient proof that Tehran had "a clandestine" nuclear military program, thanking Netanyahu for the "new and compelling details." It is widely speculated that Donald Trump may decertify the deal when the next renewal deadline comes up on May 12, though members of his administration have said that no firm decision has been made yet, and have urged foreign officials to "fix" the agreement.

Iran has responded to Netanyahu's allegations by calling him a "broke and infamous liar," while President Hasan Rouhani said on Sunday that Washington will suffer "historic regret" if it walks away from the nuclear agreement.

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For one who claims to love the UK, Donald Trump seems to have made a habit of attacking the country in the past 18 months – and did so again Friday, when he told a Texas crowd that knife crime had turned London into a “warzone.”

Trump, who traces his roots to the UK and his Scottish mother, painted a nightmarish scene of an unidentified hospital in the country’s capital. “They don’t have guns, they have knives, and instead there’s blood all over the floors of this hospital,” he told a National Rifle Association conference in Dallas.

Naturally, his address served to infuriate those in the UK who still remember Trump’s other diplomatic foul-ups. Here, RT.com looks back on moments when the US president’s loose lips made the “special relationship” anything but special.

Trump vs The Mayor of London

Trump’s long-running feud with London mayor Sadiq Khan began in May 2016, when Khan said the then-candidate for president had “ignorant views about Islam” after Trump proposed banning Muslims from entering the US. The candidate then hit back at the Labour lawmaker, calling Khan “nasty” and challenging him to an IQ test.

When Khan told Londoners there was “no reason to be alarmed” at the sight of an increased police presence on the streets of the capital following terrorist attacks in Borough Market and on London Bridge in June last year, Trump responded by firing off a tweet in which he seemed to deliberately misinterpret Khan’s remarks. In a second tweet, he took aim at the UK’s strict gun laws. After sending the tweets, Trump reportedly left the White House to play a round of golf.

The attack was condemned by politicians and commentators across the UK political spectrum. “Cheap, nasty and unbecoming of a national leader,” said London Labour MP David Lammy at the time, echoing the sentiments of Conservative MP Penny Mordaunt, who said she stood with Khan and “resilient London.”

What about that time he slagged off the London Met…?

In September last year, the former property tycoon and hotelier stirred up controversy after a terrorist attack on the London Underground. Writing on Twitter, Trump called on authorities to be “proactive” in tackling terrorism and said that the attackers “were in the sights of Scotland Yard.”

The remarks led some to wonder if Trump had revealed classified information related to the investigation. British Prime Minister Theresa May classed her US counterpart’s remarks as speculation which, she said, was “not helpful.”

After the rebuke, Trump sent another tweet, saying: “Don’t focus on me, focus on the destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism that is taking place within the United Kingdom.”

… or when he retweeted Britain First?

In November, Trump again caused outrage after sharing a series of videos from the UK group Britain First. The three clips were originally shared by an account belonging to Jayda Fransen, the group’s leader.

Again, UK politicians voiced their disgust at the president’s actions, with Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn calling the tweets “abhorrent, dangerous and a threat to our society.” Another Labour MP, Chuka Umunna, called for Trump’s state visit invitation to be withdrawn, on the grounds that he was “normalizing hatred.”

Theresa May was again pressed into criticising her US counterpart, saying the Britain First group sought to divide communities using “hateful narratives which peddle lies” and increase tensions. “It is wrong for the president to have done this,” she added.

In an interview on British TV in January, Trump said he was prepared to apologize for the tweets. “If you are telling me they’re horrible people – horrible, racist people – I would certainly apologize if you’d like me to do that,” he said.

Furore around US Embassy in London

In January this year, Trump cancelled a visit to London to open the new US embassy in London, saying he was unhappy with the deal to move the embassy from Grosvenor Square in central London to Nine Elms, south of the Thames. At the time, it was reported that Trump had feared being met by widespread protests against his visit.

“In the UK, in London, we had the best site in all of London. The best site,” Trump told a rally in Michigan last month. “They go out and they buy a horrible location. And they build a new embassy. That’s the good news. The bad news is it cost over a billion dollars.”

The move had been agreed under former president George W. Bush and was forced through after security specifications introduced after 9/11 made the Grosvenor Square site unsuitable.

The characterization of Nine Elms as “lousy” and an “off location” angered some Londoners. The leader of Wandsworth council, Ravi Govindia, said at the time the new embassy was part of a multimillion-pound regeneration of the area. “Tech giant Apple is moving its entire UK operation, so it’s clearly not an off location for them,” he said.

>>1323988

I was just commenting that you tried to Google a pedo and came up empty handed. I didn't tell you the information.