IMO we should hesitate before we declare someone irredeemable.

It was a very different time then and as a country we were much more conflicted on where to draw the line on how to treat extra state enemies.  I explicitly remember noting how exactly zero Conservative Americans on this board were willing to condemn torturing  “terrorists” (who at the time were defined as anyone fighting us).

Many if not most of those people are either embarrassed or unwilling to admit they held that position at the time.  But they did.

We have learned from our mistakes and so have most of the people who actually had to make those awful  “ticking time bomb” decisions.   IMO it is both unfair and counterproductive to greater penalize them for doing what most Americans supported at the time.  Even if their judges won’t admit it now.

As a illustrative story:

A friend of mine just retired from running a really large national life insurance company.  He is a liberal (but business savvy) Democrat and a truly decent person whom I respect.  He once told me about how glad he was that for the decision he made to leave the army as a Lt. Colonel before he hit twenty years rather than take the Colonel rank and stay in.  This was just before 2000 and his field was intelligence.  He explained that had he stayed in the Abu Graib(ish) stench and guilt could have been on him.  The US was freaked out and we (the majority) were not interested in playing nice

This from a guy who multiple times has demonstrated to me what a strong moral character he has.  Being honest with himself and me, he recognized the horror of what he might have done.

 So ya, I’d cut Haspel some slack.