Two not to be missed videos! And Liz Holtzman speaks out on torture!

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

Both of these videos speak for themselves without dialogue from me!

David Swanson speaks on Real News:  “Policy Differences or Crimes?”

Rachael Maddow, with Vince Warren, Director of Center for Constitutional Rights

Rachel speaks out on Obama’s speech and indefinite detention!

Rachel Maddow

(Note:  I tried over and over to embed the video with no success.  I don’t get it.  Nightprowlkitty did it the other night — she must’ve hit a nerve I haven’t found.  Sorry, wish I could’ve done it myself!)

Liz Holtzman next!

Liz Holtzman speaks quite candidly on torture and the use of it, the laws — here’s a snippet of her article in the Huffington Post:  

The Phony Debate About Torture!

Elizabeth Holtzman

Posted: May 20, 2009 04:45 PM

Former Vice President Dick Cheney has triggered a roaring debate by his recent and repeated claim that torture “worked.” Last week, Senator Lindsay Graham echoed the claim that torture “works” and added that is has for five hundred years (a timescale which connects us to the Spanish Inquisition). . . . .

Torture advocates want us to think that there is no other way to obtain this critical information in the “war on terror,” but it’s simply not so. Standard interrogation procedures, both in the criminal justice system and in the military, routinely produce valuable intelligence. Highly skilled and trained professional interrogators regularly get people to talk about and confess to serious crimes like murder, without using coercive techniques. . . . .

The criminal justice system identified and convicted some of those involved in the 1993 World Trade Center attacks. By contrast, not one person has been prosecuted for the 9/11 attacks, although seven and a half years have gone by. Even Khalid Sheik Mohammed, one of the masterminds of 9/11, is unlikely ever to be convicted in US courts because he was repeatedly subjected to torture. Significantly, the cruel and torturous methods used on detainees never yielded enough information to capture Osama Bin Laden or his chief deputy. So much for the claims of torture’s efficacy. . . . .

It follows from this that we must hold government officials who ordered or engaged in torture accountable under our laws. Applicable US statutes make torture and other cruel and abusive treatment of detainees a federal crime. It’s time we commenced investigations to determine if criminal charges should be brought under those laws. That’s the vital question that the phony debate over torture’s “efficacy” serves to obscure.

Be sure to read (short)!  

I think the issue of the war crimes and the need for addressing of them is being felt even more acutely today!

We cannot let up on the torture and the war crimes.  And each time we speak of the torture, we need to re-emphasize that it is illegal and against all national and International laws. Torture is a war crime!!!!! End of story!  I know everyone knows this anyway, but it is by repetition in the face of this politicization of torture and the usefulness of lack of usefulness of it, or the preservation of a right to torture in certain instances, that must be our constant retort to these efforts to undermine the gravity of our heinous crimes of torture!