AMERICANS MUST INSIST (that our political class come clean & perpetrators must be prosecuted)

If Americans insist, our leaders will prosecute

Tue, 2009-05-26 15:36. Criminal Prosecution and Accountability

By BENJAMIN G. DAVIS, Toledo Blade

Benjamin G. Davis is an associate professor in the University of Toledo college of law, a member of the Robert Jackson Steering Committee that organized the effort at specialprosecutor dot us here and a board member of the Society of American Law Teachers here .

AS THE debate intensifies in Congress over who knew what about torture and when, U.S. citizens should not sit on the sidelines. We should insist that the high-level civilians and generals who ordered, authorized, and put in place the torture in the past regime be prosecuted - just like the low-level uniformed soldiers who did their bidding in Iraq and Bagram who were court-martialed, served or are serving time, and were dishonorably discharged.

The only way that this prosecution will happen is if Americans insist that our political class come clean on their role in the torture and the organizers are prosecuted.

That is why the Society of American Law Teachers wrote to then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey in August, 2008, asking for such a criminal investigation and prosecution...

READ MORE here

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See this VIDEO for a strong rebuttal of Cheney's speech:
Torture costs us lives," Mr. Alexander said in an exclusive interview at Brave New Studios (Robert Greenwald's revealing project). "And the reason why is that our enemies use it, number one, as a recruiting tool...These same foreign fighters who came to Iraq to fight because of torture and abuse....literally cost us hundreds if not thousands of American lives."

Let's hope that most the time we can also add up front that the best reason NOT to use torture is that it hurts and destroys human lives and their family, it's wrong, we wouldn't want it done to ourselves or our loved ones (the golden rule) and it's against our laws which include the Accords against Torture. See the VIDEO here

Torture does not save lives.