I don’t know much about Malcolm Nance. For all I know, we may be polar opposites on a lot of issues but, at least, we agree on one issue — torture doesn’t work.

Why should his opinion matter? Well, a quick read of this bio might cause one to pay attention. It reads, in part:

Malcolm W. Nance is a 25-year veteran of the US intelligence community’s Combating Terrorism program. He is a combat veteran who has served as an intelligence collections operator, cryptologist and interrogator. He has spent 17 years deploying on anti-terrorism and counter-terrorism intelligence operations in the Balkans, Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa in direct support to the Special Operations Command as well as assignments at the principle agencies of the Intelligence Community. In the Global War on Terrorism he served in Afghanistan where he conducted intelligence operations in Nangahar province (Jalalabad-Tora Bora) and 14 months in Iraq as a security director at the headquarters of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad. There he studied the Iraqi resistance and Al Qaeda’s involvement in the insurgency. He is a FOX News analyst on Al Qaeda and the Insurgency.

Additionally, he has authored five books on counter-terrorism, actually instructed aspiring Navy Seals on how to resist torture and served as Director of a D.C.-base counter-terrorism consultants group.

So, needless to say, the brother knows his stuff.

He testified today in a House Judiciary Committee hearing on torture and he, along with Colonel Steve Kleinman (who is also a veteran interrogator), are giving certain Republicans heartburn. TPMMucraker.com has been following this story as it develops and it seems that this has struck a serious blow against the right-wing spin on supporting torture. Nance stated that, as a result of what the U.S. is doing, we have virtually “guaranteed” that our own troops will be tortured. He went on to state that foreign nations now have “a legal standard to subject American soldiers to enhanced interrogations.”

Kleinman went on to deal another blow by saying that “enhanced interrogation techniques” (torture) do not work because they actually impair his ability to read body language and gestures, which help him determine if a suspect is lying, being cooperative or telling him the truth.

Up until now, Republicans have tried to silence torture critics by impugning their credibility on the issue but, when you have two experts, with long resumes and an impressive body of knowledge of and experience in counter-terrorism and interrogation, it wasn’t possible for Republicans to shoot holes in their testimony. Of course, it could also be a tinge of fear on their part about being aired out publicly by at least one of these experts.

Malcolm Nance warned would be “swiftboaters” on attacking him:

“You will see a spectacle on C-Span. I’ll impugn [my attacker's] credibility in public. Let’s see him give 20 years in the military, give up his family life, and then he can come talk. If not, shut the hell up.”

So, the hearing ending with expressions of respect for their perspective.

At least for today, Malcolm Nance is my hero.

Popularity: 29% [?]

Over the last several years, we have heard more and more about people (too many of them black) being released after decades in prison when it was discovered that they could not have committed the crimes for which they were convicted. Too often, this was do to crooked cops forcing confessions out of people in order to closes cases as opposed to actually solving crimes.

It appears that we should be seeing more overturned convictions in the near future after it has been revealed that Federal Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald will be investigating claims of the torture of suspects by Chicago police in the 1980s.

A four-year study by two special prosecutors appointed by a Cook County judge, released in July 2006, found that Chicago police beat, kicked and shocked scores of black suspects in the 1970s and 1980s to get confessions. The report said it was impossible to file charges because the incidents were so old that the statute of limitations had long since run out.

On Wednesday, however, U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald announced the federal government was stepping into the torture case, saying it would seek evidence of “perjury, false statements and obstruction of justice by members of the Chicago police department.”

“It’s political, it’s cultural, it’s systemic,” said attorney G. Flint Taylor, who represents several former death row inmates now suing Burge and city officials.

Attorney Richard Sikes, who represents Burge in the five civil suits, said after Fitzgerald’s announcement that allegations against his client “have been fairly investigated by the special prosecutors who found that charges were not appropriate.”

All this is being announced in the midst of other investigation of the Chicago special operations officer Jerome Finnigan, who federal prosecutors say plotted to kill another member of this unit to keep him from testifying about about a shakedown scheme in which this unit was allegedly involved.

Popularity: 40% [?]