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What You're Missing in our subscriber-only CounterPunch newsletter THE INSIDE HISTORY OF THE ISRAEL LOBBY Former top CIA analysts Kathleen and Bill Christison give CounterPunchers the real scoop on the Israel lobby and precisely how powerful it is. Read how US presidents from Wilson, through FDR to Truman were manipulated by the Zionist lobby; how Israel bent LBJ, Reagan and Clinton to its purpose; how Bush's White House has been the West Wing of the Israeli government; how Washington's revolving doors send full-time Israel lobbyists from think-tanks to the National Security Council and the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans. For all who want a true measure of the Lobby's power, the Christisons' 8-page dossier, exclusive to CounterPunch newsletter subscribers, is a MUST read. CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! Get CounterPunch By Email for Only $35 a Year

Today's Stories June 9, 2006 Patrick Cockburn The Short, Strange Career of Abu Masab al-Zarqawi June 8, 2006 Chris Floyd Hubub in Hibhib: the Timely Death of al-Zarqawi Michael Dickinson Criminal Collage: the Bush Dog Case Ron Jacobs You Can't Call Me Zarqawi, Any More William S. Lind The Power of Weakness, Again: Haditha, 4GW and the Abu Ghraib Precedent Joshua Frank From Bush to Hillary: Holding the War Parties Accountable Missy Comley Beattie Ann Coulter and Rev. Fred Phelps: a Romance Lloyd Williams Ann Coulter's Blood Lust Bill Christison Proviing the Case: What Bush Wants is More War Website of the Day Bedtime for Bono?   June 7, 2006 Dave Lindorff The Iraq Money Trail: the Case of the Missing $21 Billion Sunsara Taylor CDC to Women: Prepare to Give Birth! John Walsh Flunking the Art of War: Master Sun-Tzu, President Hu and Bush David MacMichael No More Hadithas Mickey Z. Haditha and Rumsfeld's Ratio Evelyn Pringle Gagging Public Employees Myles Palmer Dark Star Chasm: a Sneak Peak at Roger Waters' Dark Side of the Moon Tour Laura Ribeiro The Israeli Boycott of Palestinian Education Website of the Day Thank You, Lt. Ehren Watada   June 6, 2006 Diane Christian Negatives: Torture, Massacres and Denial Paul Craig Roberts Outsourcing Smarts: the Death of US Engineering Ralph Nader The Battle for South Central Farm Norman Solomon The Urbanity of Evil: Tariq Aziz and Bush's Enablers Darmont / Genovali Wolf Sterilization Scheme Backfires Manuel Garcia, Jr. Blacks, Hispanics and Immigrant Bashing for Colonial Control Subcomandante Marcos The Other Campaign: a Plan for Action on June 11, 2006 Patrick Cockburn Bloodbath Beyond the Green Zone Website of the Day Greatest Music Video?   June 5, 2006 Bruce Jackson Why Haditha Happened Chris Floyd Return to Ishaqi: the Pentagon's Shaky Self-Exoneration Michael Neumann Jewish Opposition to Zionism Heather Gray War in the 20th Century: a Canadian Family's Experience William Hughes Bipartisan War Profiteers David Swanson Should We Stay or Should We Go Now? Alexander Cockburn Palestine: It's All Over Website of the Day Klamath Spring   June 3 / 4, 2006 Weekend Edition Robert Fisk Liberators as Murderers James Petras Is Latin America Really Turning Left? Rosemary Radford Ruether "We Have No One to Talk To:" Israel's Targeted Assassination Policy Harry Clark Truman and Israel: How It All Began Jeffrey St. Clair What a Miner's Life is Worth Ron Ridenour Return to Cuba Ron Jacobs Hand Wringing and Warfare: What Do Owe Iraq Fred Gardner Dr. Tashkin Makes the News Peter Montague The System in Crisis John Walsh MoveOn Rigs Its Own Vote; Betrays Its Membership Greg Moses Eyes of Texas: Neocon Border with Mexico Begins Next Week Sean Donahue Atlantica: Mainer's Won't Be Fooled Again Mike Whitney Swan Song for the Greenback? Dave Patten Final Examination Ali Khan Story of the Two Kings Robert Dotson, MD Couch Time for America Hammond Guthrie Revisiting Mondo Hollywood St. Clair / D'Antoni Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Bina, Engel, Ford and Landau Website of the Day Send Dr. Suzy Your Love   June 2, 2006 Kathy Kelly Right Livelihood Alan Maass "A Mercenary Army": an Interview with Jeremy Scahill on Blackwater in New Orleans Mickey Z. Haditha Massacre was Inevitable Dave Lindorff Don't Think Twice: Bush and Rumsfeld as Ethics Advisers Chris Kutalik Troqueros Flex Muscles at Long Beach Sunsara Taylor Countdown to a Betrayal: Making Change Without Democrats Sam Husseini Can Pacifica Live Up to Its Promise? Mike Ferner More, Lots More Website of the Day Free Daniel McGowan!   June 1, 2006 Brian Cloughley Haditha and the Farrago of Lies: War Crimes Start at the Top David Peterson Iran: a Manufactured Crisis Lee Ballinger Media Myths About the South: What Backlash Against the Dixie Chicks? Jonathan Cook Olmbert in DC: Bold Ideas and Ugly Intentions Mike Whitney Offers and Ultimatums: Endgaming Iran Paul Rockwell Smearing Ron Dellums Clifton Ross Millennium Blues Kevin Zeese Return of the Petri Dish Warriors: a New Biowar Arms Race Begins in Maryland Website of the Day The Monkees and Johnny Cash   May 31, 2006 Dave Lindorff DNC Death Wish 2006: the Do Nothing Party Joshua Frank Al Gore, Environmental Titan?: Some Inconvenient Truths About the Ozone Man Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz Stop Saying This is a Nation of Immigrants! P. Sainath Three Weddings and Funeral: Farmer Suicides in Vidharbha Ramzy Baroud On Palestinian Violence Seth Sandronsky The War on Nurses: a Joint Attack by US Senate and NLRB Mickey Z. Scapegoating Mexicans is an American Tradition Ralph Nader Breakaway Bases: Keeping LIttle Leaguers Safe Jeffrey St. Clair Dirk's Dirty Money: Gale Norton in Slacks Website of the Day Storm Cloud Over New Orleans   May 30, 2006 Lee Ballinger The Real Reason Rock the Vote is Falling Apart Jonathan Cook Shin Bet and the Israeli Academy: Partners in Human Rights Abuses? Gary Leupp Now Introducing, the Office of Iranian Affairs John Ross Disappearing the Disappeared Robert Jensen The Four Fundamentalisms Michael Dickinson Silencing the Peace Protester of Parliament Square Michael Carmichael Zionist Democrats: the DLC and Israel Tim Wise Of Immigrants and "Real Amurkans" Harry Browne Ken Loach's History Lesson Website of the Day Louisiana   May 27 / 29, 2006 Weekend Edition Paul Craig Roberts The Evil Within Kathleen Christison Surrender vs. the Right to Exist Kathy Kelly Fear of Flowers in Iraq: a Report from Sulaymaniyah Christopher Reed The Abominable Dr. Ishii: the Pentagon and the Japanese Mengele Lawrence R. Velvel The Moral Rot in Congress: a Constitutional Right to Graft? Tom Barry The Politics of Tom Tancredo Gary Leupp The Latest Neocon Lies About Iran Col. Dan Smith Freezing History: Iran and the Uses of "Preventive" War Ron Jacobs Blocking Military Ports: One, Two, Three Many Olympians Don Fitz EPA Goes Lead Wild: Acceptable Levels of Poisoning Fred Gardner What's the Matter with Oregon? Peter Montague Radioactive Troika: Bush, the Nuclear Power Industry and the New York Times Raymond Garcia Teens as Political Scapegoats John Farley Euston Manifesto: the Latest Gameplan from the Pro-Imperialist Left Seth Sandronsky Mexico After NAFTA: the Washington Post's Trouble with Numbers Tia Steele A Gold Star Mother's Memorial Day Plea Lenni Brenner "Howl", 50 Years Later: Allen Ginsberg's Silly Liberal Politics Dr. Susan Block God Has Sex, Makes Big Box Office Scott Michael Perey An Open Letter to Bono: Why are You Financing a Video Game Promoting the Invasion of Venezuela? Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: Please Help Hilton Ruiz Poets' Basement Davies, Smith-Ferri, Mickey Z,, Buknatski, and Engel Recipe of the Weekend Impeach-Mint Punch Website of the Weekend Trojan Syndrome   May 26, 2006 Col. Douglas MacGregor Fire the Generals!: the Failure of Military Leadership in Iraq Brian J. Foley Who Will Stand Up to Bush's Drive to Attack Iran? Michael Dickinson Mining Glaciers: Water or Gold? Missy Comley Beattie Stuck in a Cake-Walk War Pierre Tristam The Few, the Proud, the Murderers Joe Allen Put a Disclaimer on the Bible, Not the Da Vinci Code Kona Lowell Thank You, Fox News Roger Burbach Bush Targets Chavez and Morales Website of the Day Women Resisting War from Within   May 25, 2006 Les AuCoin Faith-Based Missile Defense: the Folly of Star Wars Jeff Halper Countdown to Apartheid Dave Lindorff Bombing Without Regrets Ron Jacobs Voting Rights and Multilingual Ballots Bob Wing Finding Common Ground in New Orleans: an Interview with Malik Rahim Elise Gould College Grads Face Weak Labor Market Robert Bryce Iraq's Fuel Crisis Website of the Day Oh Lay!   May 24, 2006 Michael Donnelly Operation Backfire: Criminalizing Eco-Dissent Patrick Cockburn Why the US May Have to Quit Iraq Sooner Than It Planned Lucinda Marshall Involuntary Motherhood: the Cacophony Over RU 486 Dave Lindorff A Winning Impeachment Argument Shmuel Rosner Israeli Advice on Wall-Building: Be Ruthless Moshe Adler The Promised Land: Immigration, Israeli Style Heather Gray Land Reform and American Agriculture Pratyush Chandra Angels and Demons in Nepal Paul Craig Roberts In Memoriam: Lloyd Bentsen Floyd Rudmin Why Does the NSA Engage in Mass Surveillanc of Americans? Website of the Day Presentensing the Future   May 23, 2006 Paul Craig Roberts Paranoia as Policy: How Bush Brewed the Iran Crisis Sharon Smith Shooting to Kill on the Border Sunsara Taylor Meet the New Christian Conquistadors: Ron Luce's Holy Warriors Joel Whitney The Most Tenacious Man on Capitol Hill?: an Interview with John Conyers Alice Cherbonnier Total Information Awareness for Whom? FOIA, the Press and the Spooks Ron Jacobs Optimism of the Will Kristen Ess The Crisis for Palestinian Political Prisoners Patrick Cockburn Which is the Real Iraq? Website of the Day Pearl Jam: Life Wasted     Subscribe Online

June 9, 2006 The Chicago Files Police Torture in America By ERIC RUDER During the last four years, a court-appointed special prosecutor has spent more than $5 million investigating a police torture ring that terrorized nearly 200 Black men on Chicago's South Side during the 1970s, '80s and '90s. But the report has still not seen the light of day--kept under wraps by the efforts of some of the city's most powerful politicians. Edward Egan, a former Illinois appellate judge, issued subpoenas, reviewed records of all sorts, heard testimony and finally wrote a report documenting the findings of his investigation into the torture of African American suspects in custody at Area 2 and Area 3 police headquarters. Judge Paul Biebel, who appointed Egan, ruled that the report should be released, calling the torture allegations an "open sore on the civic body of the city of Chicago which has festered for many years." Biebel wrote that the "interests of justice require the full publishing of the special prosecutor's report." But the police under investigation and their allies in the city's political machine have so far kept the findings under wraps. The torturers The facts of the Chicago police torture scandal are well established. Former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge and officers working under him used a variety of torture techniques--Russian roulette, electroshock, suffocation and beatings--to extract "confessions" during interrogations at Area 2 and 3 police stations. For more than a decade, the officers suffered no consequences for their crimes. In fact, they were often promoted for "getting the bad guys" and "closing their cases" with speed and certainty, at a time when politicians nationally were declaring a "war on crime." Even if their victims did come forward, the detectives reasoned, who would take the word of poor, Black "criminals" over white cops? That assumption served them well--until an anonymous tip written on a Chicago Police Department (CPD) letterhead landed on the desk of Flint Taylor of the People's Law Office. Taylor was representing Andrew Wilson, who was beaten so badly by detectives investigating a 1982 double police murder that he had to be hospitalized. After Taylor filed a civil rights lawsuit on Wilson's behalf, he received the tip, which encouraged him to interview Melvin Jones, then being held at Cook County Jail. Jones suffered a torture session so similar to Wilson's that it stunned Taylor. Taylor himself uncovered 60 cases going back to 1983, and the numbers have only increased since. After Wilson won his suit, the CPD's own internal affairs division launched an investigation. In his 1990 report, CPD investigator Michael Goldston not only concluded that the torture had occurred, but that the cover-up reached far up into the chain of command. "The preponderance of evidence is that abuse did occur and that it was systematic...that the type of abuse described was not limited to the usual beatings, but went into such esoteric areas as psychological techniques and planned torture...and that particular command members were aware of the systematic abuse and perpetuated it, either by actively participating in some or failing to take any action to bring it to an end," wrote Goldston. Grayland Johnson was one of the victims of this "planned torture." Police handcuffed him to a metal ring in a wall and beat him with a telephone book. They placed the book on his head and hit it with a long flashlight, which produces an excruciating crushing sensation. Next, they put a plastic typewriter cover over Grayland's head until he nearly suffocated. Because Grayland still refused to confess and kept asking for a lawyer, the cops hung him out a bathroom window, threatening to drop him and make it look like he died during an escape attempt. When they brought him back inside, they forced his head into a toilet that an officer had just urinated in. They continued with the typewriter cover, and Grayland could hear people laughing as he was gagging for air. "Guess who, nigger?" said the detective who took the bag off his head. Grayland ended up on death row. Prosecutors went so far as to use someone else's medical records to cover up the abuse inflicted on Grayland. Like many victims of torture, Grayland, who is still behind bars, carries a sense of shame about what happened. "No, I don't like remembering what they did, nor the fact that I was scared to tell the doctor all they had done, because the police were there, and I feared they would take me back and finish," said Grayland. "I don't like to remember because I was such a coward not to make them kill me right there." The cover-up In all likelihood, Burge learned about electroshock while torturing Vietnamese prisoners before he was honorably discharged from the military in 1969--and brought the method back to Chicago's South Side. On one end of the device he and his officers used are alligator clips, which are attached to the ear lobes, testicles or limbs, or inserted into the rectum. On the other end is a black box with a hand crank that acts as a generator. The pain is intense. The Goldston report led to Burge's forced retirement in 1993. But to this day, Burge receives a police pension, enjoys the Florida sun and spends time on his boat--aptly named The Vigilante--while many of his victims still languish behind bars. Only two other officers were "disciplined" along with Burge, and they were reinstated after serving relatively brief suspensions. How could torture carried out by Chicago police over two decades and corroborated by the CPD's own investigation result in nothing more than this? Goldston's report acknowledged the complicity of senior commanders, but the report didn't say anything about the role of even more powerful people outside the police department. In 1980, Chicago's current Mayor Richard Daley was the Cook County State's Attorney. As the city's top prosecutor, he added to his resumé convictions against defendants who had "confessed" during torture sessions conducted by Burge and other officers. In 1989, Daley left the State's Attorney's office to become mayor. Dick Devine was Daley's right-hand man when the two held jobs at the prosecutor's office, and he was eventually elected as Cook County State's Attorney, a position he holds today. How much did Daley and Devine know about Burge's activities? We may never know the full extent, but we do know that former Chicago police Superintendent Richard Brzeczek, now a criminal defense lawyer, received a letter from Cook County Jail's chief physician documenting "electric shocks" to a suspect's mouth and genitals. Brzeczek wrote to State's Attorney Daley, seeking his direction on proceeding with an investigation. "I will forbear from taking any steps until I hear from you," wrote Brzeczek. Daley never responded. "I think he was more concerned with making political decisions as to what would be appropriate for his political career, rather than the appropriate legal decision," Brzeczek told a reporter in May. We also know that the city of Chicago spent more than $1 million in legal fees defending Burge from torture allegations. And we know that Dick Devine personally represented Burge in federal court on at least one occasion--and that Devine billed the city $4,287.50 in fees for legal work on Burge's behalf. Daley and Devine have a lot to lose and nothing to gain from a new report detailing the complicity of police and prosecutors in torture. The struggle For years, activists, lawyers and family members of torture victims organized press conferences, pickets and lawsuits to publicize the allegations against Burge. Their efforts paid off when a court ruled that Dick Devine's conflict of interest in the case warranted the appointment of a special prosecutor. Recently, a series of pickets outside the special prosecutor's office calling for the release of the report got headlines and lead coverage on the local news. With all the attention, the campaign to get the report out has taken on a life of its own. In late May, Frank Sirtoff became the first independent eyewitness of the torture to come forward. In 1975, he was a 14-year-old Boy Scout. Along with his cousin, he regularly visited his scout leader, who was a detective at Area 3 headquarters. One day, they stumbled on a horrifying scene--a Black man strapped to a chair with wires all over his body. "I've tried to put it in the back of my mind most of the time and tried to live my life as good as I could," said Sirtoff, explaining his decision to put aside his fear and come forward after all these years. "But after seeing something like that, it's a life-changing experience." The United Nations Committee Against Torture released a report in May, noting "the limited investigation and lack of prosecution in respect of the allegations of torture perpetrated in areas 2 and 3 of the Chicago Police Department" and calling on authorities to "promptly, thoroughly and impartially investigate all allegations of acts of torture" and to "bring perpetrators to justice." So far, a string of legal motions--first by police and now by the State's Attorney's office--have bottled up the special prosecutor's report. Darby Tillis, who spent more than nine years behind bars--several of them on death row--before he was exonerated and released in 1987, has been centrally involved in the struggle to expose police torture. "One of my biggest concerns is the men rotting away in the penitentiary," Darby said of the delay in the release of the special prosecutor's report. "If they can stall for two or three years and get it tied up in the Illinois Supreme Court, that's two or three years that innocent men will remain behind bars." But with continued pressure, many think the report will come out sooner--perhaps this summer. It's time that Jon Burge faces prosecution--and that all the other powerful men who built careers by victimizing poor Black men finally pay a price. ERIC RUDER is a reporter for the Socialist Worker.

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