by TChris

The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has affirmed the convictions (pdf) of four Chicago Police Department officers “who devoted a considerable amount of effort to making money from local drug dealers (and undercover agents whom they mistook for drug dealers) through robbery and acts of public extortion at the expense of their public duties.” The Internal Affairs Division, assisted by the FBI, used informants and an undercover officer masquerading as a drug dealer “to lure the suspect officers into a trap.” Reacting to the informants' tips, the officers would search drug dealers (including an IAD sergeant posing as a dealer), find drugs and cash, and give the dealers a choice: “We get all the money, or you go to jail.”

The undercover cop recruited officers to act as armed escorts when he went on his fake “drug runs.” The officers also robbed drug houses, confiscating “drugs and drug paraphernalia, money, and jewelry, none of which was reported or inventoried according to CPD protocol.” The officers were convicted of "various racketeering, extortion, robbery, drug, and weapons violations."

This eyewitness account from Fallujah written at 10 pm Baghdad time, Sunday night, charges that Americans are slaughtering civilians. Report from a medical clinic:

As I was there, an endless stream of women and children who'd been sniped by the Americans were being raced into the dirty clinic, the cars speeding over the curb out front as their wailing family members carried them in. One woman and small child had been shot through the neck -- the woman was making breathy gurgling noises as the doctors frantically worked on her amongst her muffled moaning. The small child, his eyes glazed and staring into space, continually vomited as the doctors raced to save his life. After 30 minutes, it appeared as though neither of them would survive.

One victim of American aggression after another was brought into the clinic, nearly all of them women and children. ....What I can report from Falluja is that there is no ceasefire, and apparently there never was. Iraqi women and children are being shot by American snipers. Over 600 Iraqis have now been killed by American aggression, and the residents have turned two football fields into graveyards. Ambulances are being shot by the Americans. And now they are preparing to launch a full-scale invasion of the city. All of which is occurring under the guise of catching the people who killed the four Blackwater Security personnel and hung two of their bodies from a bridge.

You can read more about the Fallujah massacre over at Democracy Now.

Update from today:

The Miami Herald reports that Guantanamo is granting the media greater access to facilities at Guantanamo:

For the first time since terrorism suspects were brought to the base two years ago, authorities in recent weeks opened the door to rooms used for interrogations, provided limited information on efforts to gather intelligence from prisoners and showed off a courtroom where military tribunals likely will be conducted.
They also allowed some photographs of restricted areas and permitted interviews with interrogators and others who deal with the prisoners. The new access comes as attorneys for the families of 16 captives are seeking access to federal courts to challenge their indefinite detention. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on April 20.

With Ashcroft set to testify tomorrow before the 9/11 commission, American Progress has compiled the original internal FBI and DOJ documents that show how he de-emphasized terrorism and cut funding. You can access them here. Over at Salon, Progress Reporter Judd Legum has a list of ten questions the Commission should put to Ashcroft.

In need of a little pick-me-up? Head on down to Peru and hit the grocery stores, where you'll find a new kind of iced tea drink--KDrink--with a formula made from coca leaves, the prime ingredient in cocaine.

Each bottle of Kdrink contains a trace 0.6 milligrams of the outlawed stimulant.

Before you get too excited, you should know that 0.6 mg "of natural, unprocessed cocaine" is less powerful than a cup of joe. So what's the big deal? Kdrink's manufacturer wants to bring it to the U.S.

In the latest group of foreign hostage-takings, seven Chinese citizens have been kidnapped in Iraq.

Seven Chinese citizens have become the latest foreigners to be kidnapped in Iraq, the Chinese government said, and pledged no efforts would be spared to rescue them. The seven workers entered Iraq from Jordan early Sunday and were abducted in the flashpoint city of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, the foreign ministry and a Chinese diplomat in the Iraqi capital said.

....The kidnappings came a day before US Vice President Dick Cheney was due to arrive in Beijing Tuesday straight from a visit to Tokyo overshadowed by the kidnapping of three Japanese civilians in Iraq.

China opposed the war in Iraq and did not send any troops there. It also was friendly to Saddam Hussein's regime.

There are reportedly now 30 foreigners who have been taken hostage in Iraq this week. The three Japanese citizens and American Thomas Hamill have not yet been released. 8 other hostages, including one from Britain, have been released. Two Germans are missing and their Government has said they are presumed dead.

Update: China reports they have now been released.

[comments now closed]

Howard Dean is stepping up to the plate for John Kerry. In Monday's New York Times, he writes in an op-ed:

Many Democrats also admire Ralph Nader's achievements, as I do. But if they truly want George Bush out of the White House, they won't vote for Ralph Nader in November.

Say hello to new liberal blogger My Left Brain . Instapundit got a bloglift (y.w.c.t.p.) -- it looks really good.

Why is the recidivism rate among felons so high? Because society punishes ex-convicts for life. Devah Pager and Jeff Manza explain:

Take the Higher Education Act of 1998, which bars ex-felons from eligibility for Pell Grants, the largest type of federal student loans. How can ex-offenders build better lives for themselves if they are not allowed to compete for the same kinds of educational opportunities as everyone else?

Many of the legal barriers that extend beyond the completion of a prison sentence were adopted by Congress or state governments as part of the "war" on crime and drugs. These include restrictions on occupational licensing that prevent work in many types of jobs; access to public housing and other types of social programs aimed at the poorest Americans, and a variety of political rights (such as the right to vote, to serve on juries and to hold public office). The unintended consequence of these policies can be to promote the very circumstances that led to crime in the first place....Crime policy in recent decades has emphasized harsh punishment over rehabilitation, and the problems of prisoner re-entry have become increasingly difficult to ignore.

Stanley (Tookie) Williams was the leader of the Crips in south central LA. He's been on death row for 23 years. While in jail, he became an anti-gang activist, wrote children's books and was nominated by a member of the Swiss Parliament for the Nobel Prize. In 1999, he was visited by Winnie Mandela.

Williams is hoping for a reprieve. Watch the movie about him tonight, Redemption, on FX, starring Jamie Foxx. FX, Sunday at 8 p.m., Eastern and Pacific times; 7, Central time.

[Comments now closed, thanks to all for your thoughts.]

Rahul Mahajan is blogging from Fallujah at Empire Notes. He says the major newspapers are not telling the true story.

Among the more laughable assertions of the Bush administration is that the mujaheddin are a small group of isolated "extremists" repudiated by the majority of Fallujah's population. Nothing could be further from the truth. Of course, the mujaheddin don't include women or very young children (we saw an 11-year-old boy with a Kalashnikov), old men, and are not necessarily even a majority of fighting-age men. But they are of the community and fully supported by it. ....

Nothing could have been easier than gaining the good-will of the people of Fallujah had the Americans not been so brutal in their dealings. Now, a tipping-point has been reached. Fallujah cannot be "saved" from its mujaheddin unless it is destroyed.

There's lots more in this daily account of Baghdad and Fallujah, but no permalinks, so just start reading at the top.

The new Newsweek examines how Vietnam compares with Iraq. "In Iraq, the scale is smaller, but there are echoes. How it compares with Vietnam—and doesn't."

....to most Americans, Vietnam is the recurring nightmare. To anyone over the age of about 50, last week felt a little like the end of February 1968, when the Tet offensive was raging through the cities of South Vietnam and Americans were starting to wonder if the war would ever end. A year after Iraqi civilians (with the help of U.S. Marines) toppled Saddam's statue, America suffered through its worst week of combat since the supposed end of the war, with more than 40 soldiers dead and hundreds more wounded. During Tet, a Viet Cong suicide squad penetrated the American Embassy in Saigon before being gunned down. Nothing quite that dramatic happened in Baghdad. Yet Paul Bremer, the American proconsul, had to cancel an appointment on the edge of the so-called Green Zone, where the Americans are headquartered, when security forces found an unexploded bomb possibly waiting for his arrival.

....One significant difference between now and then—no draft—has kept down dissent in the heartland. Even so, it is possible to lay Iraq and Vietnam side by side and see disturbing parallels, as well as critical differences—both of which shed light on what must be done going forward.