Carol Marin, writing in the Chicago Tribune, reminds us that mistreatment of prisoners extends beyond Iraq to those in the U.S.. She addresses specifically the torture of suspects by South Side Chicago cops, inflicted to obtain confessions.

From Iraq to Chicago, appalling acts regarding the mistreatment of prisoners are unfolding. This is about the torture of suspects by police officers on the South Side of Chicago to make the suspects confess to a crime. It's a story we should be sick about and one we should have dealt with long ago. We haven't.

That's why Wednesday morning there will be yet another hearing at the Dirksen Federal Building as four pardoned Death Row inmates, Madison Hobley, Aaron Patterson, Stanley Howard and Leroy Orange, continue to wage their long battle for justice. They have filed civil lawsuits against Chicago police and Cook County prosecutors who, to this day, dispute there was ever a pattern and practice of torture at Area 2 by Chicago Police Cmdr. Jon Burge and his men.

The difference between the abuses in Iraq in Chicago? No one took pictures between 1973 and 1991 at the Chicago police station.

Why is the city fighting these cases? Just as in the torture cases in Iraq, isn't there a moral argument here? A crying need for those in command to stand up and take responsibility for what happened under their watch? Until then, everyone keeps paying the price. Those who were tortured, certainly. And a majority of honorable men and women in the Police Department who don't deserve to bear the shame or carry the burden of the Burge years.