Cambridge Common

A report to be released this week by the United Nations' Human Rights Commission calls for the immediate close of the U.S. military's blackhole of a detention center, otherwise known as Guantanamo Bay. The report also calls for the prosecution of those involved in the perpetration of the prison up to the highest levels of "military and political command" to be brought to justice. According to the UK's telegraph, this may even include U.S. President Bush as the commander-in-chief of the U.S. military and chief executive of the government. This is looking to be a pretty crap next few weeks for the White House while Cheney ducks the spotlight after shooting a man and federal budget cuts from Bush continue to draw popular and legislative criticism.

I wonder what would happen if this U.N. commission visited U.S. prisons on the mainland. There are surely many here with conditions not befitting any human being despite whatever crimes they may have committed, yet they are allowed to persist. Although U.S. prisons may be deemed as being in better shape than many other countries' prison systems the world over that doesn't make ours decent. Our prisons should not only be comparatively decent but normatively decent.