Abu Ghraib is typica

l For the millions of people across the united states and throughout the world who have found the torture chambers of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and outrage should be equally outraged that these same practices of torture are being carried out right here in the united states.

No! Abu Ghraib prison is not an isolated incident committed by a few sick minded individuals as your government and its media mouthpieces would have you believe, but is a common practice employed by your government and its middle class reactionary forces.

Yes! There are numerous Abu Ghraib prisons across the united states that are overflowing with an extremely high number of oppressed nationals, mostly Latinos and Blacks. These torture chambers are called SHUs and other similar names, the prisons within prisons that the Department of Corrections and politicians avoid acknowledging. These SHUs are just one of the many repressive appendages built into an inherently corrupt capitalist system, that results in the social inequalities where crime develops, that the Department of Corrections and politicians would rather you not know about. And on those rare occasions that the mainstream media mouthpieces do inform you about the SHU facilities, you're fed half truths and lies which are manipulated to further the political and financial agendas of politicians and correctional officers seeking higher salaries and reelections.

I want you to imagine, you or one of your loved ones, being left stripped naked in a cold cell for days at a time as a so-called form of disciplining or "softening up" as they do, not only in Abu Ghraib, but in SHU facilities across the united states. I want you to imagine yourself being pepper sprayed and beaten by 15 club wielding guards armed to the teeth. Imagine your loved one being forced to endure the exposure to extreme cold weather, out and inside your cell, making it nearly impossible to sleep, or the confinement to 100 degree plus temperatures in cells with no ventilation. Imagine your physical health being compromised, being fed below the u.s. government's requirements that's necessary to sustain a healthy body, all in order to divert money so your anatagonizers can continue collecting highly paid overtime hours.

I want you to imagine what it's like being confined to a windowless single man cell where the lights never go off for 23 hours a day, sometimes 47 hours, with an occasional hour alone in a so-called exercise module that amounts to being placed in the bottom of a dim mine shaft. And aside from the physical deterioration that inevitably ensues, imagine the slow mental deterioration of your loved ones mind at it slowly loses its grip on reality as a result of the years of extreme isolation of all human contact and the sensory deprivation. Imagine sick minded guards setting up your loved ones to fist fight with one another as a form of gambling only to shoot them down and kill them in cold blood. Although equally atrocious and intolerable, this is not only Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, these are also the numerous SHU facilities within the belly of the beast, right here in the United States.

In Iraq, a prisoner was beaten to death by u.s. soldiers who then attempted to hide their murderous deed by sneaking the prisoner's corpse out of the prison. This attempt by u.s. mercenary soldiers to cover up their murderous deeds is all too familiar to many of us who are confined within our own Abu Ghraib prisons here in the united states where Corcoran SHU guards shot and killed numerous prisoners in California for "entertainment" and then also attempted to cover the tracks of their murderous deeds until one of their own, as in Iraq, blew the whistle on them. And in Iraq have no illusions, just as in Corcoran, the reactionary middle class never convicts its own. And it should come as no surprise to many of us ot learn that two of the seven soldiers charged with the torture of Abu Ghraib prisoners in Iraq, one of whom poses so proudly in the now world infamous photographs, first learned their tactics as correctional officers here in the united states. The photographs of the atrocities being committed against Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison could easily be the photographs of conditions inside a SHU facility here in the united states.

The states fascist policy of confinement of oppressed nations within u.s. borders has been employed under one guise or another for years. The Department of Corruptions knowingly uses falsified and fabricated evidence it not only manufactures itself, but also obtains from unreliable prisoners who themselves are seeking to avoid the harsh conditions of SHU confinement. This falsified evidence is uncorroborative and unchallengable by the accused prisoners. These prisoners are dragged before kangaroo courts established by the Department of Corruptions and are falsely labeled prison gang members, associates, and security threats to the prison institution which results in lifetime confinement within these torture chambers offering no way out except parole or death. The dept of corrections and politicians would have you believe that the control units house the worst of the worst, but many of these prisoners have no history of institutional violence. Even after years of discipline free behavior and no links to prison gangs, prisoners are still denied adequate legal relief and release to general population. These Department of Correction tribunals are mirror images of the tribunals staged by the u.s. military.

The practices of Guantanamo Bay where prisoners are being held indeterminately with no due process rights, no rights to confront their accuser, or adequate access to legal relief, is nothing new to the Department of Corrections or to the thousands of prisoners who have been confined illegally to the control units across the united states.

Those of you who are outraged by the atrocities and human rights violations of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, should not only be equally outraged by these same atrocities and human rights violations that even the imperialist U.N. condemns that are being committed here in the united states, but need to join the struggle with the prisoners of the control units and MIM in a fight to abolish this fascist form of oppression. The Department of Corrections, politicians, u.s. government and its reactionary supporters can no longer stifle our voices and sweep us under the rug like dirt that the public shouldn't know about. The time has come and is long over due. We will materialize our voices and make them be heard. Join the fight to shut down the control units.

-a California prisoner at Pelican Bay, July 2004