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Colin Powell, former secretary of state and voice of reason amid the howling ideologues and cooing hucksters of the Bush White House, wants to shut down Guantanamo, and move the prisoners housed there into the regular U.S. justice system.

This revelation comes one week after a judge moved to dismiss charges against two detainees, ruling that, actually, they weren't enemy combatants at all. The fact that these were the first two cases to be tried does not bode well for those Iraq war architects who strove, over five years of hunger strikes, suicide attempts, and public outcry, to defend the camp's necessity.

"Essentially,” said Powell last night on Meet the Press, “We have shaken the belief that the world had in America's justice system by keeping a place like Guantanamo open.” Oh, geez, Colin, ya think? (insert sound of forehead slapping)

Give the man his due for speaking his mind, unpopular in the GOP as those sentiments are, but is this really news to anyone? Guantanamo has certainly damaged America's image abroad, but no more than Abu Ghraib, the WMD lies, the anarchic descent of post-invasion Iraq, or, while we're at it, the stolen 2000 election. You don't need Powell's encyclopedic knowledge of foreign policy to know that America has not looked good to the rest of the world in quite some time. Colin Powell, typically understated as his assertion was, is on to something. While giving alleged “enemy combatants” access to habeas corpus might not make everyone love us again overnight, it would at least be a start.

If the last six or seven years have taught us anything, it's to find comfort in small advances. Powell's depiction of the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay as a source of international ill will could be the start of a real change. Anyway, 2008 is just around the corner.