This

makes me happy.

Guantanamo Bay has never reallly sat well with me, and has sort of become a symbol of the ever-expanding power of the executive branch. Of course, this does not mean that "Gitmo" (in military parlance) will be shut down; merely that the president's preferred method of bringing the suspects held there to trial is illegal, and he will either have to persue conventional means of administering justice, or ask congress for permission to do it another way (which is what he should have done in the first place; I don't buy this idea that a state of war, as quasi-exists now, gives the President a blank check to do as he pleases in defense of the counrty.)

For me, the ethical/moral quandry here is more important than the legal one. Just because these people are alleged to have taken up arms against the U.S. and are not necessarily members of a standing army (in the modern sense) does not give us the right to toss out the rule book when dealing with them. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for a vigorous defense of our sovereignty and long to see thoes who have worked to cause us harm brought to justice, but if we do so in a way that violates very deeply held beliefs about the rights of an individual or limits on the powers of the government, what good are we? We cannot, in good faith, state that our offenses against this or that individual are excused because they are lesser than the individuals' offenses against us. President Bush denounces these prisoners as enemies of freedom and democracy; are we not much the same if we deny democratic processes to those that need it most? Certainly, anyone who is convinced of U.S. treachery in and disdain of Arabs and the Middle East need look no further than how readily we abandon our much vaunted principles of being equal before the law and having acess to due process.

If nothing else, this will help ensure that the detainees (ever notice that the Bush aministration never says 'prisoners?') will have better access to an impartial court to hear their case, and hopefully show President Bush that he cannot act with impunity.