Contra Costa Times | 02/14/2004 | Rumsfeld says panel will evaluate detainees

"Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced Friday the creation of an administrative panel that will annually review the cases of inmates at the U.S. military jail in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to ensure that none is held 'any longer than is absolutely necessary.'
But Rumsfeld, in a speech to the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce, defended the government's practice of holding the prisoners indefinitely without charges, saying they 'are enemy combatants and terrorists who are being detained for acts of war against our country.
'And that is why different rules have to apply.'"

Different rules means ignoring the US Constitution. Ignoring the US Constitution is, by definition, un-Constitutional. Rumsfeld, along with Bubba Bush himself, is ignoring his pledge to defend and uphold the US Constitution.

Without irony, Bubba Rummy says we'll have "annual reviews", but reviews of what? What will have changed while these men are held in the US Gulag? They haven't been tried, but they have been condemned by Rummy to arbitrary prison terms. Where is the justice in this? Even Britain, our great ally, is against this practice and the army lawyers are calling it exactly what it is: despotism.

There is hope for these men, however: John Kerry. As soon as we get a "regime change" in Washington, these men will most likely see better justice.