HoustonChronicle.com - Showdown looms over detainees at base

From the "it's about time" department ...

"In Washington, U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, a Bush appointee who took the bench shortly after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, ordered the government to explain by Tuesday why Salim Gherebi should not be released. If the government cannot show that Gherebi is a security risk, Walton said, he will order the 46-year-old Libyan immediately released. That would mark the first time the administration was forced to free any of the captives taken in the war on terror."

But then, from the "here's a glimmer of the bad part" department ...

HOW THE HEARING WORKS A panel of military officers decides whether a prisoner is an enemy combatant, as the military contends. Prisoners are represented by someone supplied by the military.

The Chron doesn't take it all the way home, so here's a jab:

-- "enemy combatant" is not a term in international law, the Geneva Conventions, or in the US Constution -- it's a made-up term
-- the Geneva Convention has been completely trammeled in Guantanamo
-- US law requiring the US to honor the Genevan Convention has been trammeled
-- the US Constitution has been spat upon by the Bush Administration