So I've been thinking about this constitutional law thing. I've been thinking --

What's the point?

Witness the following case study:

In June, 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Bush Administration's policy of detaining foreign nationals without legal process at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Station was illegal. The Court determined that the prisoners could not be held in a prison beyond the law, and were entitled to basic legal rights. MacArthur Justice Center attorney Joseph Margulies is the lead counsel for petitioners in Rasul v. Bush.

I recently heard Mr. Margulies interviewed. He described the "legal process" the Bush Administration had established in response to the Supreme Court's decision in Rasul.

The detainees are examined by a military tribunal (not a federal court, as required under Rasul) without access to counsel (also unconstitional, under Rasul) and without even access to the evidence against them (do I need to repeat the U-word? How many times?).

You get it?

They are expected to rebut evidence they're not even allowed to see. Evidence that they face under the presumption of guilt.

This is not American justice. It's Kafka's worst nightmare.

These people have been disappeared. And they'll stay that way until somebody decides, arbitrarily, to let them go.

Fuck constitutional law. The Bush Administration already has.

The truly scary thing is: Under current Administration policies, they can do the same thing to American citizens.

They can do the same thing to you.

They can do the same thing to me.

Anybody out there taking bets if Hurricane Katrina might end up being the American version of the Reichstag fire?

All the people gathered in Washington last weekend to protest the war in Iraq, the War on Terror, the war on whatever the fuck -- you just don't get it.

The war is just an excuse.