Court correct to stop Guantánamo abuses

The U.S. war on terror is not boundless. The Supreme Court highlighted a few of its limits by ruling that the Bush administration overstepped its authority in ordering military war-crimes trials for Guantánamo detainees.

Even many Bush supporters have grave questions about the way in which the administration has carried out the war on terror.

From the beginning, the prison at Guantánamo Bay has been a stain on America's reputation as a nation of laws, even for people who are not American citizens.

Shabby, disgraceful treatment of prisoners at the U.S. military prison in Cuba stands as one of the more embarrassing episodes in American history.

Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the 5-3 majority, said the administration lacked the authority to take "the extraordinary measure" of scheduling military trials for inmates. Defendants in these trials have fewer legal protections than in civilian courts.

The disappointment is the court was so divided. More-conservative members of the court, including Bush's two appointees, either sided with the administration or, because Chief Justice John Roberts served on the appeals-court panel whose ruling was under review, abstained. Our courts should be more united in treating prisoners fairly.

This is not the first setback for the president's war on terror. The administration sustained a similar loss when the high court ruled two years ago that the president lacked authority to seize and detain terrorism suspects and indefinitely deny them access to courts or lawyers.

The current case involving Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who worked as a bodyguard and driver for Osama bin Laden, is about the right to a fair trial, one of the central tenets of American law.

No one is saying dangerous people should be dumped on the streets, but human-rights groups correctly charge that the military commissions' rules do not meet international standards for fair trials.

The ruling on Guantánamo does not say what will happen in the long run to the hundreds of detainees at the prison. Find a way to move them elsewhere. Close the prison and end this sorry chapter in American history.