A U.S. district judge in Washington has ordered the government to release 17 Chinese Muslim men who have been held at Guantanamo for nearly seven years. This is the first time an American court has issued such an order, but don't get the idea this is the beginning of the end for the infamous American prison in Cuba, at least not anytime soon.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled four months ago that alleged "enemy combatants" held at Guantanamo have a right under the U.S. Constitution to a court hearing to determine the legality of their imprisonment, and if the government cannot show cause for continued imprisonment, a judge can order the prisoner released. The Bush administration, however, has effectively thumbed its nose at the Supreme Court's ruling, throwing up every imaginable roadblock to prevent meaningful legal hearings for prisoners held at Guantanamo, some since 2001.

The administration, however, recently admitted in a court filing that the 17 Chinese Uighurs, who fled from China to Afghanistan, are not enemy combatants. Still, the government has not yet released them in part because they cannot return to China because they fear persecution or death if they return. China considers the separatist Uighurs terrorists.

Despite Tuesday's ruling, look for the Bush administration to pull out the stops to prevent the 17 from being released. In short, it appears the administration's strategy is to run out the clock and leave this problem to the next president. Thus, among the first acts of the new president should be to order hearings for all those held at Guantanamo.

It may be that some of those "detainees" being held at Guantanamo are dangerous men who have committed acts of war against the United States. Or, some may be terrorists bent on doing harm to this nation. If so, the government should be prepared to make its case in a fair hearing in a legitimate proceeding before a neutral judge and propose a reasonable punishment. Or let them go.

The ordinary rules of war for holding captured enemy troops do not apply to the "war on terror." In a conventional war, captured fighters can be released once hostilities cease, or suspected war criminals can be tried by a legitimate tribunal and punished. Fighting terrorism is not an ordinary war, however: The combatants do not wear the uniforms of any nation, and the hostilities may never truly cease.

Under such circumstances, perhaps some bad actors deserve to be locked up indefinitely - say, those implicated in terrorist acts - but there must be a process for assuring the government is right.

The administration's approach for the past six years has been to simply warehouse men it has rounded up in the war on terror and leave some to rot for the remainder of their lives. When asked to prove it is legitimately holding these people, members of the administration have simply said we will have to take their word that "these are bad guys."

That is not good enough. It is a shocking violation of the standard of justice for the United States.

We now know for fact that not all of the men held at Guantanamo were terrorists who presented a continuing danger to the world, because more than 400 have been released to countries in the Middle East and Europe. Meanwhile, other lawyers have been rebuffed in efforts to get their clients' cases before the American courts, in spite of the Supreme Court's holding that blockage of that violates the Constitution.

It's hard to see how the United States can expect the rest of the world to respect the rule law when our own government does not respect its own.