"Does anyone here think that Sam Adams or Thomas Jefferson or George Mason or James Madison would advocate holding prisoners for years without trial?!?"
Nope. Being unlawful combatants, which are worse than pirates, the above individuals would've had them deported or executed within days.
Frankly, they weren't combatants (people seem to have this idea that these ware people who surrendered on the battlefield, not ones that were rounded up to sift through).
I suppose you would also name the minutemen and militias of the colonies as "enemy combatants" who should have been held without charges or trial? :-( I'm not talking about the foreign fighters there, but the Afghan ones.
The reason they aren't returned to US soil is so their rights can be violated. Doesn't that say something's wrong, if we feel the need to evade our own rules?
I say we should try them, and the innocent freed, and the guilty...well, let's do with them whatever we want, whatever helps our fight. Let's keep the moral high ground.