[KarlInOhio]

Rand believes America can fight terrorism and maintain its moral integrity without resorting to offshore prison camps, “prolonged detention”, and other, highly questionable legal measures.

We've had "prolonged detention" in every war. They are called "Prisoners of War". The problem with this war is that we are fighting organizations and ideology instead of nation-states which the laws of war (such as the Geneva Conventions) presume. Thus captives are not considered legal combatants according to the laws of war, but they can't really be considered common criminals either. Thus they fall into a legal gray area. Even if we counted them as Prisoners of War, they wouldn't be going back home for a long time because the war is going to last a long time.

[randomhero97]

Thus captives are not considered legal combatants

Technically no, but considering that this is asymetric warfare I assume that the legal definitions change.