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.
What's our motivation?
What do we gain by clothing, feeding and interrogating an innocent taxi cab driver?
Are our techniques so poor that we cannot determine that the wrongfully accused person is an innocent taxi cab driver?
If he's an innocent taxi cab driver, why don't we just let him go and concentrate on non innocent taxi cab driver types?
they do indeed deserve trials - by the military. get these US courts out of the way, and they will receive them.
"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)."
If they got rounded up, it's because there was some evidence of them being involved in terrorist/insurgent activity. Whether they're the trigger-pullers or supplying food/clothing/shelter to those they know are the trigger-pullers is irrelevant. They only hold those they think have intelligence value over long periods of time to break them down. Sometimes they end up finding out their involvement was negligible or wrong place/time. Nothing's perfect. Considering the crippling restrictions that are likely to be placed on interrogation techniques, I don't think it's going to be worthwhile to bother with long-term detentions. I think at that point battlefield executions (like we did with captured German infiltrators during the Battle of the Bulge) should become the preferred method of dealing with captured insurgents/terrorists who won't immediately co-operate.
"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?"
Unlike the scum were dealing with, the militia/minutemen fought by most of the same rules of conduct as their Imperial opponents. They were "lawful" combatants.
"The reason they aren't returned to US soil is so their rights can be violated."
Unlawful combatants and everyone who assists them self-revoke all their rights. We don't bring them here because of the traitorous scum in the ACLU and their liberal-activist butt-buddies in the courts who think the FOR U.S. CITIZENS ONLY contract known as the U.S. CONSTITUTION applies to every foreign dirtbag with a dirty night-shirt and a stick of dynamite in each hand.
"Let's keep the moral high ground."
When your enemies are throat-slitting bombers who target women and children, you'll always have the moral high-ground.