Guantanamo, Is it legal, and should it be kept open? Options

[*mipadi*]

Republican senators called on Wednesday for the rights of foreign terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay prison to be legally defined even as the Bush administration said the inmates could be jailed there "in perpetuity."

The prison, currently holding roughly 520 inmates, opened on the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in January 2002 in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. Many of the detainees have been held for more than three years, and only four have been charged.

At a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Republican Chairman Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania said Congress should help to define the legal rights of the inmates at the prison, which the panel's top Democrat called "an international embarrassment."

Delaware Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden asked Deputy Associate Attorney General J. Michael Wiggins whether the Justice Department had "defined when there is the end of conflict."

"No, sir," Wiggins responded.

"If there is no definition as to when the conflict ends, that means forever, forever, forever these folks get held at Guantanamo Bay," Biden said.

"It's our position that, legally, they can be held in perpetuity," Wiggins said.

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Do you feel that the United States is legally and/or morally justified in holding foreign nationals captured on suspicion of being terrorists indefinitely? Should these men be given a fair trial first? Should they be turned over to their home countries for trial, instead of being held by the US--and if not, should they be given the rights of a normal prisoner of war? Can the US hold these prisoners indefinitely? Are the policies regarding Guantanamo concurrent with US values, in terms of freedom, liberty, and justice?