What to do with prisoners in the GWOT?

Let me start out by saying that I'm against abuse of detainees, and I'm also against detaining people for whom there is little to no evidence that they have either committed a crime or are an enemy combatant. I am in favor of the U.S. and all of our allies conforming to international standards of the treatment of prisoners and honoring our treaty obligations.

Having said that, however, there is one argument I've heard from some folks on this, from critics of current American policy on this issue, that I don't think holds a lot of water. It's the argument "If we don't have the evidence to charge a prisoner with a crime, we should let him go."

Whatever happened to the generally accepted principle that one takes prisoners in war, and that the only "crime" the prisoner of war is guilty of is fighting for the other side? Haven't most nations generally followed this rule, taking prisoners in war and holding them until hostilities are over? Yes, I know that there are many cases in which American forces are holding people with insufficient evidence, but what about the cases in which there is no such ambiguity? Or to come at it a different way, let's suppose that each prisoner were to get a hearing to establish whether or not they were fighting for Al Qaeda. If they get a fair hearing, and it's established that they've fought, say, on the battlefield in Afghanistan for Al Qaeda and/or the Taliban, then it would be fair to hold them, even if they haven't committed any "crime" other than fighting on the other side of the war, no?

Of course, the fact that this is "a different kind of war" also creates some complications, doesn't it? Let's stick to Afghanistan for the moment. How long will American troops remain in Afghanistan fighting a low intensity conflict with the Taliban and/or Al Qaeda? For all we know, it could continue, at a low intensity, for 20, 25, 30 years. (And even when that's over, the War on Terror could continue on other fronts for a long time.) A conventional war between nation states usually doesn't last so long, but the enemy in this case doesn't represent the government of any nation state (at least, not since the Taliban was ousted). It represents an organization. Is it fair to detain a low level grunt in the Taliban for 25 years as the war continues to simmer? Or should we not worry about that kind of thing in war?

Anyway, what's your opinion on holding prisoners who aren't guilty of a "crime" in the conventional sense, but are nonetheless enemy combatants? Should the rules be different in this conflict as opposed to a more conventional war in which the enemy wears the uniform of a particular nation?

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