@ Eric: Most of them haven't ACTUALLY done anything, I suspect.

They might have been known to have been involved in some radical islamist group... but it's not illegal to have a strong faith, hang out with like-minded people and discuss whatever you want to discuss.... You are only guilty of a crime if you actually go ahead and do it, or get very close to. There is no way these thousands of people fit that profile.

I think the US picked these people up because they had been a thorn in the CIAs eyes for some time, and 9/11 gave the US a perfect excuse to disregard all normal diplomatic considerations. It used sympathy from other Western countries to make a big stink of "War against terror" and use it as a get-out-of-jail card for all sorts of underhand dark-ops actions. Since then, several THOUSAND Middle Eastern people have died, for every American life that was lost in 9/11. Do you think that is a fair equation?

The US imprisoned the majority of these people for something that the MIGHT have done in the future. The British citizens that were let go are living "normal" lives in the UK now - they were found completely innocent.

All this is a bit like what happened in the film "Minority Report" if you recall.
Or "thought crimes" in Orwell's "1984".

This is exactly the same as what happened with the American anti-communist paranoia under J Edgar Hoover. And the more you come on like an imperialist brute, the more these people will be radicalised.

I also don't see what right the US has to pick up foreign citizens for crimes committed in foreign countries....? There is no connection whatsoever to the US. What would you think if China, for instance, kidnapped a few thousand Americans, kept them in a labour camp for 10 years... for something the Chinese couldn't even prove that the Americans had done?

I suspect there are no trials in the Guantanamo cases because there is no proof that would hold up.