"There was said to be evidence against three of them but legal technicalities made it inadmissable in court."

For example the "legal technicality" that what people say when they are being tortured isn't admissable evidence - largely because in those circumstances people are likely to say anything, as has been demonstrated time after time.

And what do you base the statement that "they were fighting against our own forces on the side of the Taliban"?

(And even if they had been, would that in any way excuse what appears to have happened? To me that seems the main issue.)

.....................................

Whether what happened to these prisoners is better or worse than what happened in Lebanom, it was clearly comparable in the eyes of some former hostages: -

Here's a quote from an article by Terry Waite, one of the Lebanon captives:

I can recognise the conditions that prisoners are being kept in at the US camp at Guantanamo Bay because I have been there. Not to Cuba's Camp X-Ray, but to the darkened cell in Beirut that I occupied for five years. I was chained to a wall by my hands and feet; beaten on the soles of my feet with cable; denied all my human rights, and contact with my family for five years, and given no access to the outside world.

Because I was kept in very similar conditions, I am appalled at the way we - countries that call ourselves civilised - are treating these captives. Is this justice or revenge?...

... would stand up for the rights of the alleged terrorist and of any other individual facing serious charges. I am not soft on terrorism - I have had too many dealings with it to be so - but I am passionate that we must observe standards of justice. I fear that unless firm action is taken to institute just and fair procedures, the long-term results for the US will be catastrophic.

And here's what John McCarthy, who was imprisoned along with Brian Keenan had to say:

"It seems to me that in this apparent war on terror, which is apparently to sustain and maintain and protect civilisation, we are treating these people in such an inhumane and uncivilised way."

Their case was even more extraordinary than his own, he thought.

"Whilst Brian Keenan, myself, Terry Waite and others were picked up in the streets of Beirut and then held there, these people were arrested and detained in Afghanistan and then shipped somewhere else," said Mr McCarthy.

"They may not even know where they are on the planet, which would add to the terror I would imagine they experienced, I mean the trauma.

"I can have some understanding of what it is like to be forced to wear a hood or blindfold and to be chained up as these prisoners appear to be."