Ah, relativism, the U.S. has no right to pick and choose its enemies and friends because then the U.S. is just like the bad guys. Get a grip.
The Sandindistas were a bunch of murdering thugs who took over from the ruling murdering thug, Samoza (whom, by the way, they murdered in a bomb blast in Argentina several years after gaining power). The U.S. supported that bastard, that was wrong. The contras were indeed a bunch of pretty nasty guys, but in the end the U.S. forced a democratic election and the ruling nuts lost...even after the left wing in the U.S. had supported them. I get misty eyed over left wing intellectuals telling us after the election that the Peeeeple were simply to ignorant and steeped in Spanish heritage to accept the socialist future the intellectuals had laid out for them...sniff...
The real issue is not really the status of the captured Taliban. The real issue is the "cultures" and "religions" that spawn such reckless hate. And it is a reckless hate. They have nothing to offer except Sharia law and hatred of all of who reject it. There is no room for culture, economic life, etc in their philosophy. In short, they will never be happy until they've installed hell here on earth with the expectation that Allah will pimp them 70 virgins in heaven.
And if you want an argument, the POW agreements were developed by the Western nations after WWI and WWII for different times. I think they should be held up for review to see if they are still adequate or if they need to be changed. Those documents were drawn up with the expectation that most POWs thought like Judeo-Christians. This lot doesn't and the documents need to be revisited.
That being said, the U.S. should adhere to the documents as is and treat the prisoners as good old-fashioned POWs, as long as the debate alluded to above gets started.
And we will have to wring information out of them, but if we have to resort to torture, then it isn't worth it...and it won't work anyhow because a tortured prisoner will say anything. Any real information isn't going to come from this lot of prisoners. The Big Shots always take care to look after themselves and consider it a gross mistake to get caught. Same with Enron, Watergate, Mullahs, Jihadis, the entire Clinton administration, etc.
And whether the U.S. likes it or not, the current argument with the Islamo-Fascists comes down to who kills who first. Of course if you have no belief in the U.S. or what it stands for (at least in good light), then we're simply as bad as they. Doesn't matter, kill or be killed.