Las Vegas Sun

February 12, 2012

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR:

On health care, terror suspects, GOP did nothing

Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2009 | 2:02 a.m.

Republicans in Congress have taken a break from expressing outrage about Democratic efforts to reform health care to blast the Obama administration’s decision to try some Guantanamo detainees in New York.

Didn’t the Republicans control the White House for eight years and Congress for 12? They now claim to know exactly how to fix health care and exactly what’s wrong with the Democratic plan — and yet they did nothing about it during their extended tenure.

The same goes for putting Guantanamo detainees — most of whom were captured seven to eight years ago — on trial. The George W. Bush administration’s solution was to detain most of them indefinitely, compromising our nation’s principles that one is innocent until proven guilty; that the accused are entitled to speedy trials; and that prisoners shouldn’t be tortured to elicit confessions.

Indefinitely holding hundreds of citizens of about a dozen nations without trial, Guantanamo became a symbol of legal abuse — and the United States’ reputation suffered worldwide. That’s why both President Barack Obama and Republican presidential nominee John McCain vowed to close Guantanamo during last year’s election campaign. But now that these detainees are finally being brought to justice, Republicans — including McCain — feign outrage.

Health care and Guantanamo are two issues on which Republicans in power spent years doing nothing but passing the buck to their successors. Now they’re proving that those who can, do — and those who can’t, criticize.

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