Guantanamo Bay, Cuba--Democrats' health care legislation in the Senate and House of Representatives includes several provisions that deny patients the ability to challenge access and treatment decisions in federal court. As a result, space is being cleared at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility -- which critics called a "legal black hole" -- to accommodate American health care patients.Under the Bush Administration, the U.S. already granted terrorists more rights than any other country had granted enemy combatants in the history of the world. Now, many of those same terrorists are being transferred to the U.S. where they will be given even more constitutional rights and full access to U.S. courts. According to one Guantanamo Bay official, "That'll free up space down here for U.S. health care patients who'll be denied all access to judicial review."
Guards at the Guantanamo Bay facility said that while the terrorist detainees committed hundreds of physical assaults on guards each year, they expected the new American patient population to "just sit around and look depressed." Standing on a nearby watch tower, another guard said "We have orders to shoot anyone who makes a break for a courthouse."
Administration lawyers assured reporters that while it doesn't pass the straight-face test to insist terrorists get full access to U.S. courts while denying the same access to American citizen health care patients, "blatant hypocrisy isn't a violation of international law."
Associated articles: Wall Street Journal; http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZmM4MzkyYTRlOTE2Mjk2YWM1MGU3NmFmMDBmM2RhYzg= (hat tip); http://supportingmaterials.blogspot.com/2009/05/excerpts-from-inside-gitmo.html
