It’s all hugs and kisses until someone explodes
Power Point Ranger and Southern Democrat sent me an article from BBC of one of our readers, Brandon Neely, a former IVAW member who left the organization last year over the Carl Webb dustup. I wrote about Neely and his testimony last year which was little more than hearsay from other guards at Guantanamo and some of his work as reaction force in the prison. Like some of the other guards at Gitmo who’ve come out against prisoner treatment, Neely admits that much of his information on terrorists came from his fraternization with them.
Well, he took that fraternization a step further and apologized to two British prisoners for their mistreatment in front of BBC cameras. I understand what might have motivated Brandon to make the trip and beclown himself in front of the international media, but I wonder what good anyone thought would come out of that.
Rusty Weiss at Newsbusters catalogues the real reasons that these two Gitmo prisoners, Ruhal Ahmed and Shafiq Rasul, are still in custody. Although they claimed that they were just looking for some good pot initially, they’ve admitted that they sought and found some weapons training from al-Qaeda.
But because they could whip out some mean rap lyrics, Neely has decided they’re not terrorists. Since I know Brandon is a regular reader here, I’ll tell him that’s just naive. Being a member of the QRF in Gitmo doesn’t give you any special insight on terrorists. it doesn’t matter that they’re all 5’5″ tall and weigh about 120 pounds – how much exploding do they have to do right in front of your face to convince you that they’re dangerous?
Gitmo guards gladhanding their former charges is good TV, but it’s just not good anti-terrorism policy. Six months on QRF doesn’t make you an expert, Brandon. It just makes for good propaganda. Yes the two pot heads forgave you, but they’d kill you and your family just as fast.
Please grow up.
Power Point Ranger and I agree that this photo looks like a screen shot from a beheading video;
By the way, Brandon, I’m a little upset that you didn’t let TAH in on this interview.
Correction: Rusty Weiss from Newsbusters writes to tell us that Ruhal Ahmed and Shafiq Rasul are no longer in custody since 2004.
Category: Antiwar crowd, Iraq Veterans Against the War
Neely really gets my goat.
Having actually been to GITMO, with the Army; which means working in Radio Ranger, I would love to be treated as well as those terrorists if I had been captured in Iraq (having been there too with the same Battalion).
I know from my own experience and first hand observations that the only thing being more miss-reported than GWOT is GITMO and this oxygen thief only make it worse.
The media loves people like him. He can go out and make veiled accusations that the military cannot refute and the media will air the story and do research later (sorta the same as shoot first ask later that they claim the military does).
We had the International Red Cross crawling all over that place and no detainee would hesitate to complain about our “abuse.”
In the interest of full disclosure, I was part of the headquarters element. I never pulled shift in towers, sat on QRF, or patrolled the area. I was however often in charge of the TOC manning radios and taking reports. I was in and out of Camp Delta on several occasions including the tour that the commander got where I got to encounter a detainee (which I can only describe as spooky and eye opening).
As anyone that is in the military knows, the people who run the TOC know better than most what is going on in the company and in the Task Force.
If the BBC is going to feature current/former IVAW folk on an apology tour, maybe they can get Matthis Chiroux in the studio with some of those Filipinas that the military supposedly made him molest.
Well, you know Chiroux did apologize for eating all of the ice cream at the Bagram Baskin Robbins already.
PowerPoint Ranger, don’t go soft on Matthis. Matthis is a RAPIST, and a party to a rape. But the big bad evil Army made him that way.
I’ve never met the guy Casey, don’t think I ever care to so I’ll gladly defer to your knowledge in that situation.
I remember that Jonn. PowerPoint, I got that from his confession.
Can I just add–Boo-friggin’ hoo. They have no balls. Let them apologize because TAH does have balls to tell it like it is. It would suck to be them.
Oh dear. It would not suprise me if you also supported the views of the KKK. This reads as racist, opionated nonsense, lackin in any context of research.
Small minded man.
If you looked a little deeper, you would realise that AK47’s are commen currency in Afghanistan. They spoke if touching and feeling one of them in Kunduz, as I’m sure, would many teenagers in a foreign land. Especially given that they would not have seen any in the UK. You forget that not all countries are like the U.S. They were given no ‘weapons training’ as you hype up, they were part of an aid convoy. CIA published briefing notes after Guantanamo stating that it was nothing more than naivety and the main allegation against them was that they were in a video with Bin Laden. This was proved wrong, as the men were in the UK, one of them was working in a electrical department store.
They were such forgiving men of Mr Neely, who also deserves praise from the highest level for his compassion and humanity.
Especially, given the small minded opinions coming from a small portion of fellow country men like you.
And the Race Card has been officially flung upon the table. Thanks, that took 7 whole posts.
JohnSJones,
Actually, your assertion that they did not receive training is provable false. Ahmed admitted to attending a jihadist training camp during the Lab Lie television show, after the show had shown him to be less than honest with his other answers.
As for AK 47’s being common currency in Afghanistan, I will grant you that they are likely more common in a country such as this, but this doesn’t mean that everyone handles them as an afterthought. Especially those involved in an aid convoy.
Selling cocaine is a form of currency, but people with a conscience do not handle it lightly. Only those with nefarious intentions would do so.
And please do not play the race card. Only racists do that…
I picked up an AK-47 2 months ago in Texas, I guess I am a militia man. When in Afghanistan, back in ’03, I wanted to shoot an AK-47 to compare it to an M-4, I guess I am a terrorist. It sure is easy to classify terrorism these days. Even men who were released by the US and UK are still guilty until This Ain’t Hell acquits them. (sarcasm)
Matt, were you a guest in a jihadist training camp during your familiarization fire of the AK-47?
No? Oh well, I’m sure that’s all that these guys who would have had to pay their own way to Afghanistan and make contact with terrorists were doing too….