Why is Brandon Neely a Moron or a War Criminal?

When I came across this story, I thought it provided an interesting look into circumstances most of us can't even begin to wrap our heads around. I started googling for more information. I should not have been surprised by what I read.

Brandon Neely served our country as a Military Policeman in the Army. In 2002, Neely spent 6 months as a guard at Guantanamo Bay's Camp X-Ray. He was 22 years old. He arrived in Cuba ready to take his government at its word; ready to believe that he would be guarding the absolute worst examples of hate-filled terrorists - those directly responsible for the 9/11 massacre. What he found, though, was not quite what he expected. And I don't think Neely found himself to be what he expected either.

Neely related one disturbing experience caused primarily by language barriers and no doubt exacerbated by brutal treatment the prisoners had been dealt prior to their arrival: Neely was attempting to get an elderly prisoner to kneel so he (the prisoner) could be unshackled. The terrified old man thought he was being forced to kneel in order to be shot. He struggled. Neely believed he was in danger from the fighting prisoner. He slammed the old man's head into the ground in an effort to subdue him. Neely freely admits to his actions and shows remorse, even though he could not have been expected to know any diffferent at the time. For this, Neely is being called a War Criminal and a moron by a gang of keyboard-warrior douche-bags hiding behind their computer generated anonymity.

Neely saw some ugly things at Camp X-Ray. It took him some time to clear the cobwebs from his head and really see what was in front of his eyes. Remember he expected his charges to be horrendously evil and maybe not quite human. He didn't speak up as soon as he should have. I'll concede that. But he's speaking up NOW. That counts for at least something.

Moving on, let's look at the 2 former captives Neely has recently met with, Shafiq Rasul and Rufal Ahmed. Were these dangerous jihadis who hated freedom and wanted to destroy America? Were they fanatical terrorists? Hardly. They were no different from thousands of other fun-seeking boys around the world. Like a real life version of Harold and Kumar, these 2 knuckleheads were willing to travel across the world to smoke pot without parental interference. Both Rasul and Ahmed have more likely than not mortified their families, and will be forever remembered as the 2 geniuses who went out into the world to get high and ended up imprisoned at Camp X-Ray.

But I still think the reunion is a damn good story.

Are My Hands Clean?

Are My Hands Clean?

Some food for thought...... Are your hands and clothes really clean?

(Lyrics and music by Bernice Johnson Reagon. Songtalk Publishing Co. 1985)


I wear garments touched by hands from all over the world

35% cotton, 65% polyester, the journey begins in Central America

In the cotton fields of El Salvador

In a province soaked in blood,

Pesticide-sprayed workers toil in a broiling sun

Pulling cotton for two dollars a day.

Then we move on up to another rung—Cargill

A top-forty trading conglomerate, takes the cotton through the Panama Canal

Up the Eastern seaboard, coming to the US of A for the first time

In South Carolina

At the Burlington mills

Joins a shipment of polyester filament courtesy of the New Jersey petro-chemical mills of Dupont

Dupont strands of filament begin in the South American country of Venezuela

Where oil riggers bring up oil from the earth for six dollars a day

Then Exxon, largest oil company in the world,

Upgrades the product in the country of Trinidad and Tobago

Then back into the Caribbean and Atlantic Seas

To the factories of Dupont

On the way to the Burlington mills

In South Carolina

To meet the cotton from the blood-soaked fields of El Salvador

In South Carolina

Burlington factories hum with the business of weaving oil and cotton into miles of fabric for Sears

Who takes this bounty back into the Caribbean Sea

Headed for Haiti this time—May she be one day soon free—

Far from the Port-au-Prince palace

Third world women toil doing piece work to Sears specifications

For three dollars a day my sisters make my blouse

It leaves the third world for the last time

Coming back into the sea to be sealed in plastic for me

This third world sister

And I go to the Sears department store where I buy my blouse

On sale for 20% discount

Are my hands clean?





Tags: Dorothy Kernaghan-Baez, AFRA, family rights, twitter, cyber-dissident, tarot cards, psychic, DFACS, Georgia, politics