“As a Member of the House Armed Services Committee, and as a 22-year combat veteran, I look forward to visiting the brave men and women who serve at Guantanamo Bay and seeing firsthand the mission-critical work they are doing to keep our country safe from a terrorist attack, ” West said. “Guantanamo Bay serves a crucial role in our national security and I am confident that my visit will reaffirm my belief in its importance.”

I have a feeling this may be an error. After all, didn’t President Obama close GITMO within a year of taking office like he promised?

A few idiots, mostly from the UK, were popping up singing his praise and it really dumbfounded CJ and me. Why now, a year latter? ASP does hold the number two Google link when you search for Brandon Neely, but we last heard from the slob nearly a year ago. That doesn”t explain his sudden fame, especially coming from the UK. Have we missed something? Boy, have we!

It turns out the ex-Soldier (Neely is undeserving of the title of former Soldier nor is he worthy of being called by his former rank) was flown overseas by the BBC to meet two of the guys he was guarding down in Cuba all those years ago. I”ll spare you the NY Slimes’ gushing article and picture. The picture is probably the worst part. The two former detainees and Neely look like long lost BFFs. Figures. Go read it if you think your sanity and blood pressure can handle it.

So that explains why all the Queen’s Subjects have been drawn to ASP like moths to light. It’s just a shame they can’t see a bit of the light and realize that Neely is STILL a moron. Nothing has changed from a year ago when CJ nailed it.

Again, instead of turning himself in to the military, he waits until six years after the fact, three years after leaving active duty service, and after he’s been released from IRR status to come forward. Brandon Neely is a complete coward! He waited until he thought it was safe to speak up and couldn’t be sucked back into the Army system to answer for his war crimes.

He can’t speak in complete sentences and looks like he’s about to have a heart attack because that evil corporation, McDonald’s, stuffed too many Big Macs down his 30 inch, Samoan wanna-be neck! He apparently didn’t take any of the military focus on proper diet and exercise with him into the real world.

Here’s the point of my disrespectful attitude towards Neely: He got good men killed, period! The actions at Gitmo directly contributed to an insurgency with a new purpose to avenge those detainees who were abused at the camp. Just like Abu Ghraib, these Soldiers should have been charged with 2nd degree murder and hung publicly. At the very least, they should be imprisoned with a burly redneck named Bubba whose best friend was a goat on the outside. They got my friends killed because they weren’t men enough to stand up for what’s right when faced with a moral dilemma.

The middle paragraph is probably my favorite probably because I just about died laughing. Go back to CJ’s post and the watch the video to understand what he is joking about.

All joking aside, the last paragraph is what this is truly about. Neely’s actions, or more accurately lack there of, is why I cut him absolutely no slack. He waited YEARS to report what happened. He took part in what he is now reporting. He is making a big deal about going to the UK to kiss the asses of the guys he supposedly slapped around and embarrassed. I smell a book deal, a publicity hound, a made-for-TV movie, or a guy desperate to validate his own inadequacies. Or that could be his McDonald’s farts. Either way, I really don’t like what I smell.

I’m not sure how else I can really explain it to our cousins from across the great pond, but come on guys. How about I try this example? A prison guard abuses prisoners in his charge and sees others doing the same. He decides to quit his job and years later decide he wants his 15 minutes of fame and jumps in front of any camera that will have him (and fit him in the frame). He tells all these stories of how horrible it was and how bad he feels. This guy is a hero? HELL no! He is a criminal just like all the other idiots who decided they wanted to get their jollies by roughing up the prisoners.

Now how about the part of the post I know you’re all dying to read. We’re going to dive into the comments from CJ’s previous post and make some villages (un)happy by returning their idiots. We’re only going to cover comments from this week. I will also spare them the humiliation of not posting the email address they provided when they posted their idiotic comments. See, a part of my heart is still there.

I will note that among the complete idiots, I can see some almost good points. There aren’t many and I have to finish filling in a few gaps, but there are one or two that are almost on to something.

First we have Charles from London.

Remarkable how a simple act of conscience and compassion can become so vilified.

Dignity?

Honour?

Courage?

Where are these without conscience and compassion?

Brandon Neely is a brave man. His courage reaches even beyond the bravery of the soldier. His is the bravery of the righteous and caring man; indeed a lonely, lonely road. Even brave brothers at arms turn their back; they cannot go there. It is too far.

CJ responded.

Wow, the UK is representing now! Neely is a “brave man” for waiting until he got out of uniform to report supposed abuses? What’s brave about that? Where was he when this was going on (if it was going on)? Real bravery is standing up when the odds are against you, not this drivel. Neely is a moron.

Our second contestant is Michael North also from London.

Brandon has done a lot more for the long-term good of humanity than the immature, binary debate on here.

Humanity, true humanity, transcends politics and religion. Brandon you’re courageous and it doesn’t matter that it’s long after the event. Plenty of your peers will never even dare face up to the wretched position you were put in by the Bush administration.

CJ responded once again.

Okay, Michael, please explain what “good of humanity” Brandon has done. This I have to hear.

For everyone else, Michael is from the UK, so I expect this sort of thought process.

Michael actually replied back, which I was shocked to see.

Hey CJ,

Thanks for letting me reply to this.

It’s progressive, isn’t it?

In World War II, there were plenty of German SS exterminating Jews and probably felt what they were doing (by way of an executive order) was probably wrong.

But it’s only through reflecting over time that your conscience either detects that or it doesn’t. When it does, you can either stay silent and live with it, or have the courage to speak out. Speaking out goes some way to ensuring that history doesn’t make the same mistakes again.

Brandon is garnering attention in the UK right now because he came here to speak to two former prisoners about his actions in Gitmo. (Have a look at Newsnight). What was more interesting than his apology, was seeing how it was accepted by the two former prisoners.

Most radical Muslims in the UK at the moment are angry and still misdirecting their anger at the West. The discourse between Brandon and these prisoners was the first time I’ve ever seen genuine dialogue and mutual respect between two faiths.

I can assure you that it discourses like this probably bring us closer towards peace, than waging anymore wars will.

Cheers, Mike

PS – Respect your right to disagree. It’s your blog after all!

Next is Idea, who clearly did not have one when writing, from Manchester, UK.

You are insane !!! That man is a hero – do you know anything about torturing?

Come on man – think once again and rewrite!

CJ beat me to the punch. Again. Don’t worry. I get mine later on.

Do you?

I know. Weak sauce, CJ. He could have done SO much more with that. I’ll smoke him later for lack of effort.

Next we have someone to describes themselves as the Brandon Fan Club from the University of Houston (try not to use your .edu email next time, dumbass). Oh joy! Someone who drank (or got drunk on) the kool aid, put on a big red jug suit, and jumped through a brick wall yelling, “Oh yeah!”

Brandon Neely is a hero! A man taking responsability for his actions, while our elected officials will not.

Guantanamo Bay: Jailer and jailed remember camp opening

Ah, now I get to throw some punches.

Brandon Neely is not a hero. A hero would have come forward immediately when the crimes took place. He would have taken punishment from the Army for his crimes instead of hiding until the Army couldn’t touch him. He is a coward, a criminal, and quite frankly, a little bitch. We havea term for guys like him in the military. Blue Falcons. Not to be trusted under any circumstance.

Michael North came with more to say.

Marcus. I can guarantee that even if Brandon had spoken out at the height of Gitmo in 03-05, your opinion of him would be exactly the same.

I couldn’t let him get the last word, could I?

The only guarantee you can make is that you have no clue of my opinion of Brandon Neely.

The facts are that he didn’t. Your little what if game is really of no use, but I’ll play along and pretend that Brandon Neely came forward with all his information right when it happened. I still don’t believe that Gitmo detainees have been “abused” like Brandon Neely claims. But that isn’t the debate so let’s continue your little what if game.

Coming forward after the “crimes” wouldn’t make him a coward, he would have been brave to stand up for those that he himself had done wrong against and those around him as well. He wouldn’t be a little bitch for hiding from the Army until they can’t punish him. He’d still be a criminal, though, and he could hold his head high in the brig knowing he did the right thing instead of what he really did. The complete wrong thing.

But, CJ took my last word.

Michael, I can tell you that my opinion would have been vastly different! Why? Because when I saw abuses of detainees in Fallujah, I didn’t sit on my ass and take part in it. I reported the Soldiers involved. It took guts being in a combat zone where the people you’re reporting are armed, but that’s what Personal Courage is. Brandon doesn’t understand that and neither do the people that support his cowardly stance.

Our last brainchild is named Stephanie from Richardson, Texas.

I think your a moron. I think Brandon had a lot of courage to admit what he did and witnessed was wrong.

By this time I’m growing tired of the same thing over and over. I can just copy and paste my previous comments.

Courge would have been to report it when witnessed and not take part. Cowards wait years and participate.

CJ had more to add.

Where was that courage when it was happening? Brandon had the power to STOP the abuse from happening, but said nothing! Heroism is defined as a “courageous action.” Please tell me what is courageous about keeping your lips shut WHEN the abuse is taking place and waiting until he gets out of the Army to suddenly feel okay to bring it up. Stephanie, if Brandon is a person you look to for an example of courage, you’ll never see true courage!

Folks, I still do not understand how anyone can consider Brandon Neely a hero, courageous, brave, righteous, or caring. Let’s call a spade a spade and a coward a coward, okay?

I’m sorry, but I don’t believe that. Al Qaeda and terrorists organizations don’t need Guantanamo to have a reason to want us dead. They have their own extremist ideologies that help with that. They have been trying to actively kill us since the 80s. They are only strengthened and emboldened when we have politicians who publicly release our secrets, tactics, techniques, and procedures for dealing with and fighting them.

I think that our elected officials, specifically the President, would hurt their cause MORE by hailing those troops at Gitmo that have nobly done their duties in handling detainees at the prison since 2004, when harsh treatment was more specifically forbidden. Why aren’t our politicians who claim to feel so highly about “national security” strengthening our resolve to capture and kill these zealots and publicly touting the virtues of what we HAVE done there? I could not care less if terrorists are motivated by the presence of the camp. That’s not my problem. That’s not America’s problem. I just want them dead or behind bars on a Communist island before they can kill more of my fellow Americans.

Another part of the problem is that President Obama simply doesn’t seem to understand terrorism or detainee issues. Even former USS Cole Commander, Kirk Lippold, sees flaws in our new “policy”.

“This isn’t a problem that President Obama inherited, it is a problem that he created by arbitrarily issuing uninformed Executive Orders on his first day in office that fulfilled campaign promises, the result of which created an unnecessary and dangerous timeline to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.”

Pete Hegseth, former officer, Iraq veteran and Executive Director Vets for Freedom, made similar comments.

“As America’s military tirelessly fights around the world to capture terrorists that pose a threat to United States, the President owes our troops clear cut guidelines on what will ultimately happen to the detainees they’ve captured. The continued ambiguity that President Obama has imposed on this issue serves only to hinder American efforts to bring to detain and bring to justice the most dangerous terrorists in the world.”

What the President fails to inform the public about is that not ALL detainees captured on the battlefield are sent to Gitmo. They are sent to Gitmo if the circumstances of their capture indicate that they are a more severe threat to troops on the battlefield. More often than not, detainees are kept in theater and ultimately released when they are no longer deemed a threat. The same goes for the Cuban prison.

In his comments, President Obama attempted to again cast the blame net backwards at the Bush administration. He’s a master of deflection, regardless of the topic. Many of the detainees released under the previous administration were released as a consequence of extreme pressure from Obama and his cronies in Congress. As a result, 1 in 7 former Gitmo detainees have RETURNED to terrorism and/or militant activity. These terrorists would have you believe that they weren’t this way prior to being detained. Bull puckie!

If you want to know what motivates the jihadis and extremist Muslims, I highly suggest you read “The Islamist” by Ed Hussain. It’s the story of a typical peace loving Muslim who was seduced by militant Islam, converted others, and eventually realized the perversion of the movement and left. He gives many different detailed tactics the jihadis use to gain attention and news – like publicly stating that America made them the way they are. The blame game is a much-respected tactic of Islamic extremists. And our President plays right into their hands. If captured, they use the prison system to their advantage, something that Hegseth also noted in his response to President Obama’s speech today.

We cannot afford to allow the handling of the 240 hardened detainees still in Guantanamo to become a political, partisan, or ideological battle. These are dangerous Islamic militants who my fellow warriors captured on the battlefield, and I spent a year guarding at Guantanamo Bay. Nothing short of our national security, and the success of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, is at stake.

Our troops are not the enemy and it would be nice if our President made that clear. By constantly playing the broken Gitmo record, our troops suffer. He should be educating the public (and by extension the enemy) that Gitmo is not a torture chamber and that it will be the fate of anyone plotting to destroy this country and killing Americans. It sounds real good during a politically charged campaign, but as president it’s irresponsible and contrary to the success of our mission. It’s time to stop apologizing to people that want us dead under any circumstance.

Gitmo is not “a rallying cry for our enemies.” If that were the case, where did they come from BEFORE 9/11? We have swallowed their bait hook, line, and sinker! The jihadis want us to blame ourselves and that’s exactly what we’re doing. Blaming America for terrorism around the world is what creates more terrorists, not a prison where we keep them! When the extremist Muslims see our nation’s leaders justifying their rhetoric, it strengthens their resolve and serves as a recruitment tool. “See, even the Americans admit they are slaughtering and disrespecting Muslims. Join us and fight them to the death!!”

“We’re cleaning up something that is, quite simply, a mess,” said Obama today. It’s not a mess. What’s a mess is our economy and the destruction of Constitutional values. There were no legal challenges to the lawful detention of enemy combatants until the liberals in the country made it such. He admitted that we’d be facing these legal challenges whether or not we closed the facility. So why do it then? What have we gained from it? Made the terrorists happy and weakened our own image of strength and unity.

Obama said some good things today, don’t get me wrong. He ensured that we are aware it is not his intent to release anyone that would be a threat to this country. He also said he would not release people into the United States who are a threat to its citizens. But, in doing so, he used flawed examples in making his case of transferring detainees to the US. He mentioned how Ramzi Yousef and Zacarias Moussaoui were model examples of our justice system. However, BOTH individuals committed (or attempted to commit) their crimes HERE in the United States. They are subject to our courts, unlike the people trying to kill our troops in violation of the laws of war. Yousef was responsible for the 1993 WTC bombing and tracked to Pakistan and extradited. Moussaoui planned other attacks against Americans here at home.

The guys at Guantanamo are illegal enemy combatants, terrorists, and/or insurgents targeting our troops. They were captured on the battlefield and sent to Gitmo to protect our troops. So the analogy is inept. If they are going to be tried, it needs to be in Geneva at the war crimes tribunal.

Here’s another problem: it’s actually ILLEGAL to try the detainees at Gitmo in the United States. No one is talking about that. Article 84 of the third Geneva Convention specifically states that prisoners of war “shall be tried only by a military court.” US courts are NOT military courts. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs tried to say today that it’s no different trying Gitmo detainees than it is the four people arrested for plotting a Jewish center in New York. Again, completely different circumstances as those crimes occurred in the United States! It’s really not rocket science, Robert. To learn more about the legalities of this issue, read what I wrote back on January 24th.

Our troops are fighting a difficult battle and the last thing we need are politicians with NO military experience calling our troops torturers. Obama was right about something – America does not torture. It’s time that he made that clear and stop trying to make a man who is no longer president look bad for the sole purpose of pumping himself up. Those Soldiers who have been found guilty of torture were properly punished (though it could have been more harsh in my eyes). If only our elected officials would make that clear to America and our enemies!