Confessions Of A Guantanamo Guard

[lame54]

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=13419

February 16th, 2009 9:40 am
Former Gitmo guard recalls abuse, climate of fear

By Mike Melia / Associated Press

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Army Pvt. Brandon Neely was scared when he took Guantanamo's first shackled detainees off a bus. Told to expect vicious terrorists, he grabbed a trembling, elderly detainee and ground his face into the cement — the first of a range of humiliations he says he participated in and witnessed as the prison was opening for business.

Neely has now come forward in this final year of the detention center's existence, saying he wants to publicly air his feelings of guilt and shame about how some soldiers behaved as the military scrambled to handle the first alleged al-Qaida and Taliban members arriving at the isolated U.S. Navy base.

His account, one of the first by a former guard describing abuses at Guantanamo, describes a chaotic time when soldiers lacked clear rules for dealing with detainees who were denied many basic comforts. He says the circumstances changed quickly once monitors from the International Committee of the Red Cross arrived.

[lame54]

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[lame54]

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[gratuitous]

3. "Soldiers lacked clear rules"

Well, when you check your basic humanity at the door to get that uniform and that weapon, I suppose you can make that fatuous assertion. Of course, "circumstances changed quickly once monitors from the International Committee of the Red Cross arrived." I'm glad this guy is coming forward, but the writing by Mike Melia of the Associated Press simply boggles the mind.