posted on May 27, 2004 11:15:05 AM new
OK - yeah, it's from Aljazeerah but something reamond said made me curious so I did a little googling and found this article. I'm not someone usually big on conspiracy theories but this brings up some interesting questions.....
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Revolting millions around the world, the video footage of an American citizen's execution has also raised numerous questions concerning its authenticity.
Even at first glance, internet bloggers were asking on Thursday why Nick Berg was wearing an orange jumpsuit – just like US prisoners wear.
Other net surfers point to the unlikely timing of the executioner's dubbed announcement that Berg was to die for "Iraqi prisoner abuse".
Berg was last seen alive on 10 April, when his father Michael Berg believes he was killed - two weeks before the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal broke in the world's media.
Some discussions focus on the timing of the video's release - guaranteed to divert attention from the outrage over US abuse of Iraqis.
Video oddities
There are plenty of questions raised concerning the video too. The body is completely motionless even as the knife is brought to bear – not so much as an instinctive wriggle.
More graphically, some claim that cutting the throat's artery would cause a significant amount of blood to gush out. But little emerges and when the head was raised – not a drop of blood is seen to fall.
In a possible explanation, one discussion room member suggested that Berg was killed and then beheaded later.
However, the circumstances of the video release are also strange. A Reuters journalist in Dubai first named the Muntada al-Ansar al-Islami website as the source for the video – at www.al-ansar.biz.
Although the site has now been shut down, Aljazeera.net looked at the site within 90 minutes of the story breaking – and could find no such video footage.
But Fox News, CNN and the BBC were all able to download the footage from the Arabic-only website and report the story within the hour.
Days before death
Other questions presented by bloggers are Berg's peculiar circumstances in the weeks before his death. Why would a private Jewish American citizen choose to wander around Iraq by himself?
Additionally, some have pointed out that his last email on 6 April to his family stated he wished to return home as soon as possible – yet the FBI claims he refused an offer of help to get home.
In the wider press, FBI involvement has also generated much discussion as to why Berg was really arrested and detained for two weeks in Mosul.
The unemployed visitor was suspicious enough for Iraqi police to arrest him – with FBI knowledge.
He had only just been released from prison where he had been held for 13 days by Iraqi police for reasons he said he did not know.
Family blames government
A US newspaper claims an official familiar with the case knew that FBI agents had interrogated Berg, but had left him for two weeks because he was in Iraqi - not American - custody.
Father Michael Berg has blamed
US forces for his son's death
But the official was unable to clarify the legal difference between the two, given the US occupation.
On 5 April, Berg's family filed a suit in federal court in Philadelphia - contending that their son was being held illegally by the US military in Iraq. The next day, he was released and left to get himself home.
The last time the family heard from him was on 9 April. His headless body was found near Mosul on 8 May.
"That's really what cost my son his life, the fact that the United States government saw fit to keep him in custody for 13 days without any of his due process or civil rights," Michael Berg said.
Final question
Some bloggers focused on the accent of the purported executioner. Many deny the accent is either Iraqi or Jordanian - while claims the voice is Egyptian or Iranian have been made.
The Jordanian accused of the beheading Berg is himself believed to have been killed in March, according to two Islamist groups.
An eight-page leaflet circulated this week in Falluja said Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in the Sulaimaniya mountains of northern Iraq during a US bombing.
But even if it were the Jordanian, one discussion room member observes his face is so well-known that "why would he bother to cover it?"
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If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
[ edited by fenix03 on May 27, 2004 11:15 AM ]
posted on May 27, 2004 12:04:03 PM new
I agree....we don't have the full story. I too was interested when reamond mentioned it...but had other irons in the fire so to speak.
I found one of Berg's fathers statements interesting. He said [paraphrasing here] 'they wouldn't have killed him if they knew he was their friend'.
From the little I've read it sounded to me like Berg was wandering the country...but then other articles said he was an independant contractor looking for a job.
I also read he was picked up by the Iraqi police for questioning and that on two or three occassions the FBI had questioned the reason he was there, which wouldn't surprise me when they're trying to figure out who's helping whom.
I also, like you read he had told his family he was coming home and I'd read he was offered a trip home compliments of the US government. Why he would have chosen not to accept the ride....is beyond me.
posted on May 27, 2004 12:38:39 PM new
Linda - here is the CNN story on the email connection.....
Berg's encounter with 'terrorist' revealed
WEST CHESTER, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- When Nicholas Berg took an Oklahoma bus to a remote college campus a few years ago, the American recently beheaded by terrorists allowed a man with terrorist connections to use his laptop computer, according to his father.
Michael Berg said the FBI investigated the matter more than a year ago. He stressed that his son was in no way connected to the terrorists who captured and killed him.
Government sources told CNN that the encounter involved an acquaintance of Zacarias Moussaoui -- the only person publicly charged in the United States in connection with the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.
According to Berg, his son was taking a course a few years ago at a remote campus of the University of Oklahoma near an airport. He described how on one particular day, his son met "some terrorist people -- who no one knew were terrorists at the time."
At one point during the bus ride, Berg said, the man sitting next to his son asked if he could use Nick's laptop computer.
"It turned out this guy was a terrorist and that he, you know, used my son's e-mail, amongst many other people's e-mail who he did the same thing to," Berg said.
Government sources said Berg gave the man his password, which was later used by Moussaoui, the sources said.
The sources said the man who used Berg's e-mail knew Moussaoui, now awaiting trial on federal charges that could bring a death sentence. But the sources would not disclose details of how the men were connected.
Moussaoui, 36, was arrested in August 2001 after he aroused suspicion at a Minnesota flight school when he arrived for 747 simulator training without holding a pilot's license. A French national of Moroccan descent, Moussaoui has admitted in open court that he belonged to al Qaeda, the radical Islamic group behind the September 11 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people.
But Moussaoui has fiercely denied being involved in the September 11 plot, and the prosecutors' theory of his role has shifted from being a possible 20th hijacker that day to possibly piloting a fifth hijacked jetliner targeting the White House.
Berg said his son cooperated fully with an FBI investigation into the matter.
"He was happy to cooperate, and that was never an issue," he said. He emphasized that the individual was not a friend of his son's or even an acquaintance -- "just a guy sitting next to him on the bus."
"Whoever was next to my son was treated with great respect and friendship. Like I said, he knew no dangers from people. The FBI were satisfied with that."
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If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on May 27, 2004 12:46:06 PM new
This story officially makes no sense. FBI questions him about a terrorist suspect having his email address and password and is jjust fine with the incredibly lame story of... I gave it to a stranger on the bus? WTF? Then, they find the guy wandering thru Iraq with no verifiable reason for being there, someone whose alleged reason had to do the radio towers, and they let him go offer him a ride home but accept his decision to decline it. After this he suffers a nearly bloodless beheading in retaliation for something not yet made public?
This is the beginning 20 minutes of a movie where a whole lot of devious back story comes into play that makes you realise that all was nothing as it seemed in the first 20 minutes.
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If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
There is a theory that CIA psyops guys, dressed as terrorists, cut off Berg's head after he was already dead. The probability that he was already dead explains the fact that there was no spray of blood and no movement was seen as the head was severed from the body. It's hard to imagine that anyone would hack off someone's head while they were still alive.
The thesis that the Nicholas Berg execution video is a composite made up of two parts - one part being a routine interrogation when Berg had previously been in American custody, and the other part being a faked beheading of the already dead Berg - explains two of the biggest mysteries about the death:
Why did the Pentagon lie in saying that Berg was never in American custody?; and
Why did the video contain odd incongruous statements by Berg identifying his father and mother?
Why wouldn't the Pentagon have simply confirmed what Berg's family already had official notice of? It could have stated that Berg had been in American custody, but was released before he fell into the hands of the bad guys. Why lie about it? The Pentagon lied because it did not want anyone to know about the prior interrogation by American officials and the fact that it was videotaped. Many people must know about standard procedure, which probably consists in the taking of such a videotaped statement, with the prisoner wearing a standard-issue orange jumpsuit, sitting on a standard-issue prison plastic chair (someone should ask Andreas Shafer about his experiences). Anyone who knew that Berg had been in American custody would be able to put two and two together. In other words, the Pentagon lied, not because it was concerned about the fact that Berg had been in American custody, but because it didn't want someone who knew that there would have been a videotaped interrogation to reconsider the nature of the obviously heavily edited decapitation video (the video was edited with extremely sophisticated techniques to make it look completely amateur, with degradation of image quality used to hide the editing). The odd statements by Berg identifying his father and mother are even more interesting. Why would Berg even think to raise the names of his father and mother to a bunch of Islamic fundamentalist terrorists in Iraq? What would they care about the names of his father and mother? However, there are people who would care. Nick Berg's father's name was on a enemies list published by the Free Republic. Military interrogators are apt to be aware of that site, and it is not inconceivable that Berg was picked up due to the fact that his father's name was on that site. It would have been normal for an interrogator who knew about Berg's family background to begin by confirming the names of Berg's suspicious parents. That particular snippet then made it into the final composite video, possibly as part of a message to those who might question the wisdom of King Bush. Berg may not have been intentionally killed, but his dead body, together with a pre-existing interrogation videotape, made an excellent video distraction from the stories of torture and murder, and has even been used to argue that continued discussion of the torture issue is unpatriotic as it puts the lives of Americans in Iraq at risk. The American knuckledraggers see the video as confirmation that the 'sand niggers' are subhuman, thus confirming the righteousness of murdering them in large quantities. It has been an extremely useful piece of propaganda, and is almost certainly a fabrication of the Pentagon or the CIA.
posted on May 27, 2004 01:12:52 PM new
That's pretty interesting Helen. Interesting to the point where I'm almost sick to my stomach because I wonder if ANYTHING that comes out of the government is true anymore. When lies are told for the sake of lying, it's pathological. Is that how corrupt things are these days?
posted on May 27, 2004 01:22:20 PM new
Krafty - if you are talking about 1 week leeway in something a month old with no knowledge of how the body was possibly stored there would be no real way to tell. Determining time of death in recovered body situations is done either through entomology which would require insects found on the the body at time of discovery to be taken as specimens immediately (I'm thinking that army medics probably did not have the time) or a knowledge of heat and humidity conditions from time of death to estimate decomp (Have I mentioned that I have a Patricia Cornwall, Kathy Reichs inspired pre CSI forensics fascination?).
Besides - his family would have to request it at this point and do you think they are going to open this issue up for public debate? Right now major media has really not made a big deal of the email story or done any deep digging (and doesn't that in itself seem strange to you?) but if they decided to float a story of the FBI being directly involved in the death you can bet there would be a lot of less than favorable stories coming out.
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~
If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on May 27, 2004 02:10:56 PM new
sorry - got hung up....but leaving a link for you to check out....not so much for the article...but to see if anything on the right hand side links might give information you haven't read.
posted on May 27, 2004 05:02:20 PM new
Ah - well in that case you are correct, they would be able to tell. I think he has been buried though, his memorial service was on the 15th
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If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
