← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Ed Toner
Thread ID: 13660 | Posts: 26 | Started: 2004-05-12
2004-05-12 01:53 | User Profile
Beheading. Who was "Nick Berg"?
[url]http://www.wienerlibrary.co.uk/news.html[/url] 11th May 2004 Dr Nicolas Berg, Simon Dubnow Institute, Leipzig
West German historians and the Holocaust: research and memory
[url]http://tinyurl.com/246s5[/url]
[url]http://tinyurl.com/34v6y[/url]
2004-05-12 01:59 | User Profile
I haven't followed this story very much yet.
What was this guy doing somewhere where Al Queda could get to him?
2004-05-12 02:07 | User Profile
Berg is a common jewish name.
2004-05-12 03:00 | User Profile
I always get real suspicious when something too convenient appears. Right when the torture/abuse stuff gets intolerable to the Bush administration, an innocent American is publicly be-headed by Al Queda. Thatââ¬â¢s odd! When is the last time we have seen palpable evidence that Al Queda even exists? A group of hooded men speaking Arabic murder Berg and claim to be Al Queda. Perfect timing to be a counter to the American behavior toward Iraqis.
We have no idea who did this.
Enkidu
2004-05-12 03:26 | User Profile
Good eye Enkidu.
[URL=http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/nation/8626951.htm]http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/nation/8626951.htm[/URL]
"When FBI agents arrived at the Berg's West Chester home on March 31, they were relieved to know their son was alive - although in jail. The agents questioned them about various details that only they and their son would know about.
Jerri Williams, spokeswoman for the Philadelphia FBI office, said the agency was "asked to interview the parents regarding Mr. Berg's purpose in Iraq."
On April 5, the Bergs filed suit in federal court in Philadelphia, contending that their son was being held illegally by the U.S. military in Iraq."
2004-05-12 03:28 | User Profile
[URL=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/05/11/national1813EDT0771.DTL]Excerpt from Sfgate.com[/URL]
Berg's father said his son was Jewish and had a fringed religious cloth with him, but he did not think Berg wore the clothing in public. Still, "there's a better chance than not that they knew he was Jewish," Michael Berg said. "If there was any doubt that they were going to kill him that probably clinched it, I'm guessing."
2004-05-12 03:29 | User Profile
First Pearl, now this. Skunk on LF posted some stuff about Pearl's beheading being performed on an already dead corpse.
2004-05-12 03:33 | User Profile
And Bush mentioned Pearl in his last press release (no doubt to publically signal to Jews that he's in their corner). I wonder if Bush will start mentioning Berg from now on?
2004-05-12 03:34 | User Profile
[QUOTE=madrussian]First Pearl, now this. Skunk on LF posted some stuff about Pearl's beheading being performed on an already dead corpse.[/QUOTE]
The Skunk is the best. I wish he'd post here more often.
2004-05-12 15:35 | User Profile
OK - who noticed this?
The orange jumpsuit? Have you ever seem American prisoners of Iraqi captors in orange jumpsuits? I never have. But - one of the pictures of the Iraqi prisoners shows an orange jumpsuit on the floor next to the naked bodies. Orange jumpsuit - that's American
Then - the yellow walls. The same yellow walls in Abu Ghraib prison.
The terrorists, what we can see of them, are white and they are fat. My gut says that this is not what it appears to be. It looks like it is staged to look like a terrorist execution. It just does not make sense that real Iraqis would do something that would help Bush get off the hook for the torture scandal.
None of the photo's I have seen show blood. If Berg had been killed there and then, blood would have been everywhere. If he had died earlier, then the corpse decapitated, there may not have been blood..
How wonderfully lucky for Bush and the NeoCons that such a great piece of pro-war distract-from-the-torture-scandal event happens at this particular moment! I find it most revealing that the victim, Nick Berg, was in US custody right up until the day before he was captured by "Al Qaeda" (nudge nudge wink wink)". It is not that Bush got lucky this happened.. but THE MEDIA is saying that Berg was under american custody..Anybody can set up a web site, wear a black ski mask, and say, "I'm Al Kaydee, honest!"
Does anyone think real Iraqi insurgents would do the one thing that would help Bush get out of the mess for the torture scandal? The very smartest thing the Iraqis could do was nothing and let the world stomp all over Bush for them. I don't buy it. This is another "false flag" op. That's the only thing that makes sense.
They needed something to counter the Torture stories and the pending photos and what better way than to outrage the American citizen than to show the full horror of the man being beheaded, which in this day and age is barbaric. This has far more wieght for the USA population than seeing Arabs being tortured. Hollywood has very clever and realsitic ways of depicting such killings as they have done in many of their movies, which makes it look frighteningly real.
[url]http://tinyurl.com/3y9hf[/url] Sat, May. 08, 2004 West Chester contractor missing in Iraq
Associated Press
He stayed until Feb. 1, making contact with a company that indicated there would likely be work for him later. But he returned on March 14 and there was no ...........
[url]http://tinyurl.com/39gkt[/url]
Note that Berg was "travelling", not working.
2004-05-12 15:53 | User Profile
Mr. Toner, you bring up some interesting points.
What struck me as odd was that a young man would travel to a war zone looking for work.
Wouldn't he have to have a visa and a work permit to even go there?
It just does not make sense.
2004-05-12 16:51 | User Profile
:thumbsup:
[SIZE=2]I love this board, finally people that can think.[/SIZE]
I agree with Toner. What great points. It is very probable an 'action provacatuer'.
I did notice how fat these Iraqis were, and light skinned. And yes the orange uniform. Wow! I am going to check the photos out again.
Oh! and how convinient.
2004-05-12 16:53 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Ed Toner]Beheading. Who was "Nick Berg"?
[url]http://www.wienerlibrary.co.uk/news.html[/url] 11th May 2004 Dr Nicolas Berg, Simon Dubnow Institute, Leipzig
West German historians and the Holocaust: research and memory
[url]http://tinyurl.com/246s5[/url]
[url]http://tinyurl.com/34v6y[/url][/QUOTE]
This is the wrong Berg. I typed in "Is Nick Berg a Jew?'" on google, and got
[url]http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/ap/ap_story.html/National/AP.V8934.AP-American-Behead.html[/url]
the first time. then, later
[url]http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ?SITE=NYBIN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT[/url]
(Miami Herald, Atlanta -AJC, from AP) Now: [url]http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,119691,00.html[/url]
So FOX news is now using the J-word with Berg.
HERE'S A KICKER. ED: this guy was in upstate Binghamton, working not 3 miles away on the local C-W radio station (WHWK -- my farrier used to DJ there!) during Feb.- March
[url]http://www.pressconnects.com/today/topstories/stories/to051204s88541.shtml[/url] Berg, who owned a company that installed antennae and radio transmission lines, worked in the Town of Binghamton just two days before he left for Iraq in March.
From the third week of February through March 12, Berg and three of his employees built an FM transmission tower and transmission lines on Ingraham Road for Citadel Broadcasting's WHWK.
"He was very self-confident," said Larry Hodge, chief engineer for Citadel. "He loved tower work."
Hodge said Berg felt that his business would flourish and he would be safe in Iraq. Berg left March 14 for Iraq, Hodge said.
"He was trying to build his business," Hodge said. "It was very lucrative."
Hodge said he received an e-mail from Berg's father Tuesday with news of his death.
Berg attended Cornell, Drexel, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Oklahoma, where he got involved in rigging electronics equipment while working for the maintenance department, his father said. He helped set up equipment at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia in 2000.
While at Cornell, he traveled to Ghana to teach villagers how to make bricks out of minimal material. His father said Berg returned from Ghana emaciated because he gave away most of his food and that the only possessions he had when he returned were the clothes on his back.
Michael Berg said his son saw his trip to Iraq as an adventure that also fit with his desire to help others.
"I would say he was a free spirit, very intelligent," said Nick Fillioe, a sports director at the West Chester YMCA. "He was a real smart guy. He knew a little bit about everything."
Berg's family said they were informed by the State Department on Monday that he was found dead.
When told about the Web site, Berg's father, brother and sister grasped one another and slowly dropped to the ground in their front yard, where they wept quietly while holding each other.
"I knew he was decapitated before," Michael Berg said. "That manner is preferable to a long and torturous death. But I didn't want it to become public."
The decapitation recalled the kidnapping and videotaped beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002 in Pakistan. Four Islamic militants have been convicted of kidnapping Pearl, but seven suspects -- including those who allegedly slit his throat -- remain at large.
Last month, Iraqi militants videotaped the killing of Italian hostage Fabrizio Quattrocchi, but the Arab TV network Al-Jazeera refused to air it because it was too graphic.
In the video of Berg, the executioners said they had tried to trade him for prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
Now, ther AP link says the US is denying ever having him in custody! May 12, 12:34 PM EDT
U.S. Denies Holding Beheading Victim
By ROBERT H. REID Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- An American civilian who was beheaded in a grisly video posted on an al-Qaeda-linked Web site was never in U.S. custody despite claims from his family, a coalition spokesman said Wednesday.
The body of Nicholas Berg, 26, was found Saturday near a highway overpass in Baghdad on Saturday, the same day he was decapitated, a U.S. official said.
Berg, who disappeared April 9, was shown in the video on a Web site bearing the title "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi shown slaughtering an American," referring to an associate of Osama bin Laden believed behind a wave of suicide bombings in Iraq....
Coalition spokesman Dan Senor told reporters that Berg was detained by Iraqi police in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. The Iraqis informed the Americans, and the FBI questioned him three times about what he was doing in Iraq.
Senor said that to his knowledge Berg "was at no time under the jurisdiction or detention of coalition forces."
However, calls by The Associated Press to police in Mosul failed to find anyone who could confirm Berg was held there. The U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority runs Iraq, controlling not only the police, but the military and all government ministries.
FBI agents visited Berg's parents March 31 and told the family they were trying to confirm their son's identity.
On April 5, the Bergs filed suit in federal court in Philadelphia, contending their son was being held illegally by the U.S. military. The next day, Berg was released. He told his parents he had not been mistreated.
Berg's father blamed the U.S. government for creating circumstances that led to his son's death, saying if his son had not been detained for so long, he might have been able to leave Iraq before the violence worsened....
I agree with your analysis. This is an arranged Hate-America/--/ Off a Jew dynamics: to "neutralize", by first part; and bring out the "Common enemy" theme, by the second (the guys shouting "ALLA AKHBAR"). Or so the sheeple are supposed to think. And they will. Somebody decided we needed to see another Jew being beheaded as an "American do-gooder" over there, Imhofe's term, psychotically reversed. (Berg must have known his life was in great danger, even warned to leave by US. So what is he doing over there? Profiteering, that's what. Building Jewish spyware into the new Iraq communications system?
2004-05-12 16:59 | User Profile
Bush needs a few more beheadings or dismemberments to cancel out the prison abuse scandal....didn't the Pentagon already say that "heads would roll" over it?
2004-05-12 17:37 | User Profile
Yeah, this thing stinks.
Besides all the good points brought up, why kill the guy? The anti-U.S. opposition seems to be playing it pretty smart on the propaganda front so far, and to think they'd martyr (and make no mistake, that's what he'll be pushed as in the media, just like Pearl) someone just in time to push the most damaging aspects of the Abu Grahib photos off the front pages doesn't make sense. Granted, the Muslim worldview doesn't make a whole lot of sense from the Western point of view, so I don't doubt the tape is possibly true, but I find the timing highly suspicious, to say the least, not to mention the jumpsuit, light-skinned "Arabs" and the other incongruous details. More likely, they'd humiliate the guy, or someone else, like the unfortunate Matt Maupin (by the way, he certainly disappeared off the radar real fast) by doing to them exactly what's been described at the prison. That would make the point and eliminate the sympathy a grotesque execution like this is sure to provoke.
2004-05-12 17:56 | User Profile
I tried to find the pictures of the supposed beheading, and all I get is some grainy out of focus pictures with him just sitting there in front of the supposed Iraqis. I looked for the website , but cannot find it anywhere. The only thing that the controlled media will say is ' ...it is on a website linked to al-quada's website...' notice no name is given. This story SMELLS. :dung:
2004-05-12 18:00 | User Profile
Ed,
Lounsbury (collounsbury) wrote, @ 2004-05-12 12:46:00
On the Beheading, my somewhat cold comments My comments here will probably offend, but here it goes.
First, let me say that it gives me no pleasure to see this, nor to learn of it, nor would I wish it upon the poor bastard.
At the same time, let me quote this from The New York Tiimes:
" Nicholas E. Berg wanted to help rebuild Iraq. Far from having opposed the war, he believed that the American presence there was a positive thing, his family and friends said. And he saw it as a business opportunity as well.
So defying State Department warnings, Mr. Berg, 26, traveled to Iraq late last year in search of work for his small company, which builds and maintains communication towers and is based in Pennsylvania.
He did not find a job but instead was taken captive by Islamic terrorists. His decapitated body was discovered by American soldiers on a roadside in Baghdad on Saturday. " [url]http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/12/national/12berg.html?pagewanted=all&position=[/url]
and this from The Washington Post The persistent violence contrasts sharply with U.S. officials' optimistic calls for private companies to invest in Iraq. Over the past year, the Commerce Department has conducted a three-continent campaign to promote investment and reconstruction opportunities.
It was at one of those conferences that Berg was inspired to go to Baghdad, his family said. He dreamed of building radio towers in Iraq that would beam reports from a free press.
According to his family, Berg met businessmen at the conference who asked him to inspect radio towers damaged in the war. Berg hoped to make a bid for his company, Prometheus Methods Tower Service Inc., to provide parts and repair services.
Berg's mother said she had begged him to change his mind about the trip.
But Berg, whose family described him as a bit of a rebel, decided that the potential business was worth the risk. He took a flight from New York to Amman, Jordan, on March 14 and then traveled on to Iraq. He did not have a security guard, translator or driver lined up, his mother said, and he decided to stay at smaller hotels not frequented by foreigners.
His e-mails were optimistic, his mother said, but weeks into his trip he still had not found new business. The only trouble he reported to his parents was that he had been detained in Mosul for several days by Iraqi police who were suspicious because he was traveling alone.
The incident forced him to push back his original departure date of March 30, he wrote his parents.
Berg last called his parents on April 9. He told them that his flight home was from Jordan but that a violent insurgency erupting in western Iraq had made driving there impossible.
Hearing nothing further, Berg's family spent the next few weeks searching frantically for information. They opened his e-mail account and sent notes to his business associates. They requested his cell phone records from Iraq. No one had any leads. The next time they heard any news was when the consul called.
According to a clerk at Baghdad's Al Fanar Hotel, on the east bank of the Tigris River, Berg checked in on March 22, left for Mosul the next day, returned to the hotel on April 6 and checked out on April 10.
Berg said he was going home, the clerk said, and walked down Saddoun Street, a major artery, because the road was closed to vehicular traffic. He left behind in his room a yellowed and folded page from a book by Jon Burmeister, a South African writer of thrillers who died in 2001.
The page carries a short prose poem titled "The War That Wasn't." It describes a man named Jericho, who is awakened by machine-gun fire, "his heart hammering thunderously against the ribcage as though trying to escape." [url]http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A19048-2004May11?language=printer[/url] Emphasis added.
With the caveat that no one deserves to have their head cut off, nor on camara above all, this guy was a ****ing fool. Reminds me of that Tacitus and his idiotic simple minded trip through the region (and his neo-Bolshevik commentary on the "false consciousness" or "dhimmitude" - as if he even understood the term, which he does not). Look at me, I'm going to the Middle East to learn about the Islamic savages....
Let me put it this way, this fellow was a moron. Sorry, sounds cold, but anyone wandering around as described above in Iraq, given the news post Summer 2003 is a *ing moron. I recently had to tell some idealistic kid here, an American engineer, fresh graduate, who wanted to hop a ing taxi from Amman to Baghdad to look for work that if he did so, he should write a mothering will. ing clueless mothering Americans waltzing around like dumbass do-gooders in mothering Kansas. Wake the *** up, Dorothy, there are a good (if minority) number of cold ass people who are far too happy to cap your innocent, "oh I'm an American and we do good" ass.
What did this clueless idiot do wrong?
First, he obviously did not speak the langauge, did not know the region. But the good old US of A was bringing democracy and all that, time to teach the natives. Wonderful *ing idealism. But this is not ing Kansas, this is a ing dangerous region, and it is not for amateur hour to ing wander around a country you don't know, that you have no support in, and that you don't know people in, that you have no goddamned connexions to keep you ***ing safe. Bloody hell, staying in low-end hotels, no connexions, no saftey.
I can do this sort of shit, but I know the *ing place, and I also know that you need to get protection. Good bloody ing Lord, what kind of clueless git does this? And in mother***ing March?
What is it, does no one in the *ing States have a ing clue that, hey, guess what, being an American does not get you the love nowadays, and , you should before wandering into a *ing war zone, have some support?
Bloody hell, I just got an offer to go to Baghdad for some consulting with a Fund there, and while for the right money I migth do it, I would not *ing take a mother*ing taxi from Amman, and not have any gooddamned support.
Emblamatic of the utter cluelessness that is American engagement with the Middle East.
Still, I feel sorry for the poor bastard. That is a hell of a way to go. If someone has the URL of this post it here, please.
2004-05-12 19:26 | User Profile
[QUOTE=spartakos]I tried to find the pictures of the supposed beheading, and all I get is some grainy out of focus pictures with him just sitting there in front of the supposed Iraqis. I looked for the website , but cannot find it anywhere. The only thing that the controlled media will say is ' ...it is on a website linked to al-quada's website...' notice no name is given. This story SMELLS. :dung:[/QUOTE]
Check ogrish.com. The video quality definitely sucks.
2004-05-13 19:32 | User Profile
I agree with the article. Touring a war zone like it's some school field trip. This guy used up all of his second chances. From what I read, it was his dad's business (at least he bankrolled it). What makes more sense, is that this guy DID have contacts (johnny Taliban style), but he ran into some real pros who showed him the elephant.
2004-05-14 02:14 | User Profile
You can find the complete video here:
[url]http://www.cryptome.org/[/url]
Take a good look at it.
Why does the scream, which sounds female, start while Berg is still sitting up with his mouth shut? The would be killers are behind him, and the knife has not yet appeared.
Where did he get the snazzy orange duds? Isn't this US issue prison attire? Yet the US denies that they had him in custody??
Why does the clock on the bottom right corner jump 11 hours from the time they push him to the floor, until they starrt sawing off his head?
Why does the reader keep flipping his pages over and ending up back on the same page? Perhaps he couldn't read Arabic? Maybe Hebrew was his native tongue?
Check it out. It smells bad.
Dan
2004-05-14 02:24 | User Profile
But this decapitation isn't taking the heat off Bush, just the opposite. The Dems and others are linking the alleged atrocities at the AG prison to the justification or at least the rationalization for Berg's killing. They're now linked as action and reaction, so Bush and America are being blamed. So what the hell are you all talking about. If you believe this is a modern Pearl Harbor, guess again. The media isn't giving it much play and since most Americans still don't figure we're in a war, I fail to see the seismic importance of this event. One Dem was overheard to say, this is the silver bullet we were looking for, so at least one opponent sees it as a surefire way to bring Bush down. So much for that conspiracy theory.
As to light skinned Arabs, if this were carried out under some intense artificial lighting it most certainly would wash out the color of their skintone making them appear more white than they really are, which I suspect is exactly what happened. Since they were filming this for maximum lift, I suspect something on the order of Klege lights were used.
The jumpsuit is orange. That means Muslims weren't involved because Muslims don't have access to orange jumpsuits? Are you claiming Berg is still alive? Was killed by Americans? Was killed to get Bush off the hook, which it clearly didn't do? Was killed as part of a staged act by whom exactly? What is being proposed here?
From what I've read so far, this was a young man who made bad decisions at important junctures, had a wonderlust that took him to extreme locales. If I had to pick one thing above all others that doesn't really add up, it's his being in Iraq at all at this dangerous time. I would think travel in and out of Iraq would have been tightly restricted for someone who wasn't on official business. Could he have been that reckless or naive? It's possible given his personality.
2004-05-14 13:31 | User Profile
[QUOTE]As to light skinned Arabs, if this were carried out under some intense artificial lighting it most certainly would wash out the color of their skintone making them appear more white than they really are, which I suspect is exactly what happened.[/QUOTE]
So shouldn't the victim have been washed out too?
[QUOTE]The jumpsuit is orange. That means Muslims weren't involved because Muslims don't have access to orange jumpsuits?[/QUOTE]
Not at all. It does raise suspicions however that he was in US custody right up until he was "captured".
[QUOTE]Are you claiming Berg is still alive?[/QUOTE]
No, he is probably dead. However, he was dead before they cut off his head. Still tragic, nonetheless.
Dan
2004-05-14 14:04 | User Profile
This has been all over the news this morning.
Nick Berg's computer password was found in AlQ hands, specifically on Moussouai's computer, the terrorist the FBI was looking for pre-9/11, which means he was known to AlQ. The question is why? Another question. When was he last in Israel and what was he doing there? His passport has an Israeli stamp on it.
This is definitely a red flag of the highest magnitude.
2004-05-14 14:31 | User Profile
[QUOTE=DakotaBlue]But this decapitation isn't taking the heat off Bush, just the opposite. [/QUOTE] None of Bush's flunkies out there writing how sinister and tragic Berg's killing was, and directly/indirectly using that as emotional fodder to fuel the Iraq war? Anything anti- Muslim resistance is pro-neocon/pro-Bush. It might not be working, but that's not because of a lack of effort to take heat off Bush.
[url]http://www.sacbee.com/24hour/politics/story/1364438p-8581509c.html[/url] [url]http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_051104/content/across_the_fruited_plain_2.guest.html[/url] [url]http://www.hannity.com/[/url] [url]http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3706081.stm[/url] [url]http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg200405120842.asp[/url]
So, you don't see the effort of using the Berg tragedy as fotter to support the Iraq war, which is supporting Bush? [url]http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg.asp[/url]
"But if it weren't for the war, I wouldn't think it was nearly as important that Bush got reelected."
2004-05-14 15:02 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Dan B]You can find the complete video here:
[url]http://www.cryptome.org/[/url]
Take a good look at it.
Why does the scream, which sounds female, start while Berg is still sitting up with his mouth shut? The would be killers are behind him, and the knife has not yet appeared.
Where did he get the snazzy orange duds? Isn't this US issue prison attire? Yet the US denies that they had him in custody??
Why does the clock on the bottom right corner jump 11 hours from the time they push him to the floor, until they starrt sawing off his head?
Why does the reader keep flipping his pages over and ending up back on the same page? Perhaps he couldn't read Arabic? Maybe Hebrew was his native tongue?
Check it out. It smells bad.
Dan[/QUOTE]
Dan B, thanks for the link, and I saw the inconsistencies that you rightly pointed out. Something phony about it, for sure.
2004-05-14 15:14 | User Profile
Some links for those increasingly doubtful of the official version: [url=http://www.breakfornews.com/NickBergEnemiesList.htm]Beheaded Man's Firm Was On Right-Wing 'Enemies' List[/url]
[url=http://www.infowars.com/print/iraq/berg.htm]Fishy Circumstances and Flawed Timelines Surround American's Beheading[/url]
[url=http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AMERICAN_BEHEADED_FAMILY?SITE=OHCIP&SECTION=HOME]Diplomat's E-Mails Show Berg in Custody[/url]
...and take a look at this photo from MSNBC (posted previously on LF by a member called tuckessee):
[IMG]http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/040513/040513_abuse_hlg_3p.hlarge.jpg[/IMG]
A photo of the inside of Abu Gharib prison.