[luvbach1]

If it turns out that Nick Berg, like the Japanese Leftists a few weeks ago, was over there offering to be a pretend hostage, that would lessen my sympathy for him.

Absolutely no evidence of that yet and I don't think there will be. I still would have sympathy for him even if there were, given that he was given a death that only an arch criminal would deserve and that no civilized society would impose. But that's me.

I think Berg the younger was a naive adventurer, perhaps "liberal," we don't know, but likely with the notion that he was capable of face-to-face diplomacy with any hostiles he might encounter.And, as pointed out earlier, he may have been led to his death by perfidious "friends," ala Danny Pearl

[Wolfstar]

I believe you may be right in your assessment of the son. However, it is the father's despicable behavior which has put the son's motives in question. You are absolutely right, though, in indicating that the manner of his death was barbaric in the extreme. The point that daddy Berg and his ilk simply refuse to get is that the nature of our enemy is such that extreme barbarism is a norm for them. If we go down the path they want, someday other people's children will be slaughtered in our own streets instead of in some dusty backwater half a world away.