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Nicholas Berg: The Dots Do Not Connect
ChronWatch.com ^ | 5-13-04 | Ira Simmons

Posted on 05/13/2004 8:35:22 PM PDT by SeenTheLight

First off, I'll get the obligatory stuff out of the way: the videotaped beheading of 26-year-old American Nicholas Berg, now believed to have been done by al-Qaida linked terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is truly horrifying and an outrage. It confirms that we must continue to fight the War On Terror using maximum force in any place necessary to ensure that these refugees from the Middle Ages are totally defeated.

Certainly Nicholas Berg is as innocent a victim of extreme Muslim atrocities as the 3,000 Americans killed on September 11, 2001, or the victims from the March 11, 2004, Madrid train bombings. But there are many questions about Berg's fateful visit to Iraq which do not square with information given by his family or the U.S. Coalition story of what exactly happened and why he was detained.

First, what has been given as Berg's college background and how he came to run a one-man communications firm seems a little strange if not outright preposterous. It was reported that Nick Berg attended four different colleges: the last was the University of Oklahoma where it is claimed he learned to install radio towers. But Berg never received a college diploma. Media reports said his one-man company was called Prometheus Methods Tower Service Inc. Reality check: it is virtually impossible to obtain such technical work as installing radio towers without a Professional Engineering license, let alone not having a college degree!

The first reports of his life story said that Berg supported President Bush in the War on Terror and helped install communications equipment at the 2000 Republican convention in Philadelphia. But his father, Michael Berg, is a member of the off-the-charts anti-war group International ANSWER (''Act Now, Stop the War, and End Racism.'') While children occasionally do not share the politics of their parents (I didn't), you have to wonder if telling the media that his kid was a Republican was something of a ruse to direct attention from Michael Berg's (and his son's) true politics.

Then there are the two 2004 trips to Iraq. While most contractors travel directly to Baghdad, Nicholas Berg instead landed in Jordan and found his way by land into Iraq. If indeed Berg was a one-man contractor installing radio towers, it would seem difficult to get any work in Iraq without (a) initially consummating commitments while still in the United States, and (b) having a link to a larger construction company such as Bechtel or (dirty word alert) Halliburton! As yet no radio towers that Nicholas Berg may have built while in Iraq on either trip have been identified.

We know that Nick Berg was bouncing around Iraq until he was detained either by Iraqi police or the U.S. Military in Mosul on March 24. I'll give his dad the benefit of the doubt here: Nicholas was definitely being detained by the coalition for any of the following suspicions:

a) He was loaded with electronics equipment, supposedly for his work on radio communications towers. Possessing sophisticated electronic gear in a war zone without producing any paperwork to prove that he is building radio towers probably set off alarm bells.

b) It was likely that Berg was on an FBI ''watch'' list. FBI agents interviewed Berg a few years ago when they were investigating the September 11 terrorist attacks because, unbeknownst to him, Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker, had used his e-mail account when both were in Oklahoma. On Thursday Fox News reported that the FBI dismissed the link between Berg and Moussaoui as ''coincidental.''

c) Speaking on condition of anonymity in one media report, a U.S. official said Iraqi authorities detained Berg ''for his own protection'' because his behavior in Mosul seemed unusual for a Westerner. Plus Berg, who was Jewish, had in his possession texts that were considered ''anti-Semitic'' in tone. One of his friends has been quoted as saying that the Iraqi police thought Berg was an Israeli spy. To add insult to injury, Berg was also carrying some literature written in Farsi including a book about Iran.

d) On April 10, after he was released, Berg visited an Iraqi man who was once married to his aunt. Question: did his former uncle have political ties that caused any suspicions for the coalition?

e) Because he belongs to a far-left peace group and was known to authorities, Nicholas Berg's father likely raised a red flag and was a possible reason that the FBI visited the family in suburban Philadelphia at least three times during the 13 days that Berg was detained.

On April 5, Michael Berg filed a lawsuit alleging that his son was being held illegally in Iraq. Either Iraqi police or coalition authorities released Nicholas Berg the following day. From both his e-mails and interviews with friends, we know that Berg was moving around Iraq through April 10. It is unclear what happened next. On Wednesday, State Department spokeswoman Kelly Shannon claimed that the U.S. consular extended an offer to assist Berg to depart Iraq by plane to Jordan. But according to his dad, Berg refused, believing that flying out of Baghdad airport was too dangerous and instead he wanted to try driving to Kuwait. In another published report, a friend said Berg wanted to leave by riding through Jordan. Driving in Jordan or to Kuwait when offered a plane ticket home makes no sense: since the fall of Saddam, Baghdad Airport, heavily guarded by coalition forces, is probably as safe as any place in Iraq.

Between April 10 and May 8, when his decapitated body was found hanging from an overpass in Baghdad, Nicholas Berg's whereabouts are unknown. In the rambling speech seen on the grizzly video just before he was decapitated, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi indicated that he could have traded Berg for hostages being held by the coalition. If true, and believing a terrorist is always a stretch, one question arises among many: why was there no announcement through Al Jazeera, similar to other hostages, that Berg was being held?

To be sure, Nicholas Berg's brutal murder is a great tragedy that has much of the nation and the civilized world outraged. Ironically, Berg's death may do what his old man doesn't want: galvanize American resolve to win the War on Terror! Perhaps amidst the haze of statements from government officials and from a father who may have a hidden political agenda, maybe we can eventually get the real story of the curious life and tragic death of Nicholas Berg.

Ira Simmons

http://www.topthecharts.net/


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: alqaeda; answer; berg; iraq; moussaoui; nickberg; terror
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To: Heff
FYI, here's an interesting poem. A couple of interesting passages in Bold

Sorry it is so long but after reading it my skin was crawling from all the potential comparisons and "clues".

Poetry of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Birds of Passage

III

TOWER OF PROMETHEUS ON MOUNT CAUCASUS

PROMETHEUS.
I hear the trumpet of Alectryon
Proclaim the dawn. The stars begin to fade,
And all the heavens are full of prophecies
And evil auguries. Blood-red last night
I saw great Kronos rise; the crescent moon
Sank through the mist, as if it were the scythe
His parricidal hand had flung far down
The western steeps. O ye Immortal Gods,
What evil are ye plotting and contriving?

(HERMES and PANDORA at the threshold.)

PANDORA.
I cannot cross the threshold. An unseen
And icy hand repels me. These blank walls
Oppress me with their weight!

PROMETHEUS.
Powerful ye are,
But not omnipotent.
Ye cannot fight
Against Necessity. The Fates control you,
As they do us, and so far we are equals!

PANDORA.
Motionless, passionless, companionless,
He sits there muttering in his beard.
His voice
Is like a river flowing underground!

HERMES.
Prometheus, hail!

PROMETHEUS.
Who calls me?

HERMES.
It is I.
Dost thou not know me?

PROMETHEUS.
By thy winged cap
And winged heels I know thee.
Thou art Hermes,
Captain of thieves! Hast thou again been stealing
The heifers of Admetus in the sweet
Meadows of asphodel? or Hera's girdle?
Or the earth-shaking trident of Poseidon?

HERMES.
And thou, Prometheus; say, hast thou again
Been stealing fire from Helios' chariot-wheels
To light thy furnaces?

PROMETHEUS.
Why comest thou hither So early in the dawn?

HERMES.
The Immortal Gods
Know naught of late or early. Zeus himself
The omnipotent hath sent me.

PROMETHEUS.
For what purpose?

HERMES.
To bring this maiden to thee.

PROMETHEUS.
I mistrust
The Gods and all their gifts. If they have sent her
It is for no good purpose.

HERMES.
What disaster
Could she bring on thy house, who is a woman?

PROMETHEUS.
The Gods are not my friends, nor am I theirs.
Whatever comes from them, though in a shape
As beautiful as this, is evil only.
Who art thou?

PANDORA.
One who, though to thee unknown,
Yet knoweth thee.

PROMETHEUS.
How shouldst thou know me, woman?

PANDORA.
Who knoweth not Prometheus the humane?

PROMETHEUS.
Prometheus the unfortunate; to whom
Both Gods and men have shown themselves ungrateful.
When every spark was quenched on every hearth
Throughout the earth, I brought to man the fire
And all its ministrations. My reward
Hath been the rock and vulture.

HERMES.
But the Gods
At last relent and pardon.

PROMETHEUS.
They relent not;
They pardon not; they are implacable,
Revengeful, unforgiving!

HERMES.
As a pledge
Of reconciliation they have sent to thee
This divine being, to be thy companion,
And bring into thy melancholy house
The sunshine and the fragrance of her youth.

PROMETHEUS.
I need them not. I have within myself
All that my heart desires; the ideal beauty
Which the creative faculty of mind
Fashions and follows in a thousand shapes
More lovely than the real. My own thoughts
Are my companions; my designs and labors
And aspirations are my only friends.

HERMES.
Decide not rashly. The decision made
Can never be recalled. The Gods implore not,
Plead not, solicit not; they only offer
Choice and occasion, which once being passed
Return no more. Dost thou accept the gift?

PROMETHEUS.
No gift of theirs, in whatsoever shape
It comes to me, with whatsoever charm
To fascinate my sense, will I receive.
Leave me.

PANDORA.
Let us go hence. I will not stay.

HERMES.
We leave thee to thy vacant dreams, and all
The silence and the solitude of thought,
The endless bitterness of unbelief,
The loneliness of existence without love.

CHORUS OF THE FATES

CLOTHO.
How the Titan, the defiant,
The self-centred, self-reliant,
Wrapped in visions and illusions,
Robs himself of life's best gifts!
Till by all the storm-winds shaken,
By the blast of fate o'ertaken,
Hopeless, helpless, and forsaken,
In the mists of his confusions
To the reefs of doom he drifts!

LACHESIS.
Sorely tried and sorely tempted,
From no agonies exempted,
In the penance of his trial,
And the discipline of pain;
Often by illusions cheated,
Often baffled and defeated
In the tasks to be completed,
He, by toil and self-denial,
To the highest shall attain.

ATROPOS.
Tempt no more the noble schemer;
Bear unto some idle dreamer

This new toy and fascination,
This new dalliance and delight!
To the garden where reposes
Epimetheus crowned with roses,
To the door that never closes
Upon pleasure and temptation,
Bring this vision of the night!

121 posted on 05/13/2004 10:16:06 PM PDT by Bartholomew Roberts
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To: SeenTheLight
One-man communications firm?

I think the tower thing is a Nick's cover. When I hear "Communications Expert", I imagine someone who likes to pass messages, interconnecting people. Perhaps it was something he was good at, passing messages.

His father's politics are that of the obnoxious far left. Although it is often true that a son won't have the same political leanings as the father, maybe he at least inherited the same extremist streak, like a Uni-bomber, Oswald or McVeigh (McVeigh had Arab connections). Father/son agree that the status quo had to end, and were willing to do anything to achieve it.

After meeting Moussaoui, who he thought was a swell guy, the "Communications Expert" helps Moussaoui and the rest of his 9/11 buddies complete their goal (secure email comm and other methods), and realizes these methods just aren't secure enough anymore. He needs to pass a message from US cells to al-Qaida kingpin al-Zarqawi and decides to deliver it personally.

Now Nick has never met face to face with a real hardcore terrorist like al-Zarqawi, who is very unlike the punk Moussaoui, and got more than he bargained for when al-Zarqawi realized Nick was a Jew.
122 posted on 05/13/2004 10:16:17 PM PDT by Nexus
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To: P-Marlowe
I read that he was identified as a Jew while he was in the jail at Mosul. They put him in a cell by himself because they had some real hard core types in there.

The thought that he was CIA or Mosad is silly, they wouldn't have a guy traveling around Iraq with a passport stamped with Israel.

I heard he had some anti-semetic literature with him as well as a Koran and a book on Iran.

The other strange link is the uncle's brother in Mosul. That was a center for Saddamites. Isn't it also where the brothers were were hiding out before the 101 got them?

123 posted on 05/13/2004 10:17:57 PM PDT by McGavin999 (If Kerry can't deal with the "Republican Attack Machine" how is he going to deal with Al Qaeda)
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To: Travis McGee
Here's another possibility -- what if Berg was in the home of an Iranian and expressed interest in the book -- said it was beautiful. The Iranian host would be obligated to give Berg the book. If you're in a middle easterners home and you say the carpet is beautiful, they'll roll it up and insist you take it with you.

Iranians and Iraqis aren't natural friends, so if there was an Iranian in Iraq who gave him the book, it was an odd situation.

I see the books as go-between messages or bonafides. You're trying to meet Al Queda, and contact A says "give this book to contact B, tell them Achmed the blind sent you." Then you pay him some $$$, or whatever is expected. Maybe there is no contact B, and you just got rooked out of your money.

124 posted on 05/13/2004 10:18:04 PM PDT by GOPJ (NFL Owners: Grown men don't watch hollywood peep shows with wives and children.)
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To: Trinity_Tx
It's just that from what I have read and am hearing "here" from someone who has been on top of it... I think it's no more a stretch to think he was simply stubborn and reckless than to assume he was involved in something sinister.

I'm tending towards the "stubborn and reckless" theory, but I must admit it's fascinating to see how people "connect the dots" whether there are connections to be made or not.

125 posted on 05/13/2004 10:18:20 PM PDT by bcoffey (Sen. Kerry: I'm not questioning your service; I'm questioning your sanity!)
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To: Bartholomew Roberts

His "Prometheus" plan clearly was a "power to the people, free new for the masses" pipe dream. Not exactly like the plan of a so-called Bush supporter. More like a radical Marxist.


126 posted on 05/13/2004 10:18:52 PM PDT by Travis McGee (----- www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com -----)
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To: SeenTheLight

Most of our people don't know Arabic either, but maybe I'm crazy, I think Daniel Pearl was Mossad. It is very useful for the intelligence agencies to have journalists on the payroll, why, you ask? Because it gives a spy cover to go in dangerous parts of the world and sniff around. Unfortunately, some times it isn't so safe.

I guarantee you that there are some people working for Al Jazeera who are Al Qaeda, Egyptian Islamic jihad and Hamas men. It's great way to get intel--give the people a press pass and they kind find out all sorts of things.

I think, and I hope, Berg was working for us or the Israelis. I like that story a lof better than the one that some of these dots lead to.

P.S. Have you noticed the abundance of Jewish journalists working for our major media in Baghdad??


127 posted on 05/13/2004 10:20:14 PM PDT by faithincowboys
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To: GOPJ

That's possible, interesting cultural observation on "gifting" in the ME.


128 posted on 05/13/2004 10:20:23 PM PDT by Travis McGee (----- www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com -----)
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To: Nexus; Travis McGee

Now that's scary. But who would have thought McVeigh and Nichols would blow up a Federal Building? They seemed like pretty nice people. They mowed their lawns. They had lawns to mow. McVeigh and Nichols certainly appeared to be a lot nicer than any ANSWER member I've ever seen. ANSWER people are, by and large, evil and during their demonstrations they make no pretense to be anything other than evil.


129 posted on 05/13/2004 10:22:47 PM PDT by P-Marlowe (Free the GRPL3)
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To: McGavin999

A lot of people running around Iraq have Israel on their passports. I remember a non-jew Australian reporter getting captured and having to explain why he had been to Israel.


130 posted on 05/13/2004 10:22:57 PM PDT by faithincowboys
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To: Trinity_Tx
Seen in isolation (stubborn at his business plan) that could well be true.

But there are just way too many coincidences stacked one on the other, stretching back at least to Oklahoma, and his "chance bus ride" with the terrorist Mousawi, when he "somehow" shared his email password.

131 posted on 05/13/2004 10:23:19 PM PDT by Travis McGee (----- www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com -----)
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To: Travis McGee
"But no matter what Berg's ideological motivations were, no matter how sincerely he intended to pitch ANSWER's help for AQ, they would suspect him of being an agent for Mossad and or the CIA. They would figure he had trackers or beacons planted in his body. They would not trust this "walk on" in a million years."

They wouldn't care simply because he wouldn't be near them.

His credentials literally gave him access to a tower at a U.S. base at Abu Ghraib. That's what they wanted. What al-qaeda cell would turn down access to a secure U.S. base in Iraq?

Those are facts. What's speculation is whether or not he was willing to be used by such people.

132 posted on 05/13/2004 10:23:33 PM PDT by Southack (Media Bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
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To: Nexus

122: Bingo.


133 posted on 05/13/2004 10:24:27 PM PDT by Travis McGee (----- www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com -----)
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To: Hildy
He listed his profession as 'teacher' on the ANSWER Call to Action list, supposedly for this Prometheus Tower company. But elsewhere in news reports during the time his son was missing, he had stated that the company is his son's. I can only speculate that he chose to hide his actual employer on the ANSWER sign-up roster.
134 posted on 05/13/2004 10:25:17 PM PDT by Cultural Jihad
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To: Southack
Nah. What "credentials" did he have? He was a nobody, a wannabe "walk on."

He thought his radical schtick would win them over, but all they saw was a Jew.

135 posted on 05/13/2004 10:26:23 PM PDT by Travis McGee (----- www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com -----)
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To: faithincowboys

If Daniel Pearl and Nick Berg were Mossad, then G-d help the Israelis. If Berg was CIA, then G-d help us...


136 posted on 05/13/2004 10:29:15 PM PDT by SeenTheLight
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To: P-Marlowe
ANSWER people are, by and large, evil and during their demonstrations they make no pretense to be anything other than evil.

No doubt about it. Maybe evil enough to coerce his tech happy son into conspiring against the "Evil American Government" by associating with the likes of Moussaoui and al-Qaida.

137 posted on 05/13/2004 10:30:19 PM PDT by Nexus
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To: P-Marlowe; All

My thinking is that the father's act is too over the top!!

My thinking is that the father publically signed the ANSWER thing--perhaps, his father's public bs is phony.

He has to know that saying that Al Qaeda is probably as bad as Bush--like he has done.Translation: Bush is worse than Al Qaeda is not attractive. If he is a student of Leftist propaganda--he had to know that that was an alienating thing to say.

In additon, the kid was a whiz early on. He was a technical whiz in his early teens. This kid could've been a Doogie Hauser MD type who managed to become a CIA or Mossad assett early on.

Also, it should be remembered that Moussaui got caught. Perhaps, Berg could've provided a tip.

The rigging of the RNC--if he is Mossad, he could have been doing that to bug areas to hear discussions of some of the big RNC types.

Also, the Iraqi Man in Mosul could be a Kurd-- Kurds are our friends.

Also, Berg might have known Arabic and pretended not to know it.

Just some things going on in my mind.


138 posted on 05/13/2004 10:32:06 PM PDT by faithincowboys
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To: faithincowboys

Might well be so, but why would CIA or Mosad be dumb enough to have an undercover guy with an Israeli stamp on his passport. That would be just asking to be exposed.


139 posted on 05/13/2004 10:32:43 PM PDT by McGavin999 (If Kerry can't deal with the "Republican Attack Machine" how is he going to deal with Al Qaeda)
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To: Travis McGee
"Nah. What "credentials" did he have? He was a nobody, a wannabe "walk on."

What he did with his credentials is open for speculation. His credentials themselves, however, are facts.

1. He had met Moussoui (or a close collegue, shared email, etc.).

2. He's American.

3. He's Jewish.

4. He has a business that *obtained* clearance to work on a tower at the secure U.S. military prison at Abu Ghraib.

5. He's been to Kenya and Uganda (hotbeds of al-qaeda activity including at least one U.S. embassy bombing).

6. He has an Israeli visa stamp on his passport.

7. He has an Iraqi uncle (via marriage).

8. Rather than fly directly to Baghdad with other American contractors, he enters via Jordan (Zaqarwi's home country).

9. He's a radio and email guy.

Now again, we don't know what he did with those credentials, but certainly they *could* have been used to present a tempting case to al-qaeda, e.g. I'll radio you when a convoy leaves, where your mortar rounds hit inside the prison, etc.

140 posted on 05/13/2004 10:34:21 PM PDT by Southack (Media Bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
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