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/
Curiouser and curiouser.
I'm beginning to get a sense of what the tinfoil left is thinking. Nick was doing resistence work, probably trying to form a secret relationship with AQ in Iraq. Nick's dad is convinced that the U.S. Somehow tricked AQ into thinking he was working for us.
Hence all the confusing mumbo jumbo about Nick being AQ's best friend.
In reality, AQ probably thought he was untrustworthy and therefore expendable.
Dad's problem is that this scenerio does not win any sympathy, even if the U.S. did set the kid up.
No way!
I don't think the Prmometheus Radio project and Berg are related.
BTW I've found some additional info that certifies Berg's qualifications as a tower guy.
From Elmira NY:
"
When Nick Berg returned to the U.S. from Iraq in January, he wanted to grow his business, Prometheus Methods Tower Service. He was hired by WHWK FM radio in Binghamton to install an antenna on top of a transmission tower.
"Nick was an ambitious type person. The tower business is very competitive, there many firms out there, but not many are willing to go to Iraq," says Larry Hodge.
Hodge hired Berg at the end of February. He finished the job March 12, and went back to Iraq two days later.
Berg spent 3 weeks in Binghamton working on the tower. In the middle of a freezing winter, working 850 feet in the air is a dangerous job.
"He was fearless. When it came to climbing, he was fearless," says Hodge. Hodge believes it was that same fearless spirit that led him back to Iraq.
"He was over there to look for sub-contract business for his company. That business was very very important to him and he was determined to build it up," says Hodge.
So I think we can establish that Berg really was a tower pro. You don't go up 900 feet in the winter unless you know what you are doing. But, If he was working alone, I think this would also establish his credentials as reckless and/or careless. Which could account for his being captured by Al Queida.
A local newscaster on WMAL here in D.C. said that Nick Berg had painted a radio tower for them last year in Maryland. I can't remember the town's name. It was a D.C. suburb.
No, Oswald WAS pro Castro. The problem with seeing conspiracies all the time is you take the obvious and make it the opposite.
Yeah, I know. I hadn't heard about the connection with the mutt Zacarias Moussaoui (how can that be a coincidence) and sort of grasped at straws.
Doesn't mean Nick was complicit, either. Possible that Nick (and his dad) were set up by someone. Dunno. But that "somehow got his e-mail password" line sounds really strange. Cherche la femme? We'll never know.
I think it was wierd that before he left his uncle that he sent HIM up with an email account. He sure sets up a lot of email accounts.
Hi there, missing dot.
I thought it odd that his father would have admitted something like that, and now I'm even more unsure it's true. Based on everything he and the rest of the family have said and done the last couple of days, I doubt he was a supporter. They killed their best friend indeed. Still no justification for what happened to him though.
I watched it once and that was my impression too. He shrugs his shoulders a couple of times, and just kinda looks like he's waiting for the speech to end. He also has a very comfortable look in the still photos too. Weird was my feelings....
Re#42 You're probably right.
True enough. Friend of mine used to do it until his brother fell 500 ft. and died.
bump for later
Sounds likely to me. I'm not so sure he and his family weren't unwitting liberal dupes to the forces against us over there.
I hate to agree with anything out of Aztlan, but I thought the same thing when I first saw it. His body was supposedly beaten pretty badly. I wondered if the time jump in the film didn't account for them beating and torturing him. That might have been their original intention, to beat him on camera and film it to gain sympathy. He could have died, and they made the use of it by beheading his body. He couldn't have been dead too long, because the blood hadn't coagulated yet.
The only thing that still bothers me, is his jaw and lips seemed to be moving when I first watched it. Then there was no blood spray. Does anyone know how long involuntary spasms continue after death, and what the window is for this and the blood to still flow out after dying?
Imagine you have about 4 full cans of motor oil that you are holding with the tops up in each hand. The tops are off. Then you flip your hands over and pour all the oil out at once. Well, that's about what that looks like. The blood comes out very fast and in a large volume since most of it is in the body and that's where the "pump" is.
WARNING VERY GRAPHIC STILLS FROM THE VIDEO!!!! but u can see alot of other things in these pics that the video does not show.. for instance some sort of brown material is on the floor therefore hard to see the blood BUT U CAN SEE IT VERY WELL IN THESE PICS.. would like to know what else u all see ty :) http://img.guba.com/public/video/d/6e/2000273005m.jpg
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
