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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: Azzurri

If so, is this what Anne Coulter meant when she said that we needed to kill liberals?


41 posted on 05/13/2004 9:14:31 PM PDT by zimdog
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To: isthisnickcool

I think he was calm, because he thought he was just participating in making a propaganda hostage video. The English speaker among the killers had probably calmed him down: "Don't worry Nick, everything will be fine. We make movie, then we eat lunch, no problem, okay?"


42 posted on 05/13/2004 9:14:36 PM PDT by Travis McGee (----- www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com -----)
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To: antaresequity
The photo circulating shows his body not hanging, but rather laying prone on the pedestrian walkway of the bridge.

Someone else posted that was another person. Not Berg. Which makes sense since I think I saw the picture you are referring to (can't find it) and Berg had pants and a shirt on. Why would they dress him in the nice clean orange outfit then kill him then take the orange outfit off then put his clothes back on?

43 posted on 05/13/2004 9:14:53 PM PDT by isthisnickcool (I'm isthisnickcool, and I approved this post!)
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To: SeenTheLight

Interesting. Berg's traveling does have questions that need answering.


44 posted on 05/13/2004 9:15:01 PM PDT by lilylangtree (Veni, Vidi, Vici)
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To: First_Salute
A buddy of mine, no college degree, is with a group of soldiers of fortune types who travel the globe, installing radio comm. towers and gear. Last, in Africa.

Somebody in that group obviously has a lot of experience in the logistics involved in setting up those towers. Somebody in that group has done everything in the business for years and is not a 26 year old with a sketchy work history.

You don't just use a hammer and a screwdriver to put up a communications tower. You've got to truck in the materials, hire cranes, and sometimes helicopters, lay huge concrete foundations, set guy wires and lay the foundations for the guy wires and carefully tighten those guy wires so the structure doesn't collapse. Then you have to install the electrical systems and the generators and transmitters and antennas. No one person could possibly do all that. It takes a Village.

Your buddy is traveling with a "Group". Its probably a group of 10-20. And they probably get the business lined up before they ever leave the states. This guy was traveling alone. He had no prospects before he arrived in Iraq. Big difference.

45 posted on 05/13/2004 9:15:18 PM PDT by P-Marlowe (Free the GRPL3)
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To: SeenTheLight

Someone in another thread this after posted that Nick was receiving '11,000 pounds per month.' I assume the information was from a British publication (use of 'pounds' currency).

If true, that is a heck of an amount of money to just travel around Iraq. And who was paying it to Berg? Did he have active contracts or was it strictly freelance?

[The poster didn't give any more details or link.]

During the last couple of days, more questions than answers have arisen surrounding Nick Berg.


46 posted on 05/13/2004 9:17:00 PM PDT by TomGuy (Clintonites have such good hind-sight because they had their heads up their hind-ends 8 years.)
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To: MN_Mike; Sabertooth; P-Marlowe
What else can tall abandoned towers near American bases be used for?

Cameras, and targeting.

Keep your own insurgent eye in the sky, watching for the American convoys comings and goings.

It's a reach, but not impossible.

47 posted on 05/13/2004 9:17:33 PM PDT by Travis McGee (----- www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com -----)
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To: microgood; FBD; Travis McGee
I was just wondering if the father was thinking the Iraqis killed his son or whether he knew it was Al Queda terrorists.

His father was referring to the Iraqis when he said, "they killed their best friend" but I think it was a mistake. He had to have known it was al-Qaeda. Of course, he's now running around blaming Bush, so I suppose anything's possible...

48 posted on 05/13/2004 9:17:48 PM PDT by SeenTheLight
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To: isthisnickcool
Why would they dress him in the nice clean orange outfit then kill him then take the orange outfit off then put his clothes back on?

Good catch...my bad...your right.

49 posted on 05/13/2004 9:18:25 PM PDT by antaresequity (This is not the "War on Terror", Islam is the common denominator)
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To: Travis McGee; doug from upland
You expect to be treated fairly well, perhaps roughed up like the fake Japanese hostages/peace activists

That was my take as soon as DFU posted that Berg Senior was an ANSWER man.

Plus, I thought Michael "doth protest too much" that his son was a Bush man.

A) Being young and a liberal is, by far, the norm.

B) How many young, gung ho Republicans go to Africa to build mud huts....give away all he owns and returns emaciated?

Possible....yes.
Probable....no.

50 posted on 05/13/2004 9:18:50 PM PDT by eddie willers
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To: Travis McGee

I've read some of the chapters on line when you first published it. I'll have to buy it now. Its beginning to sound like a book of prophecy. Did you have a vision?


51 posted on 05/13/2004 9:18:51 PM PDT by P-Marlowe (Free the GRPL3)
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To: P-Marlowe

my bet was that he did the japanese hostage thing where he said.. okay guys you pretend like I am your hostage and we'll demand release of our guys.... then I will go back to the US and tell them how nice you were....( just like his dad did)....
But like Hans in DIE HARD... it was method acting.


52 posted on 05/13/2004 9:19:45 PM PDT by Walkingfeather
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To: Travis McGee
I think he was calm, because he thought he was just participating in making a propaganda hostage video.

Bingo. Like I said, he was buying whatever they were selling. But why? Again, if he was so "intelligent" he had to have known he was in danger. If he believed he was not in danger then that opens up many questions.

53 posted on 05/13/2004 9:20:38 PM PDT by isthisnickcool (I'm isthisnickcool, and I approved this post!)
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To: Travis McGee

What Codeflier said.


54 posted on 05/13/2004 9:20:42 PM PDT by nevergiveup (We CAN do it!)
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To: antaresequity
The photo circulating shows his body not hanging, but rather laying prone on the pedestrian walkway of the bridge.

If that is the photo which also shows a soldier in uniform walking near the body, someone posted that that is an old photo published during the initial military drive into Bagdad last year.
55 posted on 05/13/2004 9:21:12 PM PDT by TomGuy (Clintonites have such good hind-sight because they had their heads up their hind-ends 8 years.)
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To: P-Marlowe

His father listed Prometheus Tower as his place of business when he signed the anti war list. Has anyone found out what he did for the company?


56 posted on 05/13/2004 9:23:20 PM PDT by Hildy (...Love like you've never been hurt and live like it's heaven on Earth. - Mark Twain)
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To: All

Folks, this is why the information age is grand. There was a time when we would not be able to exchange news sources and expound on theories and critique one another's logic so quickly. It is no wonder that the International Left wants to tax and regulate the internet.


57 posted on 05/13/2004 9:23:49 PM PDT by Army Air Corps (To increase the power of the State over the individual is a crime against Humanity.)
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To: SeenTheLight

Good post. But did the FBI really visit Berg's family in the 13 days that he was being detained? Is this in the news lately?


58 posted on 05/13/2004 9:23:55 PM PDT by BunnySlippers (Must get moose and squirrel ... B. Badanov)
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To: P-Marlowe; Jeff Head
There is a plausible explanation for a brave high-climbing freelance tower fixer. Unasked, Nick scopes towers with his binos, and scales them with his trusty digital camera. He shoots all the problems and breakdowns. Takes the pictures to the owners of the towers, and offers his services to either survey all the other towers for a fee, or even organize the fixing of them. This is plausible for an adventurous high-scaler. Plausible.

Question: in post-Saddam Iraq, who exactly owns the towers? Who do you take your business proposals to?

59 posted on 05/13/2004 9:24:12 PM PDT by Travis McGee (----- www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com -----)
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To: P-Marlowe; SeenTheLight; PhiKapMom; Travis McGee; antaresequity; TheSpottedOwl; Trinity_Tx; FITZ; ..

Totally leaping to conclusions here, but Berg's company name: Prometheus Methods Tower Service Inc

Prometheus the one (from Greek mythology who stole fire from the gods and gave it to man? The Greek poet Hesiod described Prometheus as a trickster and a troublemaker.

Seeing Anything to do with fire and towers in the same sentence and related to someone who had a "coincidental" connection to the "20th Highjacker" and was beheaded in Iraq by AQ terrorists....
This is truly pegging my weird-$hit-o-meter


60 posted on 05/13/2004 9:24:32 PM PDT by Heff ("Liberty is not America's gift to the world, it's the Almighty's gift to humanity" GW Bush 4/12/04)
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