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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: GOPJ; SeenTheLight
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.

Maybe there is a contact B, and you get passed along the chain, until you find yourself in an orange jump suit.

81 posted on 05/13/2004 9:39:47 PM PDT by Travis McGee (----- www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com -----)
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To: Heff

Oh my god...towers fire?

I am double wrapping in tinfoil...help me!!!!


82 posted on 05/13/2004 9:39:52 PM PDT by antaresequity (This is not the "War on Terror", Islam is the common denominator)
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To: Travis McGee
(Anyone know what Diane did to Orion?)

Same thing Monica did to Bill?

83 posted on 05/13/2004 9:39:54 PM PDT by eddie willers
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To: Travis McGee

For a jewish family it sure seems like they had alot of Iraqi contacts, even married into one. Wish we had more info on that. I have a data base that I use but covers mainly southern states. If only this family was in Texas.


84 posted on 05/13/2004 9:40:24 PM PDT by eastforker (The color of justice is green,just ask Johny Cochran!)
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To: SeenTheLight
OK... I'm gonna play devil's advocate here...

In order of the "unconnecting dots" the author points out:

1. Re the college degree and his business... Are we sure one cannot do whatever he did? Do we know what he did?

2. The "questionable" political differences with his father... I totally disagree. Polls show that this is more common than not, actually. Especially among Jews. Younger Jews are rejecting their liberal parents' politics in massive #s.
Even I, an obedient So Baptist girl, lol, rejected the politics of my father when I was 21. We still avoid the subject to keep from fussing.

3. Next paragraph questions his way of traveling to Iraq and making business contacts. But I heard he was chasing the dream of entrepreneurship as strongly promoted by the US dept of commerce in a conference he attended... In which case, he wouldn't be looking for contacts, he would strike out on his own.

4. A & B are plausible, but C is a stretch and contradicts itself. D: maybe. E. makes sense. I see no conspiracy or weirdness about any of these except C which is ...weird to bring up IMHO.

5. I don't know why he refused the free ticket home. Maybe he still had hopes of finding a place to set up shop, or maybe he didn't want to accept any favors from the coalition after being detained and probably pretty frustrated by them. Maybe he was just stubborn.

6. He's right. The terrorists lied.

OK... so that's my Devil's advocate post. lol I have yet to read all the other posts, so I could be missing a whole lot and welcome the info.
85 posted on 05/13/2004 9:41:04 PM PDT by Trinity_Tx (Most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believin as we already do)
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To: arasina

no- I am sure his dad is Jewish. At least that is my understanding.


86 posted on 05/13/2004 9:41:29 PM PDT by GottaLuvAkitas1 (Call me Spooky Mulder, but I think Hillary leaked the "abuse" photos)
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To: P-Marlowe

I have a feeling that type of work was farmed out to the Russians.


87 posted on 05/13/2004 9:42:21 PM PDT by eastforker (The color of justice is green,just ask Johny Cochran!)
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To: Azzurri
Was he spotting and intercepting US troop movements for the terrorists?

During his time in Iraq, he struggled with the Arabic language and worked at night on a tower in Abu Ghraib, a site of repeated attacks on U.S. convoys and the location of the notorious prison where U.S. soldiers abused Iraqi inmates.
Newsday

Who knows?

88 posted on 05/13/2004 9:42:36 PM PDT by niki
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To: Travis McGee

Travis, your "speculation" makes far more sense than anything else I've read on the topic.


89 posted on 05/13/2004 9:42:59 PM PDT by RightOnline
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To: Army Air Corps

It's what keeps me here!


90 posted on 05/13/2004 9:44:14 PM PDT by Travis McGee (----- www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com -----)
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To: Heff
At least 45% of the people (that are allowed to vote) in this country are going to vote for Flipflop Kerry.

No they're not. At least 50% of those 45% are not even going to vote. Kerry will not excite them. They may not like Bush, but they don't like Kerry enough to get in the cars and stand in line at the polls. That's a lot of effort for liberals. They only stand in line when there's a government check waiting for them when they get to the front.

91 posted on 05/13/2004 9:44:17 PM PDT by P-Marlowe (Free the GRPL3)
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To: isthisnickcool
I admit, I have not followed this story closely and I have not watched the video because I am repulsed by the thought of it. That said, here is my take: Berg was just a stupid liberal who has his politics to thank for his fate. Sort of like the guy in Alaska a few months ago who was trying to make friends with the gigantic bear and wound up being his lunch.

There is a hypothetical for you. What is worse, getting your head cut off or being eaten alive by a bear.

92 posted on 05/13/2004 9:44:21 PM PDT by KMG365
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To: SeenTheLight; All
Check this out folks...

Postulate: I wonder if Harris Corp has ever heard of Nick Berg [professionally]

Harris Corp is the Florida based company that won the contract to handle the Iraqi Media rebuild. If indeed young Mr Berg had a piece of that action as his emails to his parents claim he did...the dates of the emails are pretty consistent with the award date of the contract...kind of.

My Question is this: What does Harris Corp have to say...more importantly what does Youseff (Joe) Sleimen have to say? 'Joe' is the Lebanese born front man for Harris Corp in Iraq...has 'Joe' ever met Nick?

Go here and read this article all about Harris Corp and Youseff (Joe) Sleimen. This is a fresh find.

This is a very interesting read into the gritty business of contracting in Iraq...

Other Link: Harris Corp Home

93 posted on 05/13/2004 9:44:45 PM PDT by antaresequity (This is not the "War on Terror", Islam is the common denominator)
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To: Travis McGee
"Maybe there is a contact B, and you get passed along the chain, until you find yourself in an orange jump suit."

Why do you turn down a free trip home when you are already planning on going home?

ANSWER: because you still need to meet with someone to get paid before you go.

Why do you get put into an orange jumpsuit in front of a videocamera?

Perhaps because your payment is going to come in a form that you didn't expect.

94 posted on 05/13/2004 9:45:12 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: Trinity_Tx

Someone with a couple of years OJT could probably do what he said he was doing.


95 posted on 05/13/2004 9:45:32 PM PDT by eastforker (The color of justice is green,just ask Johny Cochran!)
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To: P-Marlowe

I agree with you, I was just postulating his best cover story. And it didn't wash.


96 posted on 05/13/2004 9:45:50 PM PDT by Travis McGee (----- www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com -----)
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To: eddie willers

Nope. Diane loved Orion, but accidentally killed him.


97 posted on 05/13/2004 9:47:11 PM PDT by Travis McGee (----- www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com -----)
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To: TomGuy

bumping to find this tomorrow


98 posted on 05/13/2004 9:48:02 PM PDT by Big Giant Head ( < / something or other....Hey how about NPR funding?>)
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To: RightOnline

Thanks.


99 posted on 05/13/2004 9:48:18 PM PDT by Travis McGee (----- www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com -----)
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To: Southack
I don't think he was looking for pay from his contacts in Iraq. That would be handled by wire in Kuwait, Jordan, Cyprus, the USA etc. You would not be lugging a bagful of cash out of Iraq.

Anyway, I see Nick as an ideological agent, not an agent for pay.

But he sure did pay.

100 posted on 05/13/2004 9:51:06 PM PDT by Travis McGee (----- www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com -----)
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