Yes, you can see that in his face.
Posted on 05/15/2004 9:53:17 PM PDT by Piranha
Jamie Francis has made two trips to Iraq, most recently in April when he and senior correspondent Susan Taylor Martin spent four weeks there looking at the war's effect on the country.
On a warm evening in Baghdad's old Jewish quarter last month, I was taking photos in a crumbling building when I was literally pushed toward a Westerner with ivory skin and a red beard. He was lifting weights inside the Arnold Classic Gym. He wore black steel-toed boots as he grunted out exercises beneath dozens of portraits of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The Iraqis called him Mr. Nick.
I was amazed to meet another English speaker inside the local gym, but I was there to photograph Iraqis and had little interest in being sidetracked with small talk. But soon, I found myself in a casual conversation with an engaging young man, whose intelligence and friendly nature allowed him to move easily in and out of a strange culture.
Now, more than five weeks after the chance meeting, I have learned that Mr. Nick was actually Nicholas Berg, the 26-year-old Pennsylvania man who was beheaded by a group of hooded men in Iraq. The grisly murder was videotaped, and it's now thought that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an associate of Osama bin Laden, carried out the execution.
Times colleague Susan Taylor Martin and I were first lured to the gym by a small sign along one of Baghdad's most traveled streets. The sign, which showed a bare-chested man with rippling muscles, seemed out of place in Arabic culture. The owner of the gym, Sabah Taleb Mehdi, hung the advertisement for his business, which is an homage to Arnold Schwarzenegger, his childhood idol.
I suppose Mehdi felt compelled to push the two Anglos together. He said Mr. Nick was a regular who had been coming for weeks, and he seemed to enjoy shouting the American's name: "Mr. Nick, Mr. Nick, Mr. Nick," he would say as if singing an Arabic melody. "Mr. Nick good, Mr. Nick very good."
And the young man would cast his brilliant smile and try to answer back with a few words of Arabic. At the end of his workout the two embraced and patted each other on the back. As always, Mehdi refused payment from Mr. Nick for the use of his gym.
We were together for maybe 45 minutes or an hour and exchanged a few personal details. He made his way around the circuit of dinged weights, doing arm curls, squats, military presses, pull ups. He was curious about my digital cameras and the places I have traveled for the Times.
Mr. Nick told me he was a contractor. I didn't push; I waited for him to say more. In today's Iraq a pleasant conversation can spoil quickly with aggressive questioning, since everyone is defensive about security.
We both expressed a level of comfort about Iraq, even as conditions spiraled out of control all around us. Just a few days earlier four American contractors had been killed, dismembered and burned in Fallujah. Each hour seemed to bring new tension. Gunfire and explosions had become background noise.
Berg didn't mention being held in custody from March 24 until April 6. According to news reports, he was jailed in Mosul because his activities aroused suspicion. And if the reports are correct, our meeting came only one day after his release and two days before his kidnapping.
He said he was not working because conditions were too violent, but yet he had taken to traveling the country by local taxi - highly unusual for most foreigners. (Susan and I were doing the same thing as we filed stories and pictures to the Times.)
Mr. Nick described trips to Mosul and Kirkuk, riding in the ubiquitous orange and white taxis with car loads full of Iraqis. But he said nothing of where he might go next.
I was unsure about his nationality. He talked of family in America but also of being in Israel. He looked the part of a construction worker, but there was never a mention of who he worked for or more specifics about what he did. It's impossible to know much of a person in 45 minutes, but this much is sure: He had a wonderful smile, and he was likable, engaging and adventurous.
His skin, hair and thin beard made him stand out in a gym filled with Iraqis. But his muscular build placed him in the brotherhood of those who pump iron, and although language was a problem they managed to hold a warm, if halting, conversation with his fellow bodybuilders. When a street vendor arrived selling apple juice, the Iraqis and the American drank from the same cup.
I only learned late Thursday evening of Mr. Nick's identity. CNN was pursuing the story and had learned he was a regular at the gym. Mehdi gave them our names and a producer called.
I immediately told the CNN producer that she had made a mistake. No, I had never known a Nicholas Berg. She would e-mail me pictures, she said. But as she strung together the words - Arnold Gym, Sabah Taleb Mehdi, Nicholas Berg - I didn't need the pictures. I went numb.
Then the pictures arrived on my computer. In an endless five seconds of silence I gazed into his eyes. I imagined the video of his beheading and was disgusted. I recalled an NPR report that described the details so vividly that I turned the volume down so my 3-year-daughter could not hear.
The TV pictures and still images of a captive Nicholas Berg were nothing like the man I met. His skin was pale, his youthful beard thick and sculpted, and he seemed smaller.
I failed to connect the dots, I think, because Mr. Nick was so confident and comfortable surrounded by people unlike him. He displayed a faith in humanity common to all of us who travel in dangerous places and sometimes must entrust our lives to strangers.
So when I heard the news of an American's beheading, I just assumed it was someone I never knew. Someone who made a huge error in judgment. Someone who had made a tragic blunder. Maybe someone who had trusted the wrong person.
I don't know how much we had in common, but I recognized Nicholas Berg as a kindred spirit, someone who sometimes sees adventure where others see danger. I saw a piece of myself in him, and that's what frightens me. That's why on Thursday night, I lay sleepless in my bed listening to the wind, with Mr. Nick's smile etched in my mind.
[Last modified May 15, 2004, 01:00:35]
Yes, you can see that in his face.
My mother often has reddish-tinged hair but it would show up as completely dark brown or even black on video.
The video was of poor quality, only a light-red color would have a hope of showing up.
WRONG.
Why are people insisting on not getting the details right?
TWO years later, someone ASSOCIATED(and who knows what that means?) with Moussaoui used Berg's email account. Hardly knowing anything.
Yes, I'm starting to connect THOSE dots--the ones regarding his character and good nature.
BTW, we've all seen ANSWER marches and even Nick Berg's bony father(with his 'gay' looking bike helmet sorry, he comes across as wimpy)---Nick was the antithesis.
How many of these lefty terrorist-symps are into bodysculpting and weightlifting like that? Almost zero! I've rarely met a leftist who was active in any sense, politically and into that kind of thing.
There is something "different" about the way redheads appear, even in black and white photos. When the photos are light enough, you can often tell if they are a redhead.
I can't put my finger on what it is that is different.
One article on Moussaoui, says Moussaoui tried to fit in with the college kids. Another article says his upstairs neighbors never saw him with someone else, and only knew him to say ,"Hi."
Since it seems he was really attending a flight school, not attending college, I wonder why he didn't join an off campus gym.
If Moussaoui wasn't a student at the University, how did he get to use the gym? Was he a guest of someone else? Could local non-students join the gym if they paid a fee?
Was he trying to meet others students so he could use their email accounts? Was he trying to make dates with co-eds?
Was the college gym a designated spot to make contact with other "like minded" (anti-American) people?
Why did Berg decide to attend school in Oklahoma, instead of going back to Cornell?
The problem was that video is quite dark and the clarity is terrible. There are three types of reddishness: 1) Light red, which will tend to show up in most images 2) Dark red, a deeper color which is obvious to the eye, but not to photos(esp. bad ones) 3)red-tinged, which will show up as the dominant color
Another thing--someone saying "Red" hair doesn't quite mean the brighest and lightest fire red. Just as blonde doesn't have to mean Paris Hilton-blonde. My dad's hair was darker but I considered him blond--dirty blond but blond.
I'm a red head from a family with loads of redheads.
Our local paper did a search for his company Prometheus Methods Towers Inc. and no such things was listed. Anything with Prometheus in it was not connected to NB or in records on file.
Well, Michael Berg's signature on that ANSWER petition included the name of the company, but listed SC (I think) as the state.
I think you (or someone) should contact that paper, and have them contact a paper in SC and run the same check.
Qwinn
Typical lazy journalists. I found plenty. Check out the picture in post 21. That was taken at the Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters convention in 2003. Nick Berg was an exhibitor at that convention. There are lots of mentions of Nick Berg and Prometheus Methods Tower Service on Tower climber blogs and radio engineering blogs, if anyone would take the time to look.
Prometheus INC. would have to have a record with the state if incorporated. He may have been active but according to records, he had not done the paperwork. They were looking for his paperwork on file for his company. I don't think they were following his trade shows or whatever. He actually did work for radio stations in Philly. It is the
filing of paperwork they were looking for in the article.
If you incorporate in Pa there is a paper trail
That would be true if he were incorporated in Pennsylvania. He might have just used the business name to sound like he was a bigger entity than just a sole proprietor. He might have had all the checks made out to Nick Berg. That wouldn't be the first time. I did that for a while after my fictitious name statement expired on one of my old businesses. I kept the name on my cards and advertising, but all the checks were made out to me personally.
Also he would not have to be incorporated in Pennsylvania. If he traveled the country for work he could incoporate just about anywhere. Personally, I'd incorporate in some place like Nevada, where the tax benefits are better.
Nice tagline Marlowe.
The question is have the GRPL3 lost their heads..and if so will they ever find them???
He looks so much different in the picture you posted than he did on the horrific video, one would really doubt it is of the same guy! Not saying it isn't before you get excited, just commenting on how different the pictures are\1
I have heard on the news, and read the very same thing that Hillary's lovely legs posted about Berg! How do you know it is wrong, as it has been posted and spoken of all over the place?
To which post of mine are you responding?
As far as I know and I have read most threads about Nick Berg,he KNEW Moussoui/was in Norm at the exact same times and you are the only person claiming otherwise.
Actually, the highest source possible, John Ashcroft, refutes this.
And so does almost every source.
There is nothing I've seen except a bad breaking report by FoxNews that suggests Moussaoui KNEW Berg.
But those of us defending Berg are actually doing so because we have actually kept up on the things that aren't true or have been debunked. How many days have passed and we still have people referring to "best friend of Al Qaeda" when that's not what was said.
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