[91B]

Try this: the kid really was a pro-Bush conservative. The dad is a nutbar who somehow gives his kid up to the jihadis (lefties love to romanticize "revolutionary" types and maybe he gets a connection to them through ANSWER) figuring that they'd set the kid straight by showing him the "atrocities committed by the occupation" or some such garbage. He has Moore interview him before he goes and intends for him to interview him after he returns to show how the experience has changed him to include in the film. Of course the Islamofascists queer the deal by killing Nick and the dad is driven even further around the bend by guilt and grief and doubles his efforts to bring down Bush so that, in his own twisted mind, his son did not die in vain.

[Trinity_Tx]

I would like to go with that.

Only 2 things...

1. I don't know that Nick was as "conservative" as he was capitalist, and hated dictatorships. (fits his profile from all I've read by his friends & teachers anyway) His friend, Luke Lorenz, said he wasn't so much "pro Bush" as he was "Pro-Iraqi freedom" efforts by Bush.

2. It seems that most of the things that seem too coincidental, are things that happened going back years.

So if we say he went to Iraq for the reasons he gave (not as a spy) then we have to throw out our suspicions about everything that happened before - like the e-mail, the Prometheus name, his politics conflicting with his dad's...

I see nothing strange about the last two, but many do, and it could be something.

[Iwo Jima]

I was about to respond to Howlin's query sbout why Moore would interview Berg and then not use the tape when I saw your post.

It could be that Moore sent out feelers thru ANSWER and other lefty groups for someone who could get into Iraq and have a plausible excuse for being there. Michael Berg immediately thinks of Nick and passes his name to Moore OR Nick contacts Moore directly. Nick has been "passing" as a Bush supporter for some time.

The interview with Berg before he ever left for Iraq could be of the "I love George Bush and totally support the war" variety. The plan being that after going to Iraq and seeing for himself the "reality" of the USA's sins and crimes, there would have been a second video in which Berg does a 180. Such an about face would have much more impact than a lefty from the gitgo squawking about the war.

Of course, there was no opportunity to do the second video, which made the first one of no use to Moore.