Posted on 05/29/2004 4:43:14 AM PDT by Raebie
Posted on Fri, May. 28, 2004 Berg's sister confused over Moore's taped interview
BY WILLIAM BUNCH
Knight Ridder Newspapers
PHILADELPHIA - (KRT) - The sister of Nick Berg, the contractor from the Philadelphia suburbs who was beheaded earlier this month in Iraq, says she's dumbfounded by reports that liberal icon Michael Moore had filmed an interview with her late brother for his new anti-war film.
"I'm very skeptical of this," said Sara Berg, a Virginia attorney whose brother's beheading sparked a global uproar.
But she said there was no way to confirm that Moore had sent a tape of the reported 20-minute interview to their parents' home in West Chester, as the filmmaker suggested in a statement Thursday, because the couple has been away.
Moore's acknowledgment that he had interview footage of Berg that had been shot - but not used - for his highly controversial "Fahrenheit 9/11" documentary may be the strangest twist yet in the increasingly weird saga of Berg and his Iraqi travels, which led to his slaying.
The initial story that touched off the controversy appeared Thursday on the online magazine Salon.com.
It said the interview took place in the United States late last year, before Berg, a radio-tower technician, made the first of two trips to Iraq seeking work there as a private contractor.
So, how would a completely unknown young wannabe contractor like Berg come to the attention of Moore, whose anti-President Bush screed "Dude, Where's My Country?" was the best-selling book in the nation at the time?
Stranger than that: Why would Moore or his crew interview Berg for "Fahrenheit 9/11" for 20 minutes, when Berg's family insists the slain contractor was pro-Bush and supported the American military action in Iraq?
The film, which just took top honors at the Cannes Film Festival, blasts Bush and shows graphic war footage from Iraq.
We may never know the answers, because Berg is dead and Moore says he has no plans to release the interview footage to the public.
"We have an interview with Nick Berg," Moore's terse statement said. "It was approximately 20 minutes long. We are not releasing it to the media. It is not in the film. We are dealing privately with the family."
Friends of Berg, the Henderson High School grad, say he was an adventurous, inventive and perhaps naive young man who simply wanted to help in the rebuilding of Iraq but disregarded safety warnings, traveling solo and in private taxis.
Berg was arrested by Iraqi police on March 24, held in custody for 13 days, and released - only to disappear again on April 10. His headless body was found on a Baghdad overpass on May 8, three days before the video of the decapitation was posted.
Despite some contradictory evidence, the CIA claims the execution was done by an al Qaeda terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Since then, some have questioned why Berg had been in Iraq, as well as some of his strange connections.
The FBI questioned Berg in 2002 to find out why his e-mail password had ended up with an Oklahoma terror suspect linked to al Qaeda terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui.
In Iraq, Berg partnered with an ex-Philadelphia Iraqi expatriate who'd been convicted in a Russian-exile crack-vial ring before becoming the highly visible leader of an anti-Saddam Hussein group backed by the Bush administration.
If the tape offered 5 seconds worth of anything that would help Moore make his 'case' against Bush, it would be in the film, regardless of Berg's parents wishes.
I would like to know if the section was edited out of the film before Berg's death or after-wards. Was it to be included in the film originally but taken out because of the death? What did Berg say in the film?
Berg just keeps pooping up in a lot of odd places...now this bomb-shell revelation that Moore interviewed him is blowing my mind!
Folks there really is a very concerted effort to destroy our country from within...we have to deal with that before we can even defeat our external foes.
Judeans...it's time to separate ourselves from the Northern Kingdom!
More and more Michael Berg's statement that his son was the best friend the terrorists had is making sense.
This raises all sorts of conspiracy theories (variations of it have been posted)
However, I am wondering if he was interviewed because of his connection with Moussawi, who had his email address...and the interview was about the Patriot act or the Bush administration questioning "innocent" civilians with ties to terrorism...
>>there really is a very concerted effort to destroy our country from within...
Had you told me this a year ago, I would have thought, "hoo-boy, let's break out the tinfoil hats!"
Now, I am coming around to this conclusion.
>Habitual liars are extremely narcissistic.
Psychopath
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1572304510/qid=1085836100/sr=1-6/ref=sr_1_6/002-6961800-0355262?v=glance&s=books
It's a subscription site but here is the google link where it is posted.
I think we saw that kind of lying with the Clintons. Some people don't need a reason to lie about everything they're lying about, they get so accustomed to lying they stopped considering if what they're saying is a lie or not.
I'm not sure he's lying though --- we're not sure what Nick was doing in Iraq or who was paying and funding his trips.
Details on this Iraqi & the crack vial ring angle are explained here.
great posts...
"I would like to know if the section was edited out of the film before Berg's death or after-wards."
I had the same question. We need to construct a timeline regarding Nick's disappearance/death and the film coming out. How much time would it take to edit out any footage of Nick? Would there have been time, between his death and the film's showing at Cannes?
I know I am slow, but what reason would "our intelligence" have for not revealing what you suggest was Berg's spying for the terrorists? The only shred you seem tosay is that they warned Berg but then somehow "left him open". That's appears pretty thin.
Thanks for posting this, I was wondering if the interview story was just rumor. Now I know it's not. And, as has been said before about this whole situation, curiouser and curiouser.
From the article: Moore's terse statement said[:] "It was approximately 20 minutes long. We are not releasing it to the media. It is not in the film. We are dealing privately with the family."
OK, I can understand why they wouldn't release it to the media, who probably wouldn't play it anyway unless it was filled with invective against Bush, which I guess it isn't or it would have made the final cut for the movie. But, don't they have an obligation to share this with law enforcement? Remember the advice of a million murder mysteries: the way to solve a murder is to examine the victim's life. If I were investigating Berg's death, I'd want to talk to Mr. Moore, and see his interview footage ASAP.
I'm in production so I know. There would definitely be time to edit out any material from the film- I remember Moore was boasting of his editing/finishing up a few weeks before Cannes. Plus he was using his own personal editing station...as it is very easy these days.
The is an intelligence war and a political war being waged behind the real war.(Think spy vs spy if you want a more simpler explanation). Berg's father is a well known leftist political operative in the Philly area who is well known for his activist activities.
Nick Berg is all over the place and he also shows up on Michael Moore's radar screen...come on put the pieces together!
The Bergs were up to no good...our intelligence knows they were up to no good...and thus Nick Berg,though given a life line to leave Iraq, was hung by his own rope in-stead. Berg's dad knows and he also knows that we know...but no one is going to really talk about it.
The only real reaction Berg's dad is showing is an unbounded rage at the Bush administration and little grief for his own son.
If such as above were the case, then I hope the dad rots from the inside out!
From Berg's father, of course.
Move-on.org, ANSWER, the DNC...they all are part of an orchestrated anti-America crusade. I don't believe in any coincidences at this point.
Excellent post, and you're right no one can say a word right now. But, if the FBI has pretty tight info that Berg was acting in a subversive manner, is it possible they'll release that info at the point of maximum gain, or is this something we'll never know the truth about?
My thought as well, but not bound to happen to a person who immediately placed his politics ahead of his beheaded son. He seems to me to be lacking in the normal constraints of conscience.
Stale-mate...no one gets the advantage.
I think that it was a stunt gone bad. Perhaps the father and son were part of a network supporting the dopes and the kid thought the video was going to end before the knife fell.
I agree, but that means we're hiding something that could be damaging to us too, right? And I'm just wondering what that could be?
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