Berg Had Koran, 'Anti-Semitic' Book

NewsMax.com ^ | 5/14/04 | Carl Limbacher and the NewsMax.com staff

[kattracks]

Nick Berg had a bit of a strange run the last few years - starting with the "coincidental" usage of his e-mail account by the alleged 20th 9-11 hijacker - ending with his beheading at the hands of terrorists in Iraq.

He is described by various news agencies as a techno-genius, a dreamer, a wanderer, a funnyman and the ultimate Curious George.

Today, Philly.com revealed another item about Berg: "Berg's stubborn wanderlust made him a target of suspicion - a religious Jew riding around Mosul in a taxi with a copy of the Koran. ... Some U.S. soldiers even wondered if the patriotic Berg was 'a wannabe freedom fighter.'"

So what was he doing in Iraq? A friend told Fox News he thought Berg was "sailing in Turkey." (Sure ... if we were to go sailing, that's the place we'd choose as well.)

When Berg was arrested in Mosul, he had two items with him that made authorities nervous: A copy of the Koran, and another book reportedly entitled either "The Jewish Problem" or "The Jewish Solution." Why a Jew would be carrying these items is unclear, but Berg supporters say it was like him to be curious about such things.

Berg also refused to leave Iraq when asked to do so by the State Department.

He not only apparently felt the need to help rebuild Iraq, but he also wanted to go into business doing so. He told jailors that he was losing thousands of dollars while being detained.

He had worked in Africa (Uganda), and had some kind of a relative living in Mosul, so that's where he went in Iraq. He was only arrested because he was an unaccompanied American in a place where that was out of place.

A military source in Iraq told the Philadelphia Daily News, "He was jailed because unescorted Americans aren't usually seen downtown and 'they didn't know what to do with him.'

"Police were suspicious because of 'his demeanor'" and the two books he had.

Berg was, according to the paper, "under Iraqi control... the FBI also questioned Berg three times and visited his parents back in West Chester."

Authorities tried to tell Berg to go home, and offered to pay for everything, but he told them, "You don't understand these people like I do. You're here for a reason - and so am I."

On April 6th, Berg was released from jail, and three days later he disappeared.

[Jaded]

mark

[syriacus]

Maybe his captors just didn't let him shave.

Are you saying that they didn't let him shave his beard.....But they let him shave his mustache?

[HEY4QDEMS]

"Exactly like that @sshole Mauser whose son was murdered at Columbine."

At least Mr. Mauser did not call the killers "friends".

[Windsong]

Curiosity. Cat. Bad combination

I keep thinking..what if this was Nazi Germany, 1944, and an american wanted to visit GERMANY for curiosity's sake? It is suicide!

[OldFriend]

We only had Beck on the air here in NY metro area for a very short time. I enjoyed his personna.

So you believe that anyone who practices capitalism is presumptuous?

Sheesh........

[Windsong]

"The militant islamists would do somthing like this to up the ante; to show their followers, and those that cower in their shadow, that they are more brutal, more evil than the Americans could ever be."

I predict that they will relatively soon do the same on a young little girl or perhaps a young woman. And release a videotape.

"By their fruits, ye shall know them"

[syriacus]

so it is possible (nearly anything is!) that he was killed by an individulal/entity on our side - done to galvanize support for our war efforts.

But, the Islamicists did not deny they killed Berg.

If the US had killed Berg, the Islamicists certainly would have notifed Al Jazeera that they didn't kill him.

[unsycophant]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark H" <mark@y...>
To: <broadcast@b...>
Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2004 11:35 AM
Subject: [BC] [BC]Remembering Nick (was Why was Nick in Iraq?)


> The tragic news about Nick Berg's murder hit very close to home, as I
> had known him for about two years and we hired him for several recent
> projects -- in fact, he installed an auxiliary antenna for WPLY in
> February, just before heading back to Iraq. Perhaps I can shed some
> light on this situation.
>
> First, let me say that Nick impressed me as a very bright, resourceful
> and dedicated individual who cared a great deal about improving our
> quality of life by applying his skills and knowledge. Nick not only
> possessed the necessary physical ability and stamina to do the job, but
> had also studied engineering at Drexel, Penn, and Cornell, so I felt
> very comfortable letting him handle our work. I knew that he wanted to
> grow his own business, and I felt obligated to give him that
> opportunity.
>
> He had all sorts of ideas to bring technology to less-developed
> parts of the world, including a concrete tower which could be
> fabricated in remote parts of the world using locally-
> available materials, thus avoiding the problems of shipping steel in
> the absence of a good transportation network.
>
> In fact, at last year's PAB Engineering Conference in Hershey, he and
> his father (who served as business manager of the company) displayed a
> prototype modular structure called "Bovl Blocks", made of interlocking
> concrete blocks that could be cast on site, then stacked to the desired
> height. He thought this product would be particularly useful in the
> African interior, where cellular networks are just beginning to be
> built out.
>
> Why did he go to Iraq?
>
> He was aware that some towers were damaged last year during bombing
> missions, and many more had been looted... copper lines removed,
> diagonal members taken out, etc. Few obstruction lighting systems were
> functional -- he mentioned an 800 foot tower two miles from an airport
> (used by our military) that was totally dark. So he first went over in
> December to see if he could help to assist in the reconstruction,
> restore Iraq's broadcast services, and repair the serious structural
> damage that endangered the lives of their citizens.
>
> I received the following email message from Nick in early January:
>
> >About Iraq-
>
> >I am taking photos - where allowed. It's actually pretty sad - I just
> >got off one of two 320 meter monster towers in Abu Gharib (also home
> >to the main political prison) which use to support most of Baghdad
> >area's VHF and UHF.
> >Both have been badly looted, including 4000 feet or more of flexible 6-
> >1/8" heliax, two full 12X4 panel TV antennas, and even some structural
> >members. I was also in the North as I mentioned, but here there
> >wasn't as much damage. I'll definitely share some of these pix with
> >you and others next time I'm in the area - I'd love to put together a
> >little presentation for SBE or PAB in about six monthes after I've
> >been on every site and fixed some of them.
>
> He returned to Philadelphia in late January to catch up on some
> domestic business -- then in early February, tackled an antenna
> replacement job at our aux site, which he had quoted last summer.
>
> This proved to be more complicated than either of us had first assumed
> (a three-bay DA with two vertical and four horizontal parasites per
> bay) but he honored his original quote. The work took place in sub-
> zero windchills... my feet were getting plenty cold just standing out
> in the cornfield as we aligned the azimuth, it must have been brutal up
> on the tower, but he took it in stride. (I'm sending Barry some
> pictures of Nick on this job to post on the "Oldradio" site.)
>
> After Nick completed assembly and we purged the system, I ran the
> pressure up to 5 PSI and closed the valve on the nitrogen tank. I came
> out at 4:30 AM the next morning to run some power into the new antenna,
> and as the transmitter ramped up to full output, I saw *zero*
> reflected. (I tapped the meter to make sure it wasn't stuck!)
>
> We had a perfect installation, no split or missing bullets, etc. And I
> haven't seen *any* pressure loss since then (actually, the gage reads
> between 7 and 8 now, due to the warmer weather.)
>
> I knew that Nick was planning to return to Irag in March, but hadn't
> heard any word from him over the past two months, which had me
> concerned. Then I received the message from his parents (which Stu
> Engelke posted here last week) and my heart sunk. I was at lunch
> yesterday when the news broke about his brutal murder, and I was
> devastated.
>
> If you've been following all sides of this story, you may have read
> that his parents did not receive much cooperation from OUR Federal
> Government when trying to learn his whereabouts, which is very
> disturbing. He had reportedly booked a March 30 flight back to New
> York, but missed it because he had been detained by our military.
> Today's "spin" on the story is that they told him to get out, but I'm
> not buying that.
>
> Let's keep his family in our thoughts and prayers. Our industry (and
> humanity) has lost a very fine person.
>
> Mark

-------------------

I found this email reposted on Tower Pro, a yahoo group for discussion of communication towers and related work. Several members knew him and worked with him in the past in the tower-communications field, and have posted about it. In Berg's January emails, he claimed to have been awarded a subcontractor deal by Harris Corp-Florida. There don't seem to be any further details as to why he was back again in March looking for work if he'd already been awarded a subcontracting job in January. His comments indicated he was familiar with how the bureaucracy in Iraq worked. I can't find any information showing that Harris Corporation has been asked about why the work never materialized.

[Rodney King]

Berg Had Koran, 'Anti-Semitic' Book

As I said on the other thread: Why don't they just say "Berg had two anti-semetic books"?

[tuckrdout]

You know there are a lot of people out there who think they are much more intelligent than the Feds, and they think they could do a better job at being a spy. He may have been a "freelance" spy...or at least tried to be. Or he may have thought his captors were friends, and this was going to be a staged event. It is all too odd. Too many coincidences..

He quits two expensive ivy league colleges to go to Oklahoma?! And just "coincidentally", the terrorist Moussaoui also lived around the university and "coincidentally" used Berg's email?

Berg's father is a vehement opposer to Bush, and the war. Micheal Berg's sister married an Iraqi. So Nick's uncle is Iraqi. He went to visit his uncle's brother in Mosul. And supposedly Nick was FOR Bush and the War....???

But, for some odd reason, the Government is lying about having had custody of Nick Berg! Why?

And, Nick was killed wearing an American Orange Prison uniform. No other hostage has ever been put into a uniform, much less an American Orange Jumpsuit. Terrorist don't usually take the time to steal prison uniforms.

Curioser and curioser....

[nmh]

The real tragedy here is the PARENTS who didn't raise their son properly. This appears to be one confused frisky puppy who valued money more than his life. His father should be ashamed of himself. If he had encouraged common sense and some boundaries in life, his son would most likely still be alive. Liberals are known, which his father surely is, for being irresponsible and lacking common sense as well as logic.

[philosofy123]

Man, that was a wealth of information. I did not look into this guy history, but thanks for opening my eyes. The same thing with Mayfield, he converted to Islam, and he married to a Moslem wife,...

[nmh]

"Useful Idiot for the Terrorists?"

It's a possibility. He appears to have no grounding in anything. He was very openminded so he could have been their useful idiot who screwed up somehow.

[AmishDude]

It would be presumptuous of me, for example, to have all of my posts be a link to my webpage which would require registration and a monthly fee. Sure, it would be capitalism and it would be a waste of time and money.

The fact is, I think the cost of undergoing this enterprise on Beck's behalf would not be worth the revenue, but he can try. Frankly, the free publicity of having his shows able to be downloaded for free would be worth it to him financially, given the current lackluster ratings for his show, but hey, I think it's presumptuous of Salon.com to run a premium service.

[tuckrdout]

Horrific yes. But this has crossed my mind...actually, not that "we" did it, but that Berg had been given over to our "hired interrogators", because he had too many terrorist connections. There were too many red flags to just let him go. But, since he was Jewish, and Muslim vows are to kill all of them, the hired "interrogators" betrayed the CIA and actually killed the guy.

The killers could be US hired "contractors" who torture our prisoners, so that we don't get our hands dirty. We have done this for years. We hire mostly Egyptians, but others have been hired to.

This smells curiously like another botched up intelligence failure. And as such, all involvment must be denied.

[Freedom2specul8]

Have you seen this yet? If so..my apologies. I've not had time to read it yet..but the headline is unreal.

Gummy..ping

[tuckrdout]

Naw, this doesn't have anything to do with it. Just look at the demeanor of hostage Thomas Hamill. He wasn't worried at all.

[unsycophant]

The thought should uncross your mind, and fast. "We" had nothing to do with the murder of Mr. Berg. The CIA did NOT "have the guy killed", and it's a little 'horrific' to read that kind of drivel, even if this *is* only the Internet.

The United States would NEVER NEVER NEVER hire people to pose as terrorists who videotape the murder of our citizens because they have 'too many terrorist connections'.

Good Lord. Your remarks are offensive and ignorant.

[tessalu]

Maybe Nick Berg was going to convert to Islam, and he just needed some more time. Stranger things have happened.
I think that there is much more to this story.