FBI threatens Berg's father -- not just a question of why so many
"insurgents" had weird hoods like this handy
May 14, 2004
Nick Berg execution a fraud
You've seen the pictures, now answer these
questions...
Since when do 'radical Islamic terrorists'
dress their prisoners in US-style orange jump
suits?
How often have you seen 'radical Islamic terrorists'
wearing US-style bullet proof vests and body armor?
How many fat and/or steroid pumped up Iraqi insurgents
- or Iraqis - have you seen photographs of in the last
ten years? Have you even seen one?
Yet we're shown a prisoner in an orange jump suit
posed with FIVE beefy guards wearing bullet proof
vests and we're supposed to believe he's being
held captive by a shadowy Iraqi group.
The speed with which the body was identified,
the execution video appeared on the air, and the
'culprits' were identified is remarkable.
As is the timing... Bush & Co. desperately needed
something other than torture photos on the front page
and this came along just in the nick of time.
Oh, and Berg's father states categorically that it
was the US holding his son before his murder...
How much clearer does this need to be?
Final note, common sense, barnyard or battlefield
experience and/or biology class informs us that removing
the head from a living being is an extremely bloody
undertaking. I don't mean to be gruesome, but the blood
spurts fountain-like and in great quantities.
Where's the blood?
I don't know what's more amazing... the utter lameness
of this fraud or the fact that so many people are buying
it.
===========
To: "'Dick Eastman'" <oldickeastman@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
Subject: RE: Indications Zionist Jews Murdered US middle-class
midwesterner
electronics nerd Berg in another Frame-up
Date: Thu, 13 May 2004 10:28:53 -0700
There's too much silence on the topic.
The Jewish communities should be jumping through their ass, with a Mossad
operation underway. Let a Jewish kid get beaten on the U.S. streets or a
Synagogue get a few slurs painted on it & the press is far greater.
The White House should be jumping through their ass for the bare atrocity
by
anybody, anywhere, for any reason.
The Pentagon should be screaming, "See how they are!"
The timing 'mysteriously' offsets the USA War Crimes. Strange.
This is like the 9-11 hijackers not turning up on the passenger manifests,
with no one saying anything to the effect of, "Where the **** did they
go???
FIND them!"
Silence can scream.
Gitmo coveralls; hmmm.....
The wrong staging. The wrong timing on the wrong release location for the
tape. Egypt? Who's the courier? All these tapes & no one is tracked down.
I don't buy it.
Berg may well have been decapitated, but I don't think this tape is a
record. Was the body found in street clothes??? In the Gitmo coveralls???
Is the good Jewish family playing along for "patriotic" reasons. They
should
have every Jewish camera team in the country in their front yard.
Too much is wrong.
===================
"Deep down, I believe that a little anti-Semitism is a good thing
for the Jews - reminds us who we are." --Jay Lefkowitz (NYT
Magazine. 12 F. 1995, 65) Jay Lefkowitz is now Deputy assistant
to the President for Domestic Policy.
===================
clues from the whore monopoly media:
Friday, May 14, 2004
Diplomat's E-Mails Show Berg in Custody
By JASON STRAZIUSO
Associated Press Writer
http://tinyurl.com/22kpc
Family members provided e-mails Thursday that say Nicholas Berg was held
by
the U.S. military before he was kidnapped and beheaded, but the government
contends the messages were based on erroneous information.
Berg's family has called on the U.S. government to tell all it knows about
its contacts with the 26-year-old businessman in the weeks before his body
was found last weekend in Baghdad and a gruesome video that showed his
beheading was posted on the Internet.
To back its claims that Berg was in U.S. custody, the family on Thursday
gave The Associated Press copies of e-mails from Beth A. Payne, the U.S.
consular officer in Iraq.
"I have confirmed that your son, Nick, is being detained by the U.S.
military in Mosul. He is safe. He was picked up approximately one week
ago.
We will try to obtain additional information regarding his detention and a
contact person you can communicate with directly," Payne wrote to Berg's
father, Michael, on April 1.
Payne repeated that Berg was "being detained by the U.S. military" in an
e-mail the same day to Berg's mother, Suzanne. The next day, Payne wrote
that she was still trying to find a local contact for the family, but
added
that "given the security situation in Iraq it is not easy."
U.S. officials say Berg was detained by Iraqi police March 24 and was
never
in the custody of American forces. Berg is believed to have been kidnapped
days after Iraqi police or coalition forces released him April 6.
The government says the e-mail from Payne was false. State Department
spokeswoman Kelly Shannon said Payne's information came from the Coalition
Provisional Authority. The authority did not tell Payne until April 7 that
Berg had been held by Iraqi police and not the U.S. military, she said.
"As Mr. Berg had been released, the consular officer did not convey this
information to the family because he was released, thankfully," Shannon
said. "And we thought he was on his way."
Berg's brother called on the government to come clean about its contacts
with the slain American before he died. The family has blamed the
government
for keeping him in custody for too long while anti-American violence
escalated in Iraq.
"They're trying to deflect attention to a couple weeks down the road when
no
one's paying attention," David Berg said. "I think President Bush needs to
be a man about this and tell the truth. I think most, if not all,
Americans
can figure out who's telling the truth and who's lying."
Meanwhile, the family said Berg had been questioned by the FBI more than a
year ago about a contact he had with a terrorism suspect in 1999, while he
was a student at the University of Oklahoma in Norman.
A senior law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity said
the terror suspect appears to have been acquainted with Zacarias
Moussaoui,
an al-Qaida adherent now in federal custody and awaiting trial on
conspiracy
charges stemming from the Sept. 11 attacks.
The official said an e-mail address traced to Berg had been used by the
unidentified individual with pur****ted terror connections, but a 2002
investigation showed Berg had never met the individual and had not given
the
e-mail address to that person.
Michael Berg told re****ters Thursday that his son was cleared of any
wrongdoing. He said Nicholas Berg met the suspect while riding the bus to
classes, and had allowed the suspect to use his computer.
A private memorial for Berg was scheduled for Friday at a West Chester
synagogue. Family members declined to discuss burial arrangements.
The Bergs said they want to know if the government had received an offer
to
trade Iraqi prisoners for Nicholas Berg. On the videotape of his death,
Berg's killers made a reference to a trade offer, but U.S. officials have
said they knew of no such offer.
Michael Berg said he wanted to hear President Bush address the issue.
"I would like to ask him if it is true that al-Qaida offered to trade my
son's life for the life of another person," Michael Berg said. "And if
that
is true, well, I need that information. ... and I think the people of the
United States of America need to know what the fate of their sons and
daughters might be in the hands of the Bush administration."
Associated Press writers Curt Anderson and Lara Jakes Jordan in Wa****ngton
contributed to this re****t
==============================
Berg's Father and Firm
Were On A Right-Wing
'Enemies' List
The family firm of beheaded American Nick Berg, was named by a
conservative
website in a list of 'enemies' of the Iraq occupation. That could explain
his arrest by Iraqi police --a detention which fatally delayed his planned
return from Iraq and may have led directly to his death....finish article
@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Berg decapitation video declared "a fraud" by medical doctor
The first casualty of war is the truth and this one has been no
exception. La Voz de Aztlan obtained a copy of the video showing the
beheading of American Nick Berg of Philadelphia and immediately something
very odd was readily apparent. Not only were the pur****ted screams of
Nick Berg not in synchrony with the decapitation but their was also a
total lack of blood spurting out as his jugular and other veins and
arteries were being cut.
We forwarded the video to Doctor Raul Castro Guevara, a surgeon and
forensic expert in Mexico City for his expert opinion. He wrote back and
commented, "No hay manera que el individuo en el video estaba vivo y su
corazon funcionando cuando le estaban cortando la cabeza. En estos casos,
el corazon impela sangre con gran presion, y se corta las arterias del
pescuezo, hay una gran cantidad de sangre que salpica **** todos lados. En
mi opinion el video es un fraude."
Doctor Raul Castro Guevara is saying that there is no way that the
individual in the video was alive and his heart pumping while his neck
was being cut. The doctor adds that in these cases, while the heart is
pumping, cutting a person´s artery in the neck, would cause copious
amounts of blood to spurt all over the immediate environment. He says
that in his opinion the video is a fraud.
http://www.rense.com/general52/decap.htm
=====================
By Lawrence Smallman
....Other questions presented by bloggers are Berg's peculiar
circumstances
in the
weeks before his death. Why would a private Jewish American citizen choose
to wander
around Iraq by himself?...read it all @[EMAIL PROTECTED]
===========================
Berg Died for Bush, Rumsfeld 'Sins' - Father
Reuters
Thu May 13, 3:06 PM ET
By Jon Hurdle
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - The father of Nick Berg, the American beheaded in
Iraq, directly blamed President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
on Thursday for his son's death.
http://tinyurl.com/3alj8
"My son died for the sins of George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. This
administration did this," Berg said in an interview with radio station
KYW-AM.
In the interview from outside his home in West Chester, Pennsylvania, a
seething Michael Berg also said his 26-year-old son, a civilian
contractor,
probably would have felt positive, even about his executioners, until the
last minute.
"I am sure that he only saw the good in his captors until the last second
of
his life," Berg said. "They did not know what they were doing. They killed
their best friend."
Two days after the publication of a video showing the execution of his son
by five masked men, Berg attacked the Bush administration for its invasion
of Iraq and its sponsor****p of the Patriot Act, which gives sweeping
powers
of surveillance to the federal government.
Berg described the Patriot Act as a "coup d'etat." He added: "It's not the
same America I grew up in."
The criticism came amid finger-pointing between Berg's family, U.S.
military
officials and Iraqi police over the young businessman's imprisonment
before
his execution.
Michael Berg rejected U.S. government claims that his son had never been
held by American authorities in Iraq. The Iraqi police chief in the city
of
Mosul has also contradicted statements by the U.S.-led coalition
concerning
the younger Berg's detention.
'FBI CAME TO MY HOUSE'
"I have a written statement from the State Department in Baghdad ...
saying
that my son was being held by the military," Berg said. "I can also assure
you that the FBI came to my house on March 31 and told me that the FBI had
him in Mosul in an Iraqi prison."
Dan Senor, spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority, said this
week
that Nick Berg was arrested in Mosul by Iraqi police on March 24 and
released on April 6.
Senor said the FBI visited Berg three times during his detention by Iraqi
police and determined that he was not involved in criminal or terrorist
activities.
Brig.-Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, said
American military police had seen Berg during his detention to make sure
he
was being fed and treated properly.
Berg returned to Baghdad from Mosul in April and went missing on April 9,
during a chaotic period when dozens of foreigners were snatched by
guerrillas west of the capital.
His body was discovered by a road near Baghdad on Saturday. The video of
his
decapitation was posted on the Internet on Tuesday.
Berg had been in Baghdad from late December to Feb. 1 and returned to Iraq
in March. He did not find work and planned to return home at the end of
March, according to his parents.
Berg's communications to his parents stopped on March 24 and he told them
later he was jailed by Iraqi officials after being picked up at a
checkpoint
in Mosul.
On April 5, the Bergs filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government, naming
Rumsfeld and alleging their son was being held illegally by the U.S.
military in Iraq. The next day, he was released. (additional re****ting by
Maher al-Thanoon)
Copyright © 2004 Reuters Limited
========================
Al Qa'eda was from the beginning a CIA/Mossad sting operation
to identify potential terrorists by advertizing for them and "signing
them up." The attack on the USS Cole was merely a disinfo-
stunt to give the sting instant credibility.
=============================
5/13/04 - CNN - MICHALE BERG, NICK BERG'S FATHER
STATED NICK ATTENDED FLIGHT SCHOOL IN OKLAHOMA
AND MEET ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI AND LET HIM USE HIS
(BERG) COMPUTER AND HIS PASSWORD.
Berg's encounter with 'terrorist' revealed
CNN -
WEST CHESTER, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- When Nicholas Berg
took an Oklahoma bus to a remote college campus a few years
ago, the American recently beheaded by ... Government sources
told CNN that the encounter involved an acquaintance of
Zacarias Moussaoui -- the only person publicly charged in the
United States in connection with the September 11, 2001, terror
attacks.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/Northeast/05/13/berg.encounter/
WEST CHESTER, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- When Nicholas Berg
took an Oklahoma bus to a remote college campus a few years ago,
the American recently beheaded by terrorists allowed a man with
terrorist connections to use his laptop computer, according to his
father.
Michael Berg said the FBI investigated the matter more than a
year ago. He stressed that his son was in no way connected to the
terrorists who captured and killed him.
Government sources told CNN that the encounter involved an
acquaintance of Zacarias Moussaoui -- the only person publicly
charged in the United States in connection with the September
11, 2001, terror attacks.
According to Berg, his son was taking a course a few years ago
at a remote campus of the University of Oklahoma near an air****t.
He described how on one particular day, his son met "some terrorist
people -- who no one knew were terrorists at the time."
At one point during the bus ride, Berg said, the man sitting next
to his son asked if he could use Nick's laptop computer.
"It turned out this guy was a terrorist and that he, you know, used
my son's e-mail, amongst many other people's e-mail who he did
the same thing to," Berg said.
Government sources said Berg gave the man his password, which
was later used by Moussaoui, the sources said.
The sources said the man who used Berg's e-mail knew Moussaoui,
now awaiting trial on federal charges that could bring a death
sentence. But the sources would not disclose details of how the
men were connected.
Moussaoui, 36, was arrested in August 2001 after he aroused
suspicion at a Minnesota flight school when he arrived for 747
simulator training without holding a pilot's license. A French
national of Moroccan descent, Moussaoui has admitted in open
court that he belonged to al Qaeda, the radical Islamic group
behind the September 11 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000
people.
But Moussaoui has fiercely denied being involved in the
September 11 plot, and the prosecutors' theory of his role has
****fted from being a possible 20th hijacker that day to possibly
piloting a fifth hijacked jetliner targeting the White House.
Berg said his son cooperated fully with an FBI investigation into
the matter.
"He was happy to cooperate, and that was never an issue," he
said. He emphasized that the individual was not a friend of his
son's or even an acquaintance -- "just a guy sitting next to him
on the bus."
"Whoever was next to my son was treated with great respect
and friend****p. Like I said, he knew no dangers from people.
The FBI were satisfied with that."
CNN Justice correspondent Kelli Arena contributed to this re****t.
[SNIP}
The Terror Watch
A chronology of events leading up to 9/11
by Jim Crogan
* 1999: Ihab Mahammed Ali, an al Qaeda member arrested in
Orlando, Florida, and later named as an unindicted co-conspirator
in the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Africa, is called before a
grand jury. He denies participation in bin Laden's network
and is charged with perjury. The FBI learns that Ali had obtained flight
training
at the Airman Flight School in Norman, Oklahoma. Ali became
al Qaeda's first pilot.
Accused September 11 terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui also took flight
lessons at the Airman school.
FULL STORY:
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/02/27/news-crogan.php
BOTH BERG AND MOUSSAOUI ATTENDED AIRMAN FLIGHT SCHOOL:
The Airman Flight School is centrally located in Norman, Oklahoma,
and only minutes away from Will Rogers World Air****t in Oklahoma
City. Norman is the home to the University of Oklahoma; its residents
enjoy all the conveniences of a major metropolitan area. Norman
averages more than 300 days of VFR weather per year, for year-
round flight training. On IFR days, students in advanced courses
continue training on instruments.
http://www.airmanflightschool.com/#lodge
======================================
"Mossad's specialty was (and is)
dirty tricks, even if (or perhaps
because) it was not very good as
an intelligence organization. Its
modus operandi had always been
the same: pull off a dirty trick but
make it appear somebody else had
done it."
Israel's Failed Assassination Attempt
on U.S. Ambassador Documented
...Words that every American school child should learn... but won't!
By Andrew I. Killgore
http://www.wrmea.com/archives/May_2004/0405013.html
Had Mossad, Israel's secret intelligence organization,
succeeded, it would have been the perfect crime-the
crime of the century. The plan was breathtaking in
concept: to assassinate the American ambassador to
Lebanon, in Lebanon, with American weapons,
intended for Israeli's defense only. Everything about it
would point to Lebanon as the culprit.
But fate intervened, and things went wrong. The tires on Ambassador
John Gunther Dean's limousine automatically reinflated when they were shot
out in 1979 (see November 2002 Wa****ngton Re****t, p. 15). The light tank
shell simply bounced off the car's armor. And, horror of horrors, Lebanese
intelligence had retrieved the empty shell casing on which was written,
"Made in the United States of America."
Mossad's specialty was dirty tricks, even if (or perhaps because) it
was not very good as an intelligence organization. Its modus operandi had
always been the same: pull off a dirty trick but make it appear somebody
else had done it. An early example was the Lavon Affair, named for Pinhas
Lavon, Israel's minister of defense back in 1953. This Mossad operation
persuaded some Jewish men in Egypt to burn U.S. Information Service
libraries on the assumption that Egyptian President Jamal Abdul Nasser
would
be blamed. But one of the incendiary devices went off prematurely, and the
young spies were caught. Some of them were executed. This provoked a
scandal
in Israel, and in the ensuing investigation it eventually turned out that
Lavon's signature authorizing the operation had been forged at the behest
of
Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. A dirty trick within a dirty trick!
Then came the June 8, 1967 attack on the USS Liberty, killing 34
Americans and wounding 171. Perpetrated by the Israeli air force and navy,
this was not a Mossad operation, but it was suffused by the same spirit of
stealth and trickery. During the Arab Israeli war of 1967, unmarked
Israeli
jets raked the all-but-unarmed spy ****p Liberty, steaming slowly off
Egypt's
Sinai Peninsula, with napalm and machine gunfire.
The Liberty was flying a large American flag, and the ****p's
designation, in English, was clearly visible on a cloudless day. But
Israel
said it thought it was attacking an Egyptian trans****t ****p. Israel
pleaded
"a tragic accident" and still pleads that miserable lie today.
Now, thanks to Ambassador John Gunther Dean, the full taste of
Mossad's evil
will be available at former President Jimmy Carter's Presidential Library
in
Atlanta, Georgia. A part of the National Archives, the Carter Center will
contain 42 files on Dean's service as ambassador to Lebanon. The
overwhelming majority of the material is unclassified and thus readily
available to researchers, scholars and journalists.
The Dean papers-which include documents, messages, re****ts and
telegrams-constitute hard evidence on the stultifying influence of the
Israeli lobby as Dean tried to get answers from the Department of State on
the Israeli assassination failure. Nobody was willing to talk with him
because the subject was just too "sensitive."
The papers include documentation of efforts by the Palestinians to
help the U.S. with the American hostages in Iran. They demonstrate that,
unlike today, the United States administration considered the Palestine
Liberation Organization (PLO) "valid interlocutors" in the search for a
negotiated settlement of the Palestine-Israel conflict. In fact, PLO
leader
Yasser Arafat and an assistant made a special visit to Iran, where they
succeeded in gaining the immediate freedom of several of the American
diplomatic hostages. Arafat performed a real favor for the United States
for
which he never received any thanks-perhaps because, once again, it would
have been too "sensitive."
By June 2004 all other papers in Dean's possession will be housed in
the National Archives. Among the information they will contain will be the
role of certain congressmen with respect to nuclear proliferation. Some of
the American legislators struck Dean as motivated more by fear of Pakistan
obtaining "the Islamic bomb" than they were by defending U.S. policy of
preventing the proliferation of arms.
Andrew I. Killgore, a retired foreign service officer and former
U.S.
ambassador to Qatar, is publisher of the Wa****ngton Re****t.
==============================
THE BEHEADING OF NICK BERG
Video - Windows Media Player
http://www.apfn.org/movies/iraq2vediom.wmv
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/pow_beheaded.htm
====================================
Berg's Father and Firm Were on a Right-Wing Enemies List
Updated on 2004-05-13 02:14:36
http://www.BreakForNews.com/NickBergEnemiesList.htm
by Fintan Dunne, Editor
BreakForNews.com EXCLUSIVE
Research by Kathy McMahon
The family firm of beheaded American Nick Berg, was named by a
conservative
website in a list of 'enemies' of the Iraq occupation. That could explain
his arrest by Iraqi police --a detention which fatally delayed his planned
return from Iraq and may have led directly to his death.
Nick Berg, 26 disappeared into incommunicado detention after his arrest by
Iraqi police in March, 2004. He vanished again after his release 13 days
later. His body was found last Saturday in Baghdad, and a video of his
beheading --supposedly by a radical Islamic group-- was posted on the
Internet on Tuesday.
The official story of his gruesome murder has many dubious aspects, not
least the real reason why Iraqi police detained the young man at a
checkpoint. New research by BreakForNews has uncovered a plausible
explanation.
The FreeRepublic.com web site and forum has a reputation for right-wing
views, fanatical Republicanism and relentless pro-war activism.
On 7th March, 2004, just three weeks before the first anniversary of the
invasion of Iraq, an 'enemies' list of anti-war groups and individuals was
posted on the Free Republic forum.
It began: "Here you are, FReepers. Here is the enemy."
The list had been copied from publicly available endorsements of a call to
action for an imminent anniversary antiwar protest on 20th March, 2004.
The
protest was being organized under the banner of the A.N.S.W.E.R Coalition
(Act Now to Stop War & End Racism).
Among those listed as having endorsed the call to action was this entry:
"Michael S. Berg, Teacher, Prometheus Methods Tower Service, Inc."
That's Nick Berg's father, Michael who acts as business manager for his
son
in their family radio communications firm, Prometheus Methods Tower
Service.
Both father and son cared deeply about Iraq. But they were on opposite
sides
of opinion on the occupation --though you would never know that from
reading
the New York Times.
Michael was ardently antiwar, whereas his Bush-sup****ting son was in favor
of the war to the extent that he had already visited Iraq seeking to help
with rebuilding efforts.
Just seven days after "Michael Berg" and "Prometheus Methods Tower
Service"
had come up on that Iraq war 'enemies' list, his son Nick Berg returned to
Iraq under the business name of Prometheus Methods Tower Service.
The scene was set for tragically mistaken suspicions --which were to end
in
the horrifying death of an honorable and blameless American. A
humanitarian
who had traveled several times to Third World countries --such as Ghana,
to
teach villagers construction techniques.
The web traffic to the Free Republic forum --and it's forum member****p--
include significant numbers of serving and former US military.
Many members take their online activism very seriously. Some delight in
causing mischief for those they think are identified as "enemies."
Within minutes of getting their hands on the antiwar names, one was
boasting
of having contacted the military about active service personnel who were
on
the list:
"I forwarded the list to the ISC (the command you listed), the
district
officer... the district legal office and the investigative services
office."
The response:
"The poor moron is not going to know what hit him. Is this being
mean-spirited? NO! Someone against our military does not belong in the
military!"
Another was already investigating a member of the Coast Guard on the list:
"I took a look at his yahoo and he has a site which is not real fond
of
the war on drugs OR the war on terrorism.... That particular coastie needs
some serious trouble to come his way...."
" I spoke on the phone to a senior chief yesterday in Virginia....
[who]
could not believe what the guy was doing. He was both astounded and angry.
I
think [he] is in for some big, big trouble."
If that list could end up on an Internet forum, then it could just as
readily end up with the FBI, and eventually in the hands of those in Iraq
who are keen to track or harass antiwar activists entering the country.
Alternatively, the enthusiasts on Free Republic have the contacts and the
clear determination to have ensured the list quickly got to the right
places.
At the time the list was posted, Nick Berg had just come back from an Iraq
trip lasting from late December to Feb. 1. He had re****ted no problems
whatsoever with Iraqi police during that visit.
Yet, within two weeks of the list being posted, Nick Berg --back in Iraq
on
his final fatal trip-- was re****tedly detained in Mosul at an Iraqi police
checkpoint. The official explanation is that authorities thought his
identification might have been forged and were checking his authenticity.
But a more likely reason is that by then authorities in Iraq had
discovered
that a 'Berg' of Prometheus Methods Tower Service was in the country, and
issued a detention instruction to Iraqi police because they misidentified
Nick Berg as an antiwar activist entering Iraq to work for the 'enemy'.
That could explain why he was held incommunicado for 13 days, without
recourse to a lawyer; why US officialdom was singularly unheeding of his
mother's pleas; why the FBI visited his family to question them; why it
took
a US court order secured by the family to pressure his release.
And why he was cruelly murdered soon after that release, like many others
around the world who suffer such a fate at the hands of state-condoned
death
squads --sometimes just hours after their release from official detention.
That's the final sordid twist in this grisly story.
If the world was an uncomplicated place, then this tale would end with the
mistaken arrest of Nick Berg.
We could finish by noting that Nick's father is re****tedly accusing the US
government of contributing to his son's death. Unable to find work in
Iraq,
Nick Berg's last trip was set to be a short one. He planned to return to
the
US on the 30th of March.
Michael Berg charges that his son's detention until 5th April, was a
violation of civil rights which fatally delayed his exit from Iraq and
instead left him dangerously stranded in the middle of the explosion of
violence which erupted in early April, 2004.
But there are much graver aspects to all this. Another chilling
perspective
is best summarized by the wry cynicism of Michael Rivero at
WhatReallyHappened.com
In a commentary on the beheading of Nick Berg, Rivero writes:
"How wonderfully lucky for Bush and the NeoCons that such a great
piece
of pro-war distract-from-the-torture-scandal event happens at this
particular moment."
Rivero's world-weary realism strikes a chord with his popular website's
visitors, but will undoubtedly shock unseasoned observers. However he is
far
from alone in questioning the official line. Others have noted the
too-white
hands and military at-ease stance of the hooded captors in the video.
The killing has certainly eased the international discomfiture of the US.
The problem with assumptions that al-Queda is responsible for Berg's
beheading, is that Musab al-Zarqawi is mentioned in a caption on the
videotape of the killing.
Al-Zarqawi came to our attention in January, 2004 when the US military
claimed to have intercepted a letter of his written to the al-Queda
leader****p. But the content of the letter read like a US military
propaganda
statement on the situation in Iraq.
In the letter al-Zarqawi wrote of Iraqis coming to welcome the US presence
in Iraq, and about how al-Queda was loosing ground in it's war against the
US.
In February, 2004 an article "The Zarqawi Gambit," by Greg Weiher on
Counterpunch was deeply skeptical of the letter:
"..if you were Karl Rove, you couldn't design a better scenario to
validate the administration's slant on the war than this. That's a good
reason to maintain a healthy skepticism. In fact, there are a number of
good
reasons to take this story with a grain of salt (maybe a three- or
four-pounder)."
The US has been keen to paint the opposition to the occupation as composed
of many foreign fighters tied to al-Queda. The letter was clearly
fabricated
for propaganda purposes, with al-Zarqawi as it's new al-Queda star.
But if al-Zarqawi is merely a flimsy propaganda creation, then what
confidence can we have in the official line that al-Zarqawi and al-Queda
murdered Berg?
The only plausible alternative is a covert, black operation orchestrated
as
part of the seedier arm of US foreign policy --which generally only come
to
light when candid photographs, for example, reach the public domain.
But that's an explanation which many would reject on the grounds that no
force allied to the US --no matter how black its operations-- would have
members so callous as to even countenance the cold-blooded beheading of a
US
citizen.
However, there is a mindset amplified by war passions and found among the
gung-ho brutes who beat Iraqis to death; found among the thuggish
mercenary
death squads who roam to slay at will; and found among the cold-blooded
sociopaths who have planted bombs for political strategic reasons.
It's war. And war begets a wartime mindset.
Nick Berg's detention indicates that authorities regarded him an an
antiwar
activist and possibly also as an 'enemy.'
That original post on Free Republic contains a telling indication of a
mindset, which in the heat of war could well kill an American it regards
as
the "enemy."
A mindset which has now reacted to Michael Berg's loss of his son like
this:
"I wonder what he thinks about his Muslim buddies now... "
A mindset displayed by the search keywords used on Free Republic to
categorize the list of antiwar sup****ters. The keywords are:
APPEASENIKS; DAMNCOMMIES; ENEMYWITHIN; LEFTISTS; PEACENIKS; RATS;
SCUMBAGS;
TRAITORS; TREASONOUSSCUM; USEFULIDIOTS; WARONTERROR
From: Pamila Emmerich
From: Re****terNoteBook@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: French Jew Admits to Staging Phony "Hate Crimes"
Date: Thu, 13 May 2004 17:12:43 EDT
French Jew Admits to Staging Phony "Hate Crimes"
http://www.jta.org/brknewsticker.asp?id=107522&ref=JTA
Hello, anyone home?
The head of French friends of Israel's Likud Party admitted
staging anti-Semitic phone calls to himself.
Alex Moise received a two-month suspended sentence and
a $1,000 fine from a Paris court Thursday for giving a false
statement and for wasting the court's time. Moise filed a
complaint in January claiming he had received anti-Semitic
phone calls and threats but later admitted that he himself had
made the calls. Describing Moise as a "friend and a serious
worker for the community," Sammy Ghozlan, president of the
Bureau For Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism, told JTA he
is "shocked that a community leader would do something like
this in the current climate."
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