| THIS IS A READ-ONLY ARCHIVE FROM THE SORABJI.COM MESSAGE BOARDS (1995-2016). |
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http://www.kyw1060.com/news_story_detail.cfm?newsitemid=37542 I just saw this on the news and I heard him speak on that video. He was a really nice boy, very smart, funny, and had a lot of friends. I liked him a lot. I hadn't seen him since 8th grade, but this is really fucking me up. |
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I heard his dad on NPR saying that the Coalition Authority had delayed his departure for two weeks because of a problem with his passport, but now I'm seeing the mainstream media is saying that he refused to leave. Shifting blame is the name of the game. But hey, at least we all owe Rumsfeld a debt of gratitude, right? he's doing a superb job. We can all rest easy. I am so damn pissed at this administration. Everytime I see someone with a "Bush/Cheney" sticker on their car, I want to yell at them: "What the FUCK is your problem? How can you support this?" If we don't get rid of Bush, we're just going to keep seeing these horrible things, year after year, and in new places. |
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Here's another article about him, describing what he was like as a person and student: http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/8645573.htm?1c |
Read below. I have to say, I DO have a very fair question. W Why the hell was Berg in an orange prison jumpsuit? It doesnt fit. Noone else held captive has been in one, and that one guy who escapes was just in his clothes... Why did one of the hooded men refer to the prisoners as "Detainees"? That doesnt seem like a term a supposed terrorist would use. thats a US term. according to the time code, berg would have had to have been beheaded prior to when they attacked him in the tape. another thing people are looking at is to remember the yellow wall in Abu Gharib, and to look at this white chair that appears in two photos. Yeah, this last one is a real stretch, but for conspiracy theory sites, its gold: http://rense.com/1.imagesG/se3s.jpg and the other chair: http://rense.com/1.imagesG/040511nick-berg-video_n.jpg on this site its said that Ashcroft had Berg investigated 2 years ago for ties to Moussaoui. http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=34E07C3B-C777-4244-B40425B0F1D5D05F yep, and theres still more coming and more than I mentioned. Its a big hub-bub. and on top of it all, there is the timing of the Nick Berg tape, of course. The left has a Vince Foster. Berg's family disputes U.S. officials' claims that Berg was never in U.S. custody. By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. authorities said Wednesday a young American who was beheaded by militants had been warned by the FBI (news - web sites) to leave Iraq (news - web sites) and was offered a plane ride to safety at a time when a new wave of violence spread across the country, making road travel extremely dangerous. Mystery surrounded not only Nicholas Berg's disappearance but also why he had been held by Iraqi police for about two weeks and questioned by FBI agents three times. Berg's family disputed U.S. officials' claims that Berg was never in U.S. custody. "The Iraqi police do not tell the FBI what to do, the FBI tells the Iraqi police what to do. Who do they think they're kidding?" Berg's father, Michael, told The Associated Press from his home in West Chester, Pa., a Philadelphia suburb. Berg was last in contact with U.S. officials in Baghdad on April 10, and his body was found Saturday in Baghdad. Staff members at the $30-a-night Al-Fanar Hotel in Baghdad told the AP that Berg stayed there for several days until April 10. Two e-mails sent by Berg to his family and friends show the 26-year-old telecommunications expert traveled widely and unguarded throughout Iraq — an unsafe practice rarely done by Westerners. The FBI warned Berg shortly before his disappearance that Iraq was too volatile a place for unprotected American civilians but he turned down a State Department offer to fly him home, U.S. officials said Wednesday. Michael Berg said his son refused a U.S. offer in early April to board an outbound charter jet because he believed travel to the airport was too dangerous. American soldiers refer to the airport highway as "RPG Alley" because of frequent attacks by insurgents firing rocket-propelled grenades. According to the State Department, Berg told an American diplomat in Baghdad that he preferred to travel on his own to Kuwait. "At that time, the U.S. consular officer extended an offer to assist Mr. Berg to depart Iraq by plane to Jordan," said State Department spokeswoman Kelly Shannon. "We'd already discussed that possibility with his family, and we mentioned that to him, obviously, when we talked to him on the 10th." His family said Berg had already intended to leave the country on March 30 but that his detention prevented him from doing so. Berg first worked in Iraq in December and January and returned in March. He was inspecting communications facilities, some of which were destroyed in the war or by looters. During his time in Iraq, he struggled with the Arabic language and worked at night on a tower in Abu Ghraib, a site of repeated attacks on U.S. convoys and the location of the notorious prison where U.S. soldiers abused Iraqi inmates. Michael Berg told the AP that Nicholas' paternal aunt, now dead, married an Iraqi man named Mudafer, who became close to Nicholas. In one of the e-mails, Nicholas Berg describes going to the northern city of Mosul, where he introduced himself to Mudafer's brother, identified as Moffak Mustaffa. "We got along splendidly," Berg wrote. "We spent a few hours and I helped him establish an e-mail account." Berg notes that "my presence ... made him more concerned (about his own safety and probably mine too) than I've been the entire time I've been here." The young man was beheaded on a video posted Tuesday on a Web site. It bore the title "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi shown slaughtering an American," referring to an associate of Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) believed behind a wave of suicide bombings in Iraq. In Washington, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it was likely that al-Zarqawi himself was "the lead perpetrator." Al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian, is wanted in the killing of an American diplomat in Jordan in 2002 and is suspected of ordering many suicide bombings in Iraq. U.S. spokesmen Dan Senor and Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt were quick to offer statements of condolence to his family and to draw attention to the barbarity of his death. Senor also said that "to my knowledge" Berg was not affiliated with any U.S. or coalition organization, nor was he ever in U.S. custody. However, Senor said Iraqi police arrested Berg in Mosul on March 24 because local authorities believed he may have been involved in "suspicious activities." Senor refused to say more, citing the sensitivity of the case. But he did confirm that the Americans were aware Berg was in custody. "U.S. authorities were notified," he said. "The FBI visited Mr. Berg on three occasions and determined that he was not involved with any criminal or terrorist activity." In a statement, the FBI said that its agents "encouraged him to accept (the) ... offer to facilitate his safe passage out of Iraq. Mr. Berg refused these offers." Berg was released April 6 and checked into the Baghdad hotel. Senor referred questions about the reason for Berg's detention to the Iraqi police. In Mosul, however, police told the AP they had no knowledge of the Berg case. Police official Safwan Talal said the only American arrested there in recent months was a woman who was released soon afterward. Since Iraq remains under U.S. military occupation, it seems unlikely that the Iraqi police would have held Berg, or any other American, for such a length of time without at least the tacit approval of U.S. authorities. Berg told his family that U.S. officials took custody of him soon after his arrest and he was not allowed to make phone calls or contact a lawyer, his father said. Kimmitt said U.S. forces kept tabs on Berg during his confinement to make sure he was being fed and properly treated because "he was an American citizen." But the three FBI visits suggest American authorities were concerned about more than Berg's well-being. They may have had their own suspicions about what the young American was doing in Iraq. During a briefing Wednesday, Senor confirmed that Berg had registered with the U.S. Consulate in Baghdad but insisted he "was not a U.S. government employee, he has no affiliation with the coalition and to our knowledge he has no affiliation with any Coalition Provisional Authority contractor." He also stated that Berg "was at no time under the jurisdiction or detention of coalition forces." However, in a Jan. 18 e-mail, Berg said his company had been announced as an approved subcontractor for a broadcast consortium awarded a contract for the U.S.-controlled Iraqi Media Network. "Practically, this means we should be involved with quite a bit of tower work as part of the reconstruction, repair and new construction of the Iraqi Media Network," he wrote, referring to the network as "something like NPR in the U.S." It was unclear whether the contract was revoked. FBI agents visited Berg's parents March 31 and told the family they were trying to confirm their son's identity. On April 5, the Bergs sued the government in federal court in Philadelphia, contending that their son was being held illegally. In a writ filed April 5 in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, the Bergs said the State Department told them their son "is currently detained in Mosul, Iraq, by the United States military" and that American diplomats "no longer" had "any authority or power to intervene" on his behalf. Berg was released the day after the suit was filed. His family said he told them he had not been mistreated. They did not hear from him after April 9 — when violence flared in Iraq because of the U.S. Marine siege of Fallujah and a Shiite uprising in the south. Several days later, however, diplomats received an e-mail from Berg's family that "noted he had not been in contact," Shannon said. On April 14, the consulate sent a private contractor to the Al-Fanar Hotel in Baghdad, where Berg was believed to be staying, to see if he was still there. "The people we talked to at the hotel didn't remember him being there," Shannon said. Diplomats then alerted the U.S. military to be on the lookout for him. But hotel staffers, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Berg stayed in room 602 from April 6 until April 10. One of them said Berg lived in the same room during an earlier visit, which the employee could not remember. An employee described Berg as a "nice guy" who "always smiled and said hello," unlike other foreign guests. "Once he told me, 'I'd like to learn Arabic.'" "He was very sportive — had muscles — and liked the Internet," another hotel worker recalled. "He usually left the hotel in the morning and returned late, around 10 p.m., usually carrying a sack of beer and mineral water." ___ Associated Press reporters |
things i notice while watching the video: he's obviously alive during the reading of the statement. there are several points where he shifts and fidgets. the screaming begins several seconds before the knife is brandished and they shove him onto his side. bad sync on the encoding or bad editing? the timestamp jumps significantly at the point where the camera goes out of focus but there's no discernible skip in the audio. multiple cameras and more bad editing or time really elapsed? there appears to be little to no blood. the guy who read the statement, brandished the knife and started the beheading can't seem to finish the beheading. the timestamp jumps a couple more minutes and the guy with the light colored hood and mask finishes the job and stands holding the knife in one hand the the head in the other. fin. i think they read the statement and executed him in the one continuous segment and came back several hours later to finish the job. who were they? i can't tell from the details presented whether the men were white or arab. not being a speaker of the language, i can't tell if the guy has an iraqi or a jordanian accent. they don't look military. militant but not military. who really knows. one thing for sure, the people who do know what truly happened to nick berg -- be they al qaeda, cia, mossad, or whoever -- are very, very bad people. |
I can't watch it again. Sorry spider, sorry to get into all this. |
The only positive thing I can find out of any of this is that it pushes us more and more towards getting Bush out of office. Which needs to happen. If it doesn't, I think we might soon be living (more so) in very very bad times.. Sorry Spider. If it's any consolation, I understand. |
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I tried watching the video, twice. Couldn't do it. Had to stop. My hands turned cold, my heart raced. Several days later I still have the images flashing before my eyes when nothing else is in on my mind. It was horrible but it wasn't a mistake watching it. It is instructive to compare what happened in Abu Ghraib to what happened to Nick Berg. Americans are capable of doing what happened at Abu Ghraib to further our war aims, and the terrorists are capable of doing what they did to Nick Berg. But how long will it be before we're willing to do what they do? How long before we have to become our enemy in order to defeat them? Some of the more stridently liberal persuasion may say that we already have black ops squads doing those kinds of things. That may well be true, I don't know. But I'm talking about the day when we publicly execute "known terrorists" to intimidate our enemy. We're not that far away from that now with our own penal system. How long before we have a public execution of a criminal? |
I feel bad about this. I feel like I should watch it because it's real, because things like this have happened in the world I live in. I should know what other human beings are capable of even as I sit at my cozy desk, door closed, safe from everything. Yet, that's the same reason I can't watch it. If it were a movie, if it were something I could tell myself was just special effects... I need to go back to work now.. |
I don't think he screams at all, i think it's all chanting stuff. |
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granted id be pale with fear, but it looks as if he was excessively powdered. I wondered if there was some sort of rituatl or rite in Islam that had anything to do with that, or perhaps it just s shitty video. |
when a friend of mine got back from iraq a year ago he told me about how a group went out and knocked a man down and ran him over twice to make sure he was dead. not for any reason. we're capable, tiggy. the other day i walked out my front door and started walking because i had to be around people because i was being overcome by horror. i never knew what it was to be overcome by horror. and it creeps up again and goddamnit when did we stop being human? what the hell is this world where people can be so far from what i am? i can't even comprehend. i am not well. i am distraught and afraid and horrified. you can lie to yourself enough to keep going to work, to keep up your relationships, to function in society. you can lie to yourself and lead a life until you settle and your mind wanders into that room where the poor boys animal screams echo. you look at the bourbon and you look at the front door and look for a corner to hide in, to wait for pollyannish naivete to return. i am sorry spider. i wish i had wings like shields to wrap around you. |
I don't have anything to say that hasn't been said. Except I don't know how much more of this I can handle. I am so very sorry Spider. Sem told me last week and I tried and tried to think of something thoughtful, but I'm just so sorry. Personally, I feel...weary. I tried to access my feelings on this and I can't. I am an incredibly sensitive person, but when it comes to BIG things like this all of my emotions are either lost, buried. This is nothing new. I'm surprised I've never been told that I am heartless and insensitive, but I've learned the fine art of saying the right thing, even if I can't feel the right thing. Yes, I know emotions aren't right or wrong, but one should have a feeling and generally I move right into analytical think mode. This is no different. I never get upset or angry or sad or distraught or horrified in the sense of having raw emotions. Sometimes I get scared though and I am often disappointed. But with everything that's going on, I know the distress and fear and horror that Nate speaks of, but I can't feel it. But I know it's there. And I can't put everything in a little hate-filled box and put it on, for example, either the Bush/Cheney or the Fundamentalist Islam/Terrorist shelf and leave it at that. It's not that the hate and anger isn't there, I just can't access it. I'm not naive. I'm not ignorant. I just need to find my rage. Before it finds me. And hurts me. And I want my fear to be for others, not just myself. Maybe if I watch the video...but I feel like that's just going to make me throw up. But that might be a start. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make this all about me. But I am going to go crazy. |
I don't know how I avoid being overcome by horror. I know what you mean Nate about not knowing what that feeling really was until I watched the video. I've seen so many depictions of real life violence in my life, from holocaust films to pictures of dead people. They all seemed removed, distant, bearable if distasteful. This was different. Maybe I'm not overcome because I'm still optimistic about the good things humanity can do. We're still animals, though. |
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This great evil...where has it come from? How did it steal into the world? What seed, what root did it grow from? Who’s doing this? Who’s killed us? Robbing us of life and light. Mocking us with the sight of what we might have known. Does our ruin benefit the earth? Does it help the grass to grow, the sun to shine? Is this darkness in you, too? Have you passed through this night?I have to believe in the Devil because it's the only sensible explanation for the kind of evil human beings are capable of. Animals don't behave with such malice or thrive on the suffering of others, like we do, and there is no biological reason for us to be capable -- and skilled -- at cruelty. I want to ask, and I don't mean this in an accusatory way, why did you watch the video? For a few days, every time I thought of just the written description of his death, and his screaming, I reflexively clapped my hands to my ears, even when I was driving. I could never watch it happen, even if I didn't know the boy it happened to. Why did you watch? |
every since this news, and the stills we're made public, ive felt _____. spider, i heard an NPR bit on friday about Nick that reiterated everything you said about him....primarily, he was a gregarious outgoing individual. They cited an incident in which he visited...somehere in Africa...and when his friends picked him up at the airport upon his return, he had nothing but the clothes on his back. He had given it all away prior to leaving. I don't know about you, but my recreational drug alcohol use has increased. i drink every night for the pain, smoke pot to forget, and occassional blow for the boredom...which...i question its really boredom. Whatever. Every Friday a block from house at a major intersection about 3-6 neighbors come out at 5pm with signs protesting the Bush administration with one quirky slogan or another. One woman has a peace sign and just sits on the median curb. Cars honk in support. Im usually taking Eva for a walk and getting coffee around this time and i always stop by and say hi, and thank them for coming out. This past Friday...waiting for the crossing signal, this burly fat man in compact car, opened his window at the light and started yelling "shame on you!" "shame on you!". We all sort of looked at each other as if to say "has that fucker lost his mind?" Whats to shame? How can everyone (like nate says) not be outraged and/or horrified and/or saddened by what is happening in this world? We didnt understand. I still don't understand and i truly feel its only a matter of time, before this shit hits a lot closer to home. |
it is time to bury everything you care about in the watching of televised sports. the swan. it is important. america. |
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I probably won't watch the video. I don't feel I have to. |
This stupifies me. And what makes me want to shriek until my throat bleeds is the thought that it's this kind of person who always wins, who always ends up in power, and who always thrives. Why is that? Why don't the just win? This is what is shaking my faith. I understand why God can't stop people from doing evil, but why doesn't He help the good more? |
Much like antigone, it just didnt seem real.I had to see. It was horrible. I too, have never felt that way, and I've seen real death happen before, but not like that. Im not sure if it was because I knew what was coming, because I knew, seeing the wmv file get close to its end that at any moment the murder would occur. Maybe it was the fact these hooded men, speaking in a tongue I don't know frightened me. Not in a boogie man kind of way, but that, our realities are evolving for the worse and there is nothing, I, nor anywone I know, can do about it. i also felt i was looking at my fears and horror square in the eyes. A methodology of justifying a moral end with increasingly immoral means..like tiggy says, its scary. But whats angering and frustrating is that its all been told ahead of time. We do we have to learn these lessons over and over and over and over. Its mad. We all got the memo that Iraq would become exactly what it is over a year later. This shit isnt going to get any better, anytime soon. And the horror continues. |
And, Rhi, the reason ruthless people win is because they are willing to do ruthless things to accomplish their goal. At least Ghandi won. But could he win in this day and age? Who knows? |
And because of this, I was somewhat detached to the actual impact of it, and felt bad for some reason. So I watched it again today actually. The first version I saw didnt have the big speech at the beginning, it went right to the killing. That was linked from Sean Hannity's site for some reason which I dont understand, since he was against the torture photos being shown. He also has the Daniel Pearl video on his main page. I dont know, Hannitys fucked. And its disgusting, but it doesnt disturb me all that much. I dont know why. I think really being affected by this depends on how much you relate to something, or a shared fear. This didnt haunt me, but the 'buried alive' scene in Kill Bill 2 did. The idea of someone getting caught in their zipper does. Maybe I shouldnt have watched that "faces of death" tape when i was 15. Its context i guess. Its horrible, but I've seen worse. |
i felt kind of anxious the first time i saw it but i'm able to compartmentalize stuff like that so it doesn't ovewrwhelm me. i think i've also been anesthetized to gore and horrible stuff by spending hours on rotten.com. i was young, i didn't like it and i didn't inhale. and anyway, you expect behavior like this from extremists. for every story like this, there are at least as many, probably more, equally extreme acts performed by the police and military. like the story nate's buddy told about. when i look at the pictures of injured iraqis i try to imagine how i would feel if they were loved ones of mine and i that's where i go all fucking crazy with frustration and rage. http://www.robert-fisk.com/iraqwarvictims_mar2003.htm do not click that unless you want to feel horrible. the worst part about all of this is that it was all based on lies and mistakes. it's fucking preposterous that our outrage at this stuff is directed at the people on the street. how can they act like this to each other? is anyone really shocked by the results of unleashing hundreds of thousands of well armed, trained killers upon another nation? it would be shocking, in a good way, if everyone acted civilly. the criminals are the people giving orders, not the people carrying them out. |
I'm not much bothered by gore. I watch it and i ponder how different real live death is, so quiet and fast. Not like in movies. The silence of it, the lack of blood. Quiet pale horror. Seeing it, i guess, actually made it less bad for me. This is an image, i can deal with this image. And you know what? there's no black hearted cunt in the background giving the *thumbs up*. That's a big difference for me. But how you're all speaking now, it reminds me of how i was feeling when that innocent american girl was run down with a bulldozer last year in the Gaza strip. That turned me into a numb zombie. My hands were shaking all the time, I was on the verdge of tears for 3 days, i'd burst out crying at work. The evil, the horrible cloud of human evil showed itself to me, and i saw it everywhere, over everthing. And right-wing political cartoonists made fun of her. And where were the pundits then? Where was the cry for justice? Nowhere. In a month, it was forgotten. It still hasn't come. I can't even remember her name. But the black cloud is still there. Israel is still allowed to exist. A huge chunk of me died that day, and is still dead inside. So now this video, this doesn't shock me at all. |
I'll never forget that name |
today i was lost in my head and started walking and found myself wandering around the cal berkeley campus. i walked up towards the bell tower and as i came up the stairs i saw an area taped off in yellow. six cop cars. a blue van with two stretchers inside the open back doors. a young man, a young woman and and old woman standing by a white security jeep by a campus security man with an excessive gadget belt. i sat with my back against a short pillar and watched as the cops stood around. two pulled a stretcher from the van and wheeled it to a yellow tent, yellow vinyl on sawhorses. i watched them inspect the front of a great green alhambra water truck, the wheel well, inspect with a clipboard, point and write. i watched them pull on thin rubber gloves and stand in a tight circle and bring out the folded white cloth and wheel the stretcher into the tent of the yellow vinyl held up to admit. i sat with my hood up over my head and my sunglasses on and when the old woman asked me i told her i thought some guy was killed. she said, wouldn't it be nicer if it was just some convention or something. i said, it's not. she frowned and nodded and told me to take care. which is what i wanted when i walked out. which is why i walk. for some real person to look at me and tell me to take care. for some real person to meet my eyes instead of watching the concrete as they pass. for some real person. they tried to obscure with the yellow vinyl but i saw the big white hairy chest before they sheeted and blanketed the mummy man. they wheeled him to the van and they carefully pushed him in and closed the gate and the two doors and in yellow letters on blue i could read coroner but i couldn't make out the other word. off to my left they played ultimate frisbee and yelled and cheered. on my walk home on college ave i saw the flashing yellows of a pulled over cop cruiser. i came upon the cross street and backed against a fence was a young man receiving a neurological exam from a handful of paramedics. the emotionally distraught middled aged woman stood talking to a cop. the burgundy minivan was in the middle of the street surrounded by ambulance and red fire pickup. fuck man. |
that's not to say that they deserve what they get or they're not heroes or that i don't have any sympathy for them. just that they made a conscious decision that ultimately resulted in their injury or death. big difference when compared to the powerlessness of the true victims of militant aggression. like rowlfe said, it's about context. |
I watch all of this going down and can't help but think that if I were the same person with the exception that I was religious, I would be utterly convinced that Bush was the Anti-Christ. He fits the profile, don't you think? So, what have YOU done lately to get rid of him? |
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the people hiding in their homes, hoping to be spared, as bombs fall and bullets fly, their deaths and injuries are many times more devastating to me. that picture of the severely burned kid, his hands and arms literally burned off -- it just ruins me to imagine that being my kid. that is squarely the fault of the bush administration and he should be tried, convicted and put away for so callously rushing to a bogus war that has victimised thousands and thousands of non-combatants. |
I don't think it would much affect me at first, but it would creep in to my thoughts and fester. It's bad enough already. |
How are you going to go? I like to ask all the Americans who supported this war effort, at what price would they pick up a gun and shoot back? Put yourself in the shoes of Joe Blow Iraqi civilian and tell me where your breaking point would be. The stories of the brutality committed by so called 'liberators' is only beginning to surface. It's shameful what the Bush administration has done to this country, that country. He's put the American military in a position in which it has to crawl home with their tail between their legs. If anything, he's done more to weaken the American military than Clinton ever did. |
- Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
http://www.prisonplanet.tv/articles/may2004/051104beheadsuscivilian.htm |
im going to be sick with grief. please. though it wont amount to shit, please write your senators. the US Gov't has to take a stand on this, though its unlikely it will stop it. Israel HAS to be tried for war crimes!! |
