Nick Berg Beheaded. - Page 4  

Well, then why do I read editorials written by liberals calling for Rumsfeld's resignation and thereby laying this mess entirely at the President's feet? The President has clearly and very sincerely expressed his disgust and outrage at what happened. Oh, I guess it is okay for a liberal to assign blame but it is wrong that Al Qaeda be blamed for this act even though it fits their MO like a tailor made suit? There has been no evidence of any cover-up in this prison abuse scandal. If anything I see actions that indicate that our response to these atrocities has been entirely appropriate. Public apologies have been expressed and investigations are being conducted and have been for quite some time. We will discipline our own. I cannot say the same for Al Qaeda. There will be no investigations - only promises of a better after-life to those who perpetrated this horrible crime.

Those elements are not necessarily inherently tied to the anti-war stance. However, they are not eliminated as possibilities, as well. One only needs to examine the contexts of the posts to ascertain if either, both, or neither are true about the person.


So you would bemoan the deaths of innocent Iraqis caught in crossfire over and over, yet when an innocent American gets entangled into same, he should have known better (hence the natives are absolved from guilt in participating in the act)?


It's not a bizzare world at all. You can actually read of people who speak of absolving AQ of this and that in varied degrees, and quickly pointing to all the atrocity done by the US to divert the ensuing discussion. If you are not aware that these posts exist (or even aware of its presence in your own posts to a particular degree ), that really begs the issue of blinders.


Yes, too bad the enemy doesn't do the same for their own members. You also do our soldiers a disservice by implying that the acts of a few are representative of the whole. It is also naive to expect that beatings, rapes, deaths, and the like do not occur in prisons. Ideally, we should get this situation cleaned up, but it is a prison, not a hospital ward, and the inmates aren't exactly "tourists".


It does emphasize a point. If you missed the argument, you should go back and read more carefully.


You read too much into it. All I was saying is that they will seize opportunities to terrorize and develop a control base wherever/whenever they come. They are not watching event for event and deciding, "we got to get them back for this." They'll label it as such, when something comes up, but if nothing comes up, it's not like they go on layoff.


No elaboration required. If it has no meaning when you read it, disregard it.


This is a problem (on your part). I just got done saying we should maintain the standards we had when we came into this. Your claiming that I've said the complete opposite amounts to no more than putting words in my mouth. Do not proceed.


No where have I identified anyone specifically. Therefore, the claim that I have addressed "everyone who disagrees with me" as falling into a particular category is invalid. Perhaps, you have identified that you disagree with me based on the descriptions I gave. Either you feel it applies to you or not. That can be indicative of something or nothing at all. A lot of it will come from how aggressively you reply, I suppose. Anyone is free to draw their own conclusion... I simply put something that has been hanging in the air finally into words.

The difference, 7E7, is that the prison abuse was carried out by members of the US military. Whether the administration had anything to do with it or not, we don't know yet, but they are still ultimately responsible for the actions of their military. It's similar to a recent law that can put a CEO of a food company in jail if that company distributes food that causes people to die. Even if the CEO didn't know about the infractions, he is still ultimately responsible for his company's actions. "The buck stops here," as President Truman once said. At least Bush or Rumsfeld should apologize for the actions of the military. Not just "regret" them, or "express disgust" towards them.

With the Nick Berg incident, we actually don't know who did it, although it certainly seems like Al Qaeda could have.

And if the whistle blower hadnt have come forward, when would we have heard about what was going on? Thuis stuff was going on for ONE YEAR before the 60 Minutes show....and not a peep from any government official.

Just joined this thread. My 0.02:

I refuse to watch this video.

People who commit such acts are sick.

I refuse to extrapolate their guilt to 'Iraqis' or 'Muslims' - the only people responsible are those that are responsible and they are the ONLY people who should be punished and the only people who should be blamed.

I refuse to dwell on any more Abu Ghraib 'abuse' photos.

People who commit such acts are sick.

I refuse to extrapolate their guilt to 'Americans' or 'westerners' - the only people responsible are those that are responsible and they are the ONLY people who should be punished and the only people who should be blamed.

The reports I saw said that much of Iraq did NOT have electricity and this was done at the expense of the major cities like Baghdad. This may not have always been the case but may have happened since the economic sanctions have been in place. If this is not the case I stand corrected.

Are you saying no progress has been made? Oil is flowing again and things would be doing even better if terrorists were not blowing up the refineries and pipelines over there. Are we the blame for everything over there. I never realized how great the Iraqis had it before we showed up...

They already did apologize. Were you paying attention?

Huh?


Heh. Are you really sure you want to argue that we'd be making better progress against the terrorists if it weren't for the terrorists?


Welcome to what happens when you invade another country.


Indeed. Seems like old times, doesn't it? The Baath party is coming back and the prisons are being used for torture, rape, and murders!

If you're referring to before the US supported the tyrant Saddam as a secular bulwark against the facless islamic hordes of Iran, then yes, they did have it pretty good with a modern, prosperous, secular society that shamed their neighbours (Saudi, Kuwait) who excelled in inequality and middle-ages style religion.

If you mean after bombing the country and then letting it rot under ineffective and cruel UN sanctions for 12 years then no, not so good.

Just hear this new on the radio. There is no excuse for such terrible acts. Retaliation against innocent people leads to nowhere, it doesnt help

Randycat99

First of all when i hear "with us, or against us" it makes me sick.

Secondly, when i read such replies as "let's get them all", "It's AQ, grab your pitchforks".. this is so unbelievably naive..

As you very well realize, things are not black and white.

Whoever these people are, they are sick bastards, and deserve the worst.

The terrorists, and by that i mean people who blow up innocent civilians, murderers, people who have no respect for live of others, schould be punished, including death sentences.

What US is doing now is not that much different, sure they don't chop people heads off (right...? ), but human lives have no value to many of these soldiers, as well as to people above them in the chain of command.

Don't tell me people "here" support chopping of heads, or raping people in prisons...

Why when one opposes us invasion it automatically means one supports "the terrorists" ???

US created bigger mess than it was there before, moreover it will continue for years on. Does that mean i'm a supporter of AQ to you?

Quite the contrary, if these people will ever be found and prosecuted, they deserve to be shot. Just as much as commanders giving orders to chopper pilots to kill unidentified "targets" on the ground, and "finish off" wounded. These animals should face the court, and if found guilty get the bullet.

The only thing that anyone should be 'for or against' is barbarism.

It is barbarism to chop people's heads off.

It is barbarism to keep prisoners without trial, evidence or rights and subject them to abuse, torture and death.

It is barbarism to refuse to sign up to an International Court that prohibits such abuse and punishes the malefactors.

It is barbarism to believe 'nuking them' (it's always 'them' isn't it ?) is an acceptable solution to anything.

It is barbarism to defend atrocities such as Abu Ghraib or the Berg beheading for any reason whatsoever.

We need to (and for the first time as humans have a chance to) realise that these issues transcend race, religion, political affiliation or anything else that scared insecure people cling to. And we need to isolate and identify the barbarians - of any persuasion.

There are NO mitigating circumstances for any of this.

Barbarism: you're either for it or against it.

This a distraction, and I'm not falling for it.

It's sickening that it's come to this.

WHERE ARE THE WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION MR. PRESIDENT?

Hell yeah!


Everyone's gotta eat!

I should have been more specific and said "war" threads, not political threads. But no macho involved. If you can't handle a video like that then you really shouldn't be involved in discussions supporting a war. That's just my two cents.

I don't think we can draw too strong parallels between this and the Pearl situation. When Pearl was killed he was working on stories involving ISI connections to Bin Laden. The reasons he was killed most likely had to do with him being "over-intrusive" and "over-involved," as Musharraf himself put it. It was far less a political statement than a strategic killing.

OTOH, Berg's story is clearly quite different. However, it seems it isn't totally simple.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/...erg/index.html

Perhaps the method was inspired by the Pearl killing. But as far as motive and the people behind it, there is little chance of a connection to Pearl's case.

A slightly different perspective:

1) I refuse to watch the video; thanks to all who watched, regretted it and then passed on a warning. I almost did watch it but there's no way in hell I will do so now. Serves no purpose other than to give the be-headers (whoever they were) what they want: viewers. I won't do it.

They can stick their cause (whatever it is) right up their ass.


2) While the entertainment and news media are guilty of frequently showing the most disgusting / disturbing footage possible (whether war related or what's happening in your own state) -- almost always in an effort to get ratings -- you can't overlook the fact that we see a lot more of these types of events during wartime than we used to.

During World War II, especially in the Pacific theatre, the Japanese were known to do things equally or more disgusting than all of the things we've been talking about, to scores of their prisoners and/or civilians from "the other side". Torture, rape (or forced prostitution) and beheadings were common.

For that matter, nobody ever saw the skin melting off Japanese bomb victims on the evening news either. Nobody saw that until much later. Societal norms were different back then; people (in any country) were not comfortable with such things being aired to their families, even if they wanted to read about it elsewhere in some cases.

The coverage was always about "the front" and who was advancing where and which generals / admirals were doing what, and who was entertaining the boys on the USO tour. Was probably something analagous in other countries as they reported on their own soldiers.

So my point here is not that these things happening in Iraq aren't an attrocity. They are as inhuman and perverse as you can get. But the plain fact is, historically speaking such things are common in war. We just don't see all of them all on TV or in the paper; many go unreported and eventually forgotten.

3) Which brings me to my next point: we seem to have forgotten that war itself is an attrocity. That is not to say that war is never warranted (the specifics of Iraq set aside for a moment), but that really, when you think about it... why is it less of a tragedy or attrocity when a civilian bystander gets his intestines strewn onto the street by a mortar, than it is for a civilian contractor to get be-headed?

Is it not an attrocity when a combatant gets his head blown off by a couple machine gun rounds, just because he's got a gun in his hand too? Is not horrific when soldiers sitting in a shelter somewhere get impaled by hundreds of shards of flying glass when a bomb drops on a nearby building? Less disturbing when a Captain gets his leg blown off by a land mine, because he's got double-bars on his shoulder? Does it matter what uniform you're wearing?

Thousands of disgusting and horrific things like this happen in every war, by definition. War is the systematic slaughtering of human beings, whether the reason is relatively just or not.

Don't try to logically separate the acts from the conflict. Whether sanctioned by recognizeable governing bodies or not, these kinds of things happen in every war. Israeli-Palestinian wars included (rockets, human bombs, bulldozers, etc). It would behoove us all never to forget it so the next time one is upon us, we have a full grasp of "what happens next".

Brilliant post - basically things are the same on the ground as they always were. The difference is that it's just a propaganda war now too and we are all on the front line - whether watching the news or posting on these boards.

Which kinds of begs a question I have been pondering - the actual mechanisms behind the release of these photos rather than the content itself.

I mean I am assuming the Pentagon would want to keep a lid on them rather than publish and would assume they have the power to do so. So how did they get released ? From some third party ? Or from the Pentagon itself ?

I was wondering why Rumsfeld said that 'people should prepare for the release of worse pictures' or something similar - where are they being released from ? And why ?

Dilby.com has some (perhaps questionable) info that more extreme photos are going to be forthcoming which the Pentagon wants to stop but have been 'leaked' - but by who ? And what is their agenda ?

I really don't know the answer to this but it seems to me more than just a scandal that has come to light now - especially as it seems it has been known about for some considerable time by the administration. Certainly Ordinary Iraqis have long known about the abuse at Abu Ghraib. So who is leaking this stuff now and why ?

Rumsfeld already acknowledged this.
http://forums.appleinsider.com/showt...685#post614685

I saw some speculation somewhere that the photos were leaked to Hersh by Gary Myers, an attorney involved in the case and was also involved in the My Lai prosecutions.

I highly doubt that the pentigon released the pictures. Any leak would jeopardize the legal cases against those people, not to mention the PR hit.

It will turn out to be some left wing radical or some irresponsible journalist trying to get the prime time spot. I would bet on that.

I could be wrong though.

I watched it last night. I regretted it.... Anyway, did anyone else notice the timestamp change between the "speech" and the beheading? And the quality of the video decrease markedly? Something wasn't quite right about the video...

Did anyone else notice it?

didn't notice.

Randycat99, AQ supporters here? be real dude
piwozniak, why are you hassling NaplesX. you should get banned for a while

well not in the middle east but maybe other nations. i don't think european nations HATE us like middle easterns

i don't think that's fair to say. but i will say i was sort of desensitived with all the stuff you see in movie and on TV. luckily the video wasn't the greatest quality

has anyone hear seen any of those 'Faces of Death' movies? granted some of it is faked i'm sure, but when i was teenager i had nightmares after seeing one, and supposedly i didn't even the worse one!

last night i didn't have any nightmares, thank God, but i didn't sleep well, not deep at all

Regarding the release of photos and/or video, I don't really know what the offical mechanism for release is either (even with general battle zone coverage). Presumeably there are journalists over there who can (and do)send pictures straight to their editor via satellite phone or internet, without the government getting their hands on them first.

I think though, that most journalists (particularly photo-journalists), for the sake of keeping good relations and contacts in the military ranks, probably do whatever is asked of them. So if the military is requesting to screen photos of battle zone areas for security reasons, they probably hand them over before sending them to their editor.

Personally, I think the military ought to have some say in where the photojournalists are allowed to go, but not the final word. If a General says "don't go over there; you'll get killed", the photojournalist (the good ones are notoriously ballsy) should have the right to say "hey, I'm going to risk it for the pictures of the front-line action".

Obviously if the military wants to keep people out of their offices or command posts (for example) they must be allowed to do that.

Dude! why AREN'T you hassling NaplesX?!?!



Seriously though, this black&white interpretation that links any dislike of the Invasion of Iraq, a secular socialist (and Tyranical) country with support for AQ is completely misguided!!!

Al Quaida sang songs of joy the day we started to invade Iraq!!
We did exactly what they told the Muslim world that we would do: we 'invaded Islam'.
Now, unfortunately, Americans are doing exactly what they told the Muslim world we would do: we are 'humiliating' them and 'abusing' them.
This is most unfortunate.

I am aware that Al Qaida is a monstrous organization that needs to be irradicated.

But to voice displeasure at the fact that we seem to be doing everything BUT irradicating them (though we did well in Afghanistan until the Iraq fiasco) and seem to be making 'better posters' for their recruitment is in no way a form of support. . . . it is more a form of support to allow, uncritically, this class-of-clowns called the administration to continue mismanaging EVERYTHING that they touch.

I will also point out that it was a mere 36 days before the Iraq war that Osama Bin Laden released a statement calling Saddam Hussain a 'Secular infidel tyrant' . . .

This is strange...

After Berg's father indicated that he held the Bush admin responsible for the circumstances that led to his son's murder (in so far as Berg was detained without charge for two weeks and would have otherwise been out of Iraq) the military is now denying that Berg was held by US forces, stating that it was Iraqi police that detained him and that the reasons are unclear. The three FBI visits have been perported to be interviews to see why Berg was in Iraq.

General Mark Kimmitt, a military spokesperson, then said what struck me as a very odd thing to say about someone whose brutal murder was at the fore of many people's thoughts.


I wonder what more there is to this story...

Dude, I am so sick of this crap. Please quote a post where ANYONE on these boards are defending AQ and / or terrorists. Disagreement with actions and policies of the government does NOT equate to defending terrorism.

Tell that to them. Because they believe it is. I never said that one is equal to the other. i am simply suggesting that all of our comments should be examined as to not have that effect.

When a group of people openly and willingly downgrade a president and call him stupid ant traitorous and evil and uncivilized and just as bad as the terrorists that we are fighting, I think it helps their cause not ours.

IMO.

Tough shit.

Get a better President.

Before the invasion of Iraq, nothing would have given Bin Laden or Saddam H. greater pleasure than to have the other's head on a plate!

Our business of "payback" SHOULD have been completed as much as possible in Afghanistan before other actions were considered. This has not been done.

Right now, even with the most honorable of intentions, if you go to Iraq and you're not part of the military, anything goes, anything...

I was offered $300,000.00 to work for Titan in Iraq. I said no thanks. That's about 200,000 more than I make in a good year, but my family and friends dog-piled on me to not go.

I did?


I said i didn't want to insult him, and kept my mouth shut...

Or are you referring to "stop with that AQ Bullsh*t" ?

That is Bullsh*t though...

so uhm.. any pointers greatly appreciated :-)

Surely it helps their cause more if we have a dumbshit president and nobody says anything?

welcome to the real world you whiners

while they televise their acts, we "civilized" cultures do it behind many closed doors, deep, hidden away from anyone and life is just peachy.

If you think that "our" governments or "our" citizens don't contain equally fvcked up elements like these, you live on Sesame Street or Mr. Roger's Neighborhood.

Be shocked all you want.. but this crap ain't new

Something stinks around this whole case.

He was detained without the right to a phone call...
Also looks like he wasn't affiliated with any agencies doing work there.

What is this sh*t ?

He just went up there on his own as a "small business owner" to pitch some antennas?

This stinks, something is not right here.

Still it doesn't excuse them, i still think these people deserve to be shot, but i don't think they just captured first american they found on the street and executed him...

Moreover...

US authorities were offered to trade, but refused.

Why?

Because of "we don't deal with terrorists" policy?

Or maybe they knew what was brewing, and decided to turn their heads away, and use it as counter-balance ?

Thanks for this post, Moogs. It's one of the best I've ever read here.

Article from March 4 (over two months back):
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4446084/

According to insurgents Abu al-Zarqawi was killed during a US bombing raid. True or false? But wasn't that his voice on the beheading video? True of false? A number of prominent people seem to be both alive and dead simultaneously these days. Zarqawi, bin Laden, "Chemical" Ali, and....several of the 9-11 "hijackers".

Everything about this case stinks.
And...someone...please lets have the URL of that "al qaeda" affiliated group that all the media got that tape from?

Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed before and after the first Gulf War. I doubt those people would have said that "they had it pretty good."

Do you really think the Iraqi people are the ones we are fighting over there? The people we are fighting against are Al Qaeda backed terrorists and others who share the same philosophy as all the other Islamic terrorist groups we are at war with. The vast majority of Iraqi citizens support us so don't make it out that we have no support over there and that we simply invaded a country that did not need to be liberated. Get your head out of your ass...

And don't make the actions of a few people represent the sum total of how our troops have conducted themselves since the war started. I don't appreciate those people like you who refuse to acknowledge that the vast majority of our troops have conducted themselves with courage and honor. Most of them were not involved in the acts committed in that prison and you know it. It is okay to be anti-war but don't lie about what is happening over there because you haven't the faintest idea what you are talking about.