Nick Berg Beheaded. - Page 5  

I agree

especially the Shia who were told that we would support their uprising . . . . when they felt the boot land, alone and unheard.

Tell that to the tens of thousands who have died since the start of the war, a far higher number than those that would have died at Hussain's hands in that time period . . . and all the women who were schooled and treated near as equals . . . all the people who had work, all the people who were fed (except for under the sanctions) and had medical treatment available, all the people who were educated

Make no mistake, I think Hussain had to go!! . . . but one of the reasons that the Bush admin thought that democracy would take in that land was because of the civil infrastructure listed above . . . an infrastructure that no longer exists
and one that can only exist in a Capatalist country after years of development or through seriously socialistic minded input

Look at Russia: we tried the 'shock treatment' thinking that the institutions of civil society that we enjoy (*cough *ehem* health care) would grow over night . . . but they take years of development of intertwined social interests and intsitutions, years of pampering and coddling and minute growth . . .

We went in with sledge-hammers and expected a miracle transformation . . . but we should have seen what would happen and what will probably happen: decline in social standards of living and backsliding in terms of rights and freedoms then maybe ten or twenty years they might achieve the level of Iran

I think Hussain had to go!! but disregarding realities, nuanced realities may not fir into black&white land but they need to be taken into account if one is going to take on International Adventurism!

As I said earlier, I remember distinctly a coupla cases where soldiers were arrested and tried for outrageous abuses: including smashing legs against concrete and breaking them . . . these were small stories because they were thought to be the work of four isolated soldiers . . . they were found guilty IIRC.

A post-doc in my lab knew mr. berq.

that is all...

Funny, because not even the US military agrees with you.


http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...insurgency.htm

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Mar2...200403043.html

http://www.cjtf7.army.mil/media-info...eft040127a.htm

So much for that false belief of yours.

Not to mention that you can't really be an insurgent if you're from there. Technically, these guys are surgents.

I amy be wrong, but you sound as if you think that democracy and freedom are not worth suffering or persevering a bit for.

You also seem to think that a tyranny is no better or worse that a democracy. 6 of one half a dozen of the other right?

That may be where some of the tension here is caused. I for one believe that freedom and democracy are dependent on each other, and are worth fighting for or even suffering for.

Struggle makes the reward so much sweeter. No-one wants anyone to suffer, however it has to happen to attain freedom and democracy.

Don't forget the US and other freedom loving countries are suffering right alongside those people, because we all want freedom to prevail.

I'll take that seriously when you you step forward prepared to do the suffering. Enlist. Sign up as a civilian contractor. Volunteer and go on your own.

Blithely proffering the suffering of others as right and necessary is immoral on the face of it.

NaplesX,
As someone who actually lived under socialism, and whose family and friends live in eastern europe i have to tell you, that you're full of sh*t, sir.

I tried to be as civil as i could...

I second that thought

Regarding the earlier post about Democracy and Freedom being worth certain sacrficies. On an abstracted level I agree, but, I'm sorry to tell you that but most Americans are *not* "suffering along with the others". We just are not. Most Americans (myself included) are so utterly detached from the reality of this (or any other war) in everyday life, it's not even worth making a wise-crack about. It's sad it what it is.

Until this prison thing came to light -- and it only did so because of its scandalous nature... Americans love a good scandal -- virtually everything we learned or saw of Iraq on a daily basis, was superficial at best. Window dressing (no matter which way the story in question is being spun).

We are completely isolated from this war geographically, and even more so socially because our courageous leaders refuse to acknolwedge the Americans who are dying every day. We don't know how they die, what they were doing when they died, how many family members they left behind or anything else. What we get, we get from news wires. We're detached from it on an emotional level unless we have people we know personally who are over there.

Not because we don't care on a fundamental level -- I think people do care and do want the war to end generally -- but because most Americans are always too frigging busy to bother with anything that isn't a part of their precious little daily routine. Whether consciously or not, we detach ourselves from the realities of war. And the news media and government only serve to enforce this behavior, rather than work against it. There is no one out there right now, really shoving some hard-hitting stuff in our faces (that has to do with the war itself and how it's being fought, won or lost).

That's why Nightline's show the other night was so useful / gripping, albeit on a somewhat superficial level because of time contstraints. Hell we could fill several days worth of footage and detailed reporting just get people up to current-day status....

The problem, as I see it, is we (US and coalition nations' people) must be willing to take the casualties.

There any number of ways to suffer and sacrifice, those that you mention are but a few. Suffering and sacrifice can be a good thing in the long run, if for the right reason.

WWII is a testament to that. You think you have it bad under this president?
You could be sig heiling to the Fuhrer, with no opportunity to vote him out of office.

Perspective is a great tool. We should all use it.

That wishful thinking hypothesis is unfounded and countered by the fact that such barbaric acts were carried (and may be carried in the future, alas) independently of whether you behave in accordance or not.

This said, prisoners should be treated with decency indpendently of what the beastly lynching mobs do or not.

If you want to succeed in Iraq (which you ought to since you are already on the ground), which I do, you'd have to put your own organisation in order as well, the horrendous acts of abuse in Abu-Gharib prison indicate an obvious lack of such order.

Note that by acting more appropriately you will not be rewarded by your enemies acting more humanely as well, nor would you gain the sympathy of your political detractors (not even on the AppleOutsider board). Then again if it's sympathy one wants, one should probably move to a real human-made disaster area, like the Soudan.

No doubt. There's another horrifying conflict most westerners are just oblivious to. There are others historically speaking as well. Several in Africa, the Armenian Genocide (which the scumbag Turkish government to this day denies, despite mountains of evidence), etc.

I sound that way only if you are incapable of thinking beyond on/off, black/white, yes/no, good/evil dichotomies . . .

I said quite clearly that Hussain needed to go . . .I even bolded it because I knew that some, who are either too lazy to read the whole thing or are incapable of believing the world has more shades than two, wouldn't SEE IT otherwise!

My post is about the fact that the Institutions which we have and cherish came about through a long painful history: they only arrived after years of struggle
-(and, dare I say, the humane aspects of which struggle nearly always were motivated by classically 'Liberal' ideas)-
and years of the ever increasing intertwining of institutions: health and safety standards, EPA, police oversite commitees, Rights laws and organizations, anti-descrimination, universal primary education etc etc etc (we still seem incapable of taking some final steps that many civilized countries seem easily to do =universal health care etc)

My post also states that should a country go from Tyrany to "freedom" loving democracy in one fell swoop, without going through the long history of development, it would probably need to have a long-term form of transitional infrastructure akin to socialism (hence China's semi-success transition and Russia's painful quagmire --and also, why the WTO method of universally prying open undeveloped local economies and forcing them into radical Laissez-faire is innapropriate for specific circumstance)

Bush and gang chose Iraq for their great Democracy experiment (Pax Americana) because they saw that it had the institutions in place that might transition well into a secular democracy . . . granted these institutions were the product of a Tyranical form of socialism they existed nonetheless.

What they did wrong was they didn't see that the war would destroy those institutions and also unleash the dormant tribal and religious affiliations beneath the Hussain boot . . . they just didn't look at the reality of the area because they had a 'Vision' to pursue instead!!

It would take a miracle for Iraq to come anywhere near the social stability and benefit that it had under Hussain OUTSIDE of the lack of freedom and brutal oppression . . . it will most likely be replaced with a lack of freedom (due to innumerable things, including severe economic disparities) and brutal oppression of a different sort.

but still Hussain had to go . . . we should have thought about better means to get him out and get the transition going . . . we would have saved lives and not alienated America for the future.

I agree with a lot of what you are saying, however the part that I object to is how you seem to have declared it a failure, after such a short time. I could be wrong, but that is what I am getting from this and previous posts.

These things will be verified a success or failure long after this present admin is gone. I saw an interview where bush said just that. I think he may being looking further down the road than a lot here in AO and many talking heads in the media.

This is not an overnight "experiment", as would put it.

a) Bush isn't the one creating policy

b) The situation is already counter to the goals and expectations of the enacted policies as defined in the beginnning by those who created the policies.

You don't get it: it is a failure from the get-go. And the main reason it is a filure is because it was done out of purely Ideological motivations

and by that I mean ideology in the way that i defined it in another thread: false relationship to real conditions (not just political ideas)

it failed Because of its origins as ideological 'Vision'; The president lied to the American people get it going (Wollfowitz admitted as much) and alienated the rest of our, up till then, sympathetic allies, other countries SEE-RIGHT-THROUGH this, they can see that it is motivated out of some sort of unrealistic 'Vision' at best and/or out of a power and oil grab at the worst
(IMO it is a little of both)
because of its origin as Phantasm it was bound to fail, and has done so, and will do so, and will get worse and worse unless we learn to adjust to the realities (which, unfortunately, is part of what characterizes 'Ideology': it inability to adjust to realities)

BTW another good way of recognizing what I mean by 'Ideology' is when abstract generaliteis, such as "Freedom" become absolute and "Truthful'
and even more telling, when they are thrown around to justify everything as if they are universally understood and universally applicable and yet are never defined and/or even questioned and yet still manage to be the overriding reason for some idea or action.

They become empty signifiers signifying nothing: they show the FALSENESS in the Ideology because they are empty of any real content and yet they are related to reality and attempting to fit reality into its empty image.

Now, of course I love 'Freedom' as much as the next guy: give me a relational definition of freedom, define how it will be instituted and gieve me counter-examles of different ways of interpreting what it meansI will love YOUR idea of it too.

However it is being used here as merely an emblem of 'our-team' vx the 'evil-doers'

(can you believe that the president of the supposedly most advanced country in the whole history of humanity uses terms like 'evil-doers' and 'bad-guys'?!?!?!
its as if he were talking to children!)

The problem being that it is not our freedom that is being fought over.

The Iraqi people got no vote on the mechanism of their "liberation". We
are using their country, and to a large extent, their blood, to forward a dubious, untested notion of "spreading democracy".

Which is why I think fans of "blood, sweat and tears", when the vast majority of the bleeding, sweating, and crying is being done by a people most of know next to nothing about beyond our desire for them to be just like us, should be pepared to make some actual sacrifice.

There may well be any number of ways to suffer and sacrifice, have you submited yourself to any of them?

Man, this sucks. i'm not sure if i can watch 'Kingdom Hospital' now. i'm serious. those who watch it will know what i mean.. i'm surprised noone started a thread about that show

Well said (unlike my sprawling post above)

It gets me thinking about it like this:

Iraqi - "I don't have the Freedom to be be free from your 'Freedom' that you impose on me!"

We have a duty to watch, this and all of the suffering caused in our names.

This was horrific but does anyone seriously believe that the families of innocent men, women and children slaughtered by our hi-tech weapons felt less revulsion?

Killing is gruesome and barbaric.

Bombs, bullets fragmentation devices etc are at least as likely to cause agonising death as what was seen here. We only allow it because we can consider the recipients 'other', because we kid ourselves that the pain we cause is just and because we sanitize out the images of horror with censorship.

We need to see more. It needs to happen less. Not seeing it is not the answer.

They are Iraqis who are remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime. They still represent a tiny majority of the Iraqi population as a whole. And Al Qaeda is backing the insurgency movement. I am not making this stuff up.

The iraqis in the insurgency were all iraqis under the rule of saddam, yes. They were not all baathists, and most probably didn't support his leadership...

Proof please! I won't take your word as evidence

Sure you are.

You don't understand the the various groups so you default to the old "al-qaeda is responsible for everything" mode. Have fun with that.

hehehe

hehehehehe. good catch.

Wrong. As of late March/Early April, Iraqi citizens were roughly evenly divided in their support (and I'm sure that support has dropped even further since the prison torture photos were released)...
LINK.
Another more detailed link

I don't have time to dig up a link to disprove your other claim which I believe might be just as inaccurate, that we are fighting Al Qaeda backed terrorists in Iraq. Maybe you could find a link to back up that assertation?

Perhaps you should consider taking your own advice...

Someone's got to say it - this film is starting to look a bit dodgy.....

Apart from the fact that Zarqawi appears to be dead, we need a timeline on this one.

I haven't seen the video but I hear that the 'terrorists' claim the killing is in response to the ABu Ghraib abuse. Iirc, this broke just over a week ago or so.

The problem is that Berg was found dead over two weeks ago.

Apparently there are several other anomalies in the video but as I haven't seen it and don't intend to I can't comment.

I commented on this upthread, but noone seemed to confirm my observations (and I'm not going to watch it again to check.)

The timestamp on the "speech" part is about 02:40 and the beheading part is about 13:xx. That, and the marked change in video quality of the two parts, make me think something's up with the video.

Or

they have recorder "my name is..." part, which was then sent to US guys..

They have said no to trade, so the rest was recorder later.

I'm not talking about the "my name is" part. I'm talking about the part when Berg is sitting on the ground while the beheader is reading his long speech in arabic and then, presumably, immediately after completing it, takes the machete to his head. To me, it looked like the beheading was right after he finished the speech, but the timestamps tell a different story.

Moogs, you are lucky that you did not watch the video. I wish I had listened and not done it. I can't get the images out of my mind. It is terrible. My first reaction is lets just nuke the whole damn region. Then I am reminded of the fact that two men in texas dragged a man behind a car not to long ago. I can't believe that people can be so brutal. What the hell possess people to do something like this? This whole Iraq thing has been a mess. I don't care what people thought about it before but can this, will this, get any better? I honestly think the region was better off with Sadam.

Under normal circumstances I'd be very hawkish about an act like this, but the US is in such a compromised position there's nothing more we can say.

OMG! i'm sick to my stomach, that's just...OMFG< i can't even think, AHHH!!!!!

That has got to be one of the stupidest post I have ever read. I haven't seen the video...but did that little knife seem like a good tool for cutting off a head? Having your head sawed off with little more than a butter knife, through tendon and bone, would not be a quick way to die.

You know bunge, usually your arguments sound reasoned and sane, but you are going a bit overboard with these. Yes, war is sick. The video is disgusting and horrible, I am sure, even the descriptions are unnerving. None of which would lead me to think it should be broadcast. If a woman you knew was brutally raped and murdered, let say you mother, would you want that aired on international TV as a teaching tool for people to see how horrible it is? That is an extreme and vile analogy, but it makes my point...something just shouldn't be put on public display, That doesn't mean hide that it happened, just that there is little value in promoting it like an episode of Friends.

I heard on a the radio a report of an interesting edito of a french newspaper.

Basically it explains, that both pictures of the Abuse of Iraqi prisonners and the beheading of the US guy was horrible, but that the two do not compare.

The goal of the pictures of abuse of Iraqi prisonners is to point out the dysfonctionnement of a system in order to fix it. (and that's what happens : trials in martial court are in the way).

The goal of the atrocious murder of the US guys is just to bring more hate. Hatefull pictures to create more hate.