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.

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

[ my 2c - Even if it's not a complete frame-up, the timing of the video is impeccable, and the fact that it might be a fraud helps bring the veracity of the prison photos into question. It's just uncanny. ]

[ If the guards were really al-Qaeda, you have to wonder why the FBI held Berg for almost two weeks, and then released him, and then he was picked up and killed. Did some insider in the Iraqi police tip off al-Q about a guy who the FBI thought was a real threat to them? Was Berg doing al-Q work? Was he unwittingly snared up in a plot cooked up by terrorists? ]

[ The link is to an al Jazeera story about bloggers doubting the video. ]

Look at any painting or drawing of beheaded people at any time in European history but particularly at people guillotened - blood pours from the severed head. And why wasn't their blood all over the jumpsuit?
The voices may have been Arab, but I wonder if the plump murderers were CIA, Army Intelligence, or Kuwaiti or Saudi Arabian secret police doing a little favor for their US colleagues?

Or just watch "Kill Bill" for more realistic (if a bit exaggerated) bleeding due to decapitation.

...there is something very fishy about all of this....

1) Nick Berg was said to be in Iraq looking for work as a communications
technician. He told his father that his company, "Prometheus Methods Tower
Service," had been given a contract to repair a radio communications tower
at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison. As it turns out... Berg's company was NOT on
the list of approved Iraq contractors. So... what was Berg doing at Abu
Ghraib prison and what did he see there?

2) An extreme American right-wing political activist site published the name
of Berg's father, Michael, as being an "enemy" of America. Michael Berg was
and is against the war in Iraq and had signed an antiwar petition.
Prometheus Methods Tower Service also appears alongside Michael Berg's
signature on that petition. All of this info ended up on the aforementioned
right-wing website under the heading, "Here's the Enemy." Who in Iraq saw
that website?

3) Berg was arrested on March 24th... supposedly by the Iraqi police at a
checkpoint in Mosul. He was picked up for "suspicious activities." Since the
story of Berg's death broke, the Iraqi police have denied ever having
arrested Berg. The Mosul Police Chief stated, "We are under US authority, we
can't arrest Americans." Berg's father had complained to the U.S. government
about his son's whereabouts and his being held without charges. He finally
received a State Department letter that said not to worry, that Nick was "in
U.S. army custody."

4) Berg was turned over to American forces and held for 13 days. He was
released on April 6th. During his detention he was visited 3 times by the
FBI, who wanted to know what he was doing in Iraq.

5) Before coming to Iraq, Berg had met with 9-11 terror suspect, Zacarias
Moussaoui. Berg and Moussaoui had gone to the same flight school together!
It's still not known if they knew each other at the time, however, it is
known that they DID meet at least once. The full story is at CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/Northeast/05/13/berg.encounter/

... apparently Moussaoui had met Berg on a bus... and used Berg's laptop
computer to send an e-mail message to someone. Unbelievable but true. The
FBI found Berg's e-mail password in Moussaoui's possession... and wanted to
talk to Berg about it. FBI agents interrogated Berg in Iraq. Ultimately the
FBI concluded there was no link between the two men.

6) After his release from U.S. detention on April 6th... Berg spent the
next day in a Baghdad hotel. He spoke to no one, not his parents, not the
U.S. government. 72 hours after his release he disappeared. His body was
found by a U.S. army patrol.

7) A video tape of Nick Berg's execution was posted on an "Islamic website"
previously used by Al Qaeda to post messages and video tapes. When the Arab
Al Jazeera news agency heard of the tape... they immediately went to the
site, but the execution tape was nowhere to be found. However, the video had
already passed into the hands of Western media like CNN, MSNBC, etc.

8) The supposed "Islamic website" (whose web address was never reported in
the Western press), was later reported to be taken off line. Who took it
down? Where was the server located?

9) The execution video is a mystery within a mystery, and is widely regarded
as fake in the Arab world:

a) The CIA claims that the Jordanian, Abdul al-Zarqawi... an Al Qaeda agent
working in Iraq, is the killer who beheads Berg in the video tape. The
agency's statement is that "it is most likely" al-Zarqawi. Arabs who have
viewed the tape say that the man identified as al-Zarqawi (the man who reads
the statement and does the dirty deed), does not speak with a Jordanian
accent! Arab speakers also note that the men in the video yell "Allahu
Akbar" (God is Great) during and after the murder... but their pronunciation
is off, they don't enunciate like Arabs. Some viewers of the tape even
insist that they hear pure Russian being spoken. When Berg's head is being
sawed off, the men standing in the background are said to be saying in
Russian, the equivalent of "Do it faster!" Were the killers Chechen? Were
they Russian mercenaries? Who paid them and to what end?

b) Abdul al-Zarqawi has a false leg. He lost his leg in a bombing. In the
video, the man who throws Berg to the ground and assaults him has been
identified by the CIA as al-Zarqawi... yet that figure in the film seems to
have no physical problem, and in fact is quite agile.

c) The figure in the tape alleged to be al-Zarqawi by the CIA, wears a gold
ring. The wearing of gold jewelry by men is forbidden by Islam.

d) When Berg is thrown to the floor and a knife put to his neck... he offers
absolutely no resistance. Not even an instinctive flinch. Was he drugged?
How does being drugged explain that despite having a large knife sunk into
his jugular, there is no blood spray? Berg's head was literally sawed off...
yet the fountains of gushing blood associated with the decapitation of a
living human being does not appear on the video tape.

e) The time stamps on the video are erratic and jump minutes... sometime
hours, from scene to scene. For instance, when the al-Zarqawi figure
finishes reading his statement and pulls the knife that will decapitate
Berg, the video bears a particular time stamp. There is a jump in the
film.... an edit, and when the scene resumes to show Berg thrown to the
ground and about to have his head removed, the time stamp shows that the
film has jumped ahead by 11 hours!

f) Berg is video taped wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, the same style of
jumpsuit issued by Americans to their Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib and
Guantanamo. Berg sits in a white plastic chair, the same type of chair used
in Abu Ghraib prison. Berg is video taped sitting against a wall that is the
same color as the interior walls of Abu Ghraib prison. Do these facts
indicate that Arab terrorists are throwing these symbols back in our faces
as a way of saying... "You've done this to our people, now it's your turn",
or does the appearance of the orange jumpsuit, white plastic chair, and
yellow walls indicate something else?

10) We know that Berg, a Jewish American, was released from U.S. custody and
almost immediately disappeared. His passport bore a stamp from a recent trip
to Israel... yet he was allowed by U.S. authorities to wonder around Iraq
all by himself. To be walking around in Iraq with a passport stamped by the
Israeli authorities is somewhat like having a target painted on your face,
chest, and backside.

11) Was Berg killed by one group, and then opportunistically used by another
in the making of the grisly video?

Some overviews of the controversial story appear at:
http://www.thereporteronline.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=11650730&BRD=2275&PAG=
461&dept_id=466404&rfi=6
http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=5/16/2004&Cat=2&Num=029
http://english.pravda.ru/mailbox/22/101/397/12790_Berg.html