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International | Anti-WarCultural Analysis of Berg Case/ with video
There is a need to be skeptical about the Berg case. People need to ask the question: "WHO GAINED FROM BERG'S BEHEADING?"
The Beheading of Nick Berg in Iraq: A Muslim Perspective
By Sam Hamod Al-Jazeerah, May 13, 2004 [Prof. Sam Hamod is the former Director of The Islamic Center of Washington, DC; editor of 3rd World News (DC); he was born and raised in Gary, Indiana; he may be reached at shamod [at] cox.net] All human beings must give their condolences to the family of Nick Berg who was ignominiously beheaded. This is a heinous and brutal crime, and anyone who would do this is a sinner, an animal, a brute; if captured and proven guilty, those who perpetrated this crime should be punished to the full extent of the law. If it was Muslims in Iraq, or wherever, because we actually don't know if he was beheaded in Iraq or elsewhere, we as Muslims condemn such behavior by whoever did it. Mr. Berg, from my understanding, was a person who was working on communications towers for the good of the Iraqi people; he was not a combatant or a mercenary who might have killed or hurt anyone. Islam makes clear, you do not kill innocent people. The Qur'an states, "To kill one innocent man or woman is to kill all of humanity; to save one human is to save all of humanity." I say, "If it was Muslims" because there are many other players in Iraq at this time, and we can't be sure it was Muslims or Arabs. There are elements of the slaying that make it appear it may not have been Muslims. When Muslims execute a person, it must be after a proper trial, with credible witnesses, and the person who does the execution must say a prayer for the person being killed and to ask forgiveness for doing the killing. None of this was done. Also, a proper way of killing in this situation is to cut the throat in one swoop, not to hack at a person's neck. Muslims do not often cut off the head, but do execute by law, but not by revenge as in this case, though some Middle Easterners may do it by culture and tradition (that is still not allowed in Islam) I say this because it may have been Muslims in Iraq who were taking revenge for the torture at Abu Ghraib as was alleged in the tape, but if it was, then they were acting as part of the culture of the middle east and not as Muslims. There is a long tradition, practiced by the Arabs (Muslims and Christians) and Jews of revenge for a misdeed against one's family or people; but this is against Islamic law. There is another strange matter to this situation that troubles me. Why was Mr. Berg picked up by coalition forces and imprisoned, so much so that his family sued Donald Rumsfeld for his release and information on him. The military says it released him, but suddenly then, he disappeared becausse when people went to see him at the hotel he was allegedly registered at, he wasn't there and no one there knew of him. Very strange point number two is, why was Mr. Berg in an American issued orange jump suit--the kind Americans put prisoners in, when he was photographed and killed? The Iraqis or other Arabs would have had him in Arab clothing so as not to draw suspicion to him of his being a prisoner--not an orange jump suit. Also, the way the men were standing, and their size, as a person experienced in the middle east, most Arabs don't stand that way and most Iraqis are not that tall--the men stand more like Westerners of some sort, or even Israelis, but not like Arabs or Iraqis. As to the Arabic, there are many Americans and Israelis who speak excellent Arabic. But, no Muslim would do that awkward "Allahu Ahkbar" --it was strained, it was not a natural voicing of that phrase, "God is great." I don't know who did this heinous crime, and it could have been bad Muslims or Arabs, but I am now wondering more and more who actually did it because of so many strange things surrounding this heinous deed. But, it may also be that this was perpetrated by Israeli agents, who have been operating in Iraq since the American invasion and have been advisors and combatants for Blackwater, and for the U.S. military, especially in interrogation techniques. I do not know if it was Israelis, but I do remember in the early 1980s when the Mossad of Israel shot Israel's own ambassador to London to help justify the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. You may recall the general who led the brutal assault was none other than Ariel Sharon; the present brutal prime minister of Israel. We must also ask the question intelligence agencies use, "Who would most benefit from this act?" In this case, if not Israel, then Bush and America to take the heat off of America for the brutality of the torture in Iraq and Guantanamo. This terrible act also took a lot of pressure off the U.S. Thus, it is also possible, since the killers were hooded, and thus we can't know who they were, that it could have been American counter-insurgency agents, CIA or mercenaries who did this heinous act at a time when the glare of anger toward the U.S. was growing in the world. I don't know that this is true, but having worked in intelligence situations, I know it has been done in the past. Remember, also that the Nazis blew up the Bundestag to blame it on the Jews and others who they wanted to punish. America also used the boiler explosion on the U.S.S. Maine as a pretext for the Spanish American War by blaming it on Spain (even though it our intelligence knew it was simply a result of the boiler blowing up). We pushed into Viet Nam after our false report of the attack on one of our ships in the Bay of Tonkin. Our nation has not always been lilly-white in matters of truth when we wanted to take an action--we found ways to justify matters, or to lie to our advantage. We even allowed our own navy men to be killed on the U.S. S. Liberty in order to allow the Israelis freedom to do a sneak attack on Egypt --not allowing our own airplanes to go to the rescue of the Liberty when Israeli planes and torpedo boats were attacking it. To this day, the U.S. government has not allowed the Liberty case to be opened, or the men to be compensated, even though Admirals and others have asked for an open naval inquiry as to what happened and why President Johnson or someone in the Pentagon called back American planes that were going to the rescue of the Liberty. Israel has never been reprimanded for the attack, though clearly the ship had American flags, gave American signals and did not look like any Egyptian or Arab vessels. Unfortunately, our hands have been dirty before; it is possible they have dirtied themselves again for the sake of Bush's policies in the "war on terror"--and what better way than to turn the spotlight on the victims and make them "terrorists" through such an act. There are just too many questions here, to many odd things about this savage act. With all these possibilities, and with the dirty politics and lies that have been told by so many in the world, the Americans, the Israelis, Al Qa'eda, angry Iraqis, just who did this is unclear. As I said, as a Muslim leader, I condemn this act by whoever did it; if it was an alleged "Muslim", then they are condemned to hell; but it may have been others from some other country who did it in order to put blame on the Muslims of Iraq. Remember also, many Israelis speak Arabic as well as Arabs themselves--so we can't take the Arabic on the tape as being from Arabs. We also know that some of the mercenaries and American military speak Arabic. The problem is that the criminals who killed Nick Berg were hooded, so we can't truly know who did this dirty deed. At this point, we don't know who did this; nor do we know that the alleged Al Zarkawi's website is actually put forth by Al Zarkawi or any of his colleagues. This is all very murky and none of us will know for some time. Sadly, President Bush said, "We'll hunt these people down." The problem is that he doesn't know who did it and it is my hope that he will not punish innocent people because we don't know, and may never know if this heinous act was perpetrated by Arabs, Muslims, Israelis or American counter-insurgency operatives or even mercenaries who work for Halliburton, Brown & Root or Bechtel or Blackwater Security. I think we have to keep an open mind on exactly who did this; because, as I said earlier, we don't really know because there are so many angles to this deed and the people it hurts most are the family of Nick Berg, but America and Israel benefit from this the most because it makes the Arabs and Muslims (if they are blamed for it) look like savages and brutes. If these were Arabs or Muslims, then these men are brutes and should be punished if they can be captured and proven guilty of this terrible deed. We all pray to God that the killers will be found and brought to justice and proper punishment for this inhuman, murderous deed. Prof. Sam Hamod is the former Director of The Islamic Center of Washington, DC; editor of 3rd World News (DC); he was born and raised in Gary, Indiana; he may be reached at shamod [at] cox.net |
May 16, 2004
The Terrible and Strange Death of Nick Berg
By James Conachy
The terrible death of Nick Berg in Iraq — beheaded in front of a video camera — has taken place in such strange and suspicious circumstances that it raises deeply troubling questions. Among them is whether American agencies had a direct or indirect hand in the young man’s murder.
Questions immediately arise from the timing and political consequences of his killing. At the height of a massive scandal engulfing the Bush administration, Berg’s death has been exploited by the American government and the US media to launch a counter-offensive against the revelations of systematic US torture in Abu Ghraib and other Iraqi prisons. A wholesale attempt is being made to shift American and international public opinion away from the outrage over the criminal character of the US occupation of Iraq and behind the self-serving argument that American forces are needed in Iraq to prevent the country descending into barbarism and chaos.
Were Berg’s murderers being directly paid by the American government, they could not have performed a more timely service for the Bush White House.
Berg’s killing was carried out in the name of al-Qaeda-aligned Jordanian terrorist Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi. Whoever is operating in the name of Zarqawi, they have a proven record of provocative actions that have only helped to prop up the American occupation of Iraq. On February 9, amid signs that the majority Iraqi Shiite population was on the verge of joining the armed resistance being fought mainly in Sunni Muslim areas, a letter was made public, allegedly authored by Zarqawi, calling for Sunnis to provoke a civil war with the Shiites. American officials used the letter to argue that their occupation was the only thing holding Iraq’s religious groups apart. Several weeks later, on March 2, suicide bombings at Shiite mosques in Karbala and Baghdad were blamed on what the US now calls the “Zarqawi network.”
Contrary to the schema outlined by US officials and in Zarqawi’s letter, the bulk of the Iraqi masses spurned sectarianism. The growing unity has been on display in mass demonstrations and joint struggle since the eruption of a Shiite uprising in early April. Even before the torture revelations, the US occupation of Iraq had crumbled into a morass of bloody reprisals against the Iraqi people and growing American casualties. Opposition has been steadily growing in the US and internationally.
The group who carried out the beheading of Berg and then ensured it was broadcast around the globe must have known that it would horrify American and world public opinion and assist the efforts at damage control in Washington.
Further questions are raised by the attempts of the US government to conceal or distort what it knew about Berg himself and the events leading up to his disappearance in Baghdad on April 10. Berg vanished in Iraq just 72 hours after being released from 13 days in US military custody and questioning by the FBI.
Berg has been described by his family and friends as adventurous. He had a limited knowledge of Arabic and an interest in obtaining reconstruction contracts in Iraq for the family telecommunications company, Prometheus Methods Tower Service. In December 2003 he travelled to Iraq and went home on February 1. Among the places the young man inquired for contract work was the Abu Ghraib prison—which he referred to as a “notorious prison for army and political prisoners.” He returned to Iraq in mid-March.
CBS News revealed yesterday that the young man had been on the FBI’s books for at least two years. In 2002, he was interviewed as part of the investigations in the September 11 terror attacks, over the fact his computer password had been used by alleged al-Qaeda terrorist Zaccarias Moussaoui. According to Berg’s family, the FBI was reportedly satisfied the password was obtained during a brief encounter on a bus, when Nick Berg had allowed an acquaintance of Moussaoui to use his computer.
On March 7, the pro-Bush website FreeRepublic.com published a list of “enemies” who were opposing the US occupation of Iraq. Among the names, taken from a public list of people who had endorsed a planned March 20 antiwar demonstration on the website of the group ANSWER, was Michael Berg—Nick’s father—and the name of the Berg family company. Such information would be entered into the databases of US intelligence agencies as well.
Berg was seized on March 24, within one week of returning to Iraq, and held incommunicado without charges in a Mosul prison for unspecified “suspicious activities.” His parents in Philadelphia were visited by the FBI on March 31 and asked why their son was in Iraq. Berg reported being interviewed at least three times during his detention by FBI agents and asked whether he had constructed pipe bombs or had visited Iran. He was released on April 6 only after his family filed a federal court case against the US government the day before for illegal imprisonment. Dan Senor, the Coalition Provisional Authority spokesman in Iraq, claimed this week that Berg had never been detained by US forces, only by Iraqis. This has been exposed to be a lie. Berg’s family has produced an email from Beth A Payne, a US consular official in Iraq, dated April 1. Payne wrote: “I have confirmed that your son, Nick, is being detained by the US military in Mosul... He was picked up approximately one week ago.” The chief of the Iraqi police in Mosul has also publicly rejected the claim that Berg was detained by his command. He told a press conference on May 13: “The Iraqi police never arrested the slain American. Take it from me... that such reports are baseless.”
After his release, Nick Berg travelled to Baghdad. His family last heard from him on April 9, when he reported he was looking to leave Iraq via Kuwait as soon as it was safe enough. They have indicated Berg told them he was wary of trying to fly out to Jordan on the grounds it was too dangerous. At the time, much of Baghdad was in engulfed in heavy fighting. Large parts of the city, including the roadways leading to the airport, were under constant attack by the Iraqi resistance and Westerners and Japanese had been taken hostage by various groups.
The last alleged contact with Berg by a US official was on April 10. A State department spokesperson told CBS an American diplomat offered to arrange a flight for him to Jordan. He allegedly refused and restated his intention to travel to Kuwait. His hotel has reported he left early on April 10, saying he intended to be back within a few days. If the American government is to be believed, no US agency then took any further interest in his activities or well-being until it was apparent he had disappeared. No satisfying answers have been given to obvious questions. Were Berg’s movements in Iraq being monitored by American intelligence? Why was he detained and on whose orders? Was he under surveillance after he was released on April 6? If he was, how did he come to be kidnapped in the centre of Baghdad? Throughout this week, Berg’s father Michael has repeatedly denounced the Bush administration for complicity in his son’s death. He told Boston radio station WBUR on Tuesday: “
[W]hat cost my son his life was the fact the US government saw fit to keep him in custody for 13 days without any of due process or civil rights and released him when they were good and ready. It goes further than Donald Rumsfeld. It’s the whole Patriot Act, it’s the whole feeling in this country that rights don’t matter any more because there are terrorists about. Well in my opinion ‘terrorist’ is just another word like ‘communist’ or ‘witch’ and it’s a witchhunt and this whole administration is just representing something that is not America.”
Yesterday, he told Philadelphia radio: “My son died for the sins of George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. This administration did this.” He has also demanded to know whether “it is true that al-Qaeda offered to trade my son’s life for another person,” as is alleged in the video-tape statement of Nick Berg’s killers.
The issues being raised by Michael Berg point to the fact, that at best, the US authorities created the conditions in which his son could be kidnapped by extremists and killed.
The more disturbing possibility that arises from all the evidence that is known is that Berg’s disappearance and subsequent killing was the work of US agencies or pro-US Iraqi factions. One month after he disappeared, Berg was murdered at the most opportune moment for the US government.
Anyone who believes it is unthinkable or outrageous to suggest that the American government would sanction having one of its citizens murdered to shore up its fortunes is underestimating the political situation.
The Bush administration and elements of the American military hierarchy, media and corporate establishment are indictable war criminals. They ordered, directed, propagated or have profited from a criminal war, in flagrant violation of international law. The year since the US-led invasion of Iraq has been marked by further war crimes and atrocities. For significant sections of the American ruling class, everything depends upon preventing opposition to the occupation of Iraq within the American and international working class from developing into a conscious movement for political and social change. To them, the life of 26-year-old Nick Berg would have meant nothing. (By courtesy of WSWS.org)