Those of you who’ve read this site for a while may know that I have something of a fascination for conspiracy theories. Sometimes they interest me because they’re so patently ludicrous, sometimes because they’re convincing enough to be nearly frightenting, and sometimes they end up somewhere in between.
I’m not really sure where to classify this one: Nick Berg’s Killing: 50 Fishy Circumstances, Contradictory Claims, and Videotape Anomalies.
Some of the points below are compelling. Some are weak or may turn out to be insignificant or coincidental. This is a work in progress, an early overview of discrepancies. There are too many discrepancies and contradictions to dismiss doubts about the video and the official U.S. stories about Berg. Additional inquiry and fact checking are needed as the Berg story unfolds or, rather, unravels.
Please keep in mind that I’m not posting this because I agree or disagree — rather, I’m posting it because I think it’s of interest. Many of the comments in the accompanying discussion thread are at least worth skimming, too. Some are far more vitriolic than strictly necessary (not really a surprise, of course, given the scope of the article), but a few do a good job of addressing some of the questions raised in the article itself.
The subject matter being what it is, of course, many of the points raised may not be for the squeamish.
(via Boing Boing)
11 Responses
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I saw the video and read the various issues but the first clue that things weren’t right in this little video reality was the fact that the family says he was picked up by the Army, the Army says it was the Iraqis, the Iraqis say they never picked him up. That little misconstruct occured on the first day of the story. There’s definitely something fishy about this and watching the video and listening to the audio only confirms that there are some serious edits going on here
Was Berg dead when they beheaded him? Probably. Was he killed by our own government? Possibly. Was Berg himself working for an undercover US operation - don’t know. This has all the plot elements of “Three Days of the Condor.” Do I trust anything the Bush government tells me? No. Is this playing right into the Right Wing’s fever pitch? Definitely.
Draw your own conclusions on this one.
This has nothing to do with Nick Berg, but the book, “The DiVinci Code,” which, by the bye, I did not like at all, has more conspiracy theories than the JFK assissignation!
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Has anyone noticed that there is ELEVEN HOURS of time missing on the video tape???? it begins with the time at 13:26 where they show Nick (possibly already dead) sitting in the chair…. then they cut and edit the tape and show Nick from another angle and the time then says 2:18 (nick is talking and obviously alive). Then, from 2:40-2:44, Nick is sitting on the floor while the five men are standing behind him reading the paper. Then the men push Nick over and the tape cuts at 2:44. Then they continue with the cutting off of the head, but the time is 13:45…. So what did they do in those ELEVEN HOURS??? Could it be possible that they killed Nick first and then proped him up in a chair to make it look like he was still alive before they beheaded him? no doubt about it, they definately edited the tape to make it more dramatic than it really was…. Was nick really involve with Al Queada? Was it really the US that killed Nick? There is definately some shady business going on and I believe this is just another US scandal used to justify why our troops are still out in Iraq.
Actually, this much I’d put down to a far simpler explanation: two different video cameras, one of which is set to “standard” time (12am-11am, 12pm - 11pm), one of which is set to military time (00:00-23:59), and one of the cameras is an hour off. Look at it that way, and suddenly there’s no mysteriously missing eleven hours — it takes care of both the differing timestamps and fact that the camera angle changes when the timestamps change.
Not that this means the tape wasn’t edited after the fact, or that any other questions about the tape should be dismissed out of hand, of course. I just think that it’s far more likely that there were two cameras with different timestamps than that the tape was edited down from over eleven hours to just a few minutes.
hello out there. two items: 1) due to the overwhelming circumstantial evidence (and yes, it’s only circumstantial at this point, but it will have to suffice until someone digs up some solid facts), I believe there is a very real possibility that American Special Forces or paramilitary operatives- employed by the US intel community- murdered nicholas berg at Abu Ghraib prison, for the purpose of distracting from the prison abuse scandal, and to re-ignite support for the war. check out this link- there are far too many sober, reasonable questions surrounding this incident to dismiss them out of hand: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/5/15/22827/0477 2) THE US GOVERNMENT HAS ANNOUNCED PLANS TO TEAR DOWN ABU GHRAIB PRISON. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5032107/ If this murder in fact took place there, by perpetrators associated with the US military, the Bush administration is taking an active hand in destroying the physical evidence. any suggestions? what the hell do we do now- write our congressmen? call the police? the potential implications of this situation are absolutely staggering, and frankly, this whole thing scares the living shit out of me…
Did they do an autopsy on the body when it was brought back? A foresics examination? If so, who performed these? What were the DNA results? Cause of death? Also, why doesn’t someone have an independent lab do a voice check on that “Arab” giving the speech and compare it to former recordings made by this Zartawi cat? If it’s not him, which the CIA said it was with 90% certainty, then we know it’s all a lie.
A. Lee Your suggestions and comments are the most intelligient that I have heard thus far. Why not. I mean after all, we have all seen CSI and forensic evidence shows… What can Nick Bergs’ corpse tell us. Our experts can pinpoint the time of death for some God forsaken, drunk, homeless person who wandered into the local river and washed up 10 days later,,so why can’t they give us some insight into the REAL last days of Nick Berg? Point well made
A. Lee Your suggestions and comments are the most intelligient that I have heard thus far. Why not. I mean after all, we have all seen CSI and forensic evidence shows… What can Nick Bergs’ corpse tell us. Our experts can pinpoint the time of death for some God forsaken, drunk, homeless person who wandered into the local river and washed up 10 days later,,so why can’t they give us some insight into the REAL last days of Nick Berg? Point well made
FOod for thought…. 1. The orange jumpsuit 2. The government issued chair nick was sitting on? 3. The guy who was supposedly “reading” the papers seemed flustered and out of control-kept flipping through the pages, but still stayed on the same one? 4. Nick barely flinched when the was grabbed by the hair and then dicapitated? (was he sadated?) 5. the captors behaivor? Big? Short? White? Maybe? It has facinated me since I watched the video. It also made me cry. Whatever happend-whoever did it, it’s really aweful to think about.
Did George Tenet get fired or resigned? “I’m leaving for personal reasons”, is double-talk for, “I just got canned!”. Why suddenly would he be fired after surviving fiasco after fiasco.
The beheading of Nick Berg is said to be the work of Al-Qaeda. Was it thier intent to frame independent contractors? If so, they did a really good job.
Some would suggest that independent contractors may of beheaded Nick Berg. To distract the public from the abuse taking place at Abu Grauib Prison. If so, why the awful editing? Was this poor editing intentional? Could these independent contractors actually of concieved of a plot to embarrass the President?
If the poor editing was intentional…who intended it to be intentional? Was George Tenet fired because he had loss control of these independent contractors or because he did have control? Could the rift between the CIA and the Administration be this bad!
On the flip side, if the Army committed this act with poor editing, was it done with the intent to implicate independent contractors and the CIA? Who’s the head of the Army? Could Bush and his lap-dogs actually concieve something this twisted?
In any event, most people would agree that it wasn’t Al-Qaeda. The blatent poor editing suggests that there is alot more to be said about this video than meets the eye.
There is now a Nick Berg (.org) memorial site. On it are e-mails from Nick. In Africa section he mentions that he is working on a tower for Voice of America.