| Username |
Post |
| Badmash |
Posted
on 11-May-04 04:28 PM
I am literally shaken after watching the clip.
By Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 11, 2004; 5:00 PM
In a grainy video posted today on a militant Islamic Web site, Nick Berg -- an American businessman from outside Philadelphia -- is shown sitting on the floor in orange prison garb with five masked men behind him. After reading a statement saying they want to avenge the suffering of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of U.S. soldiers, the men behead Berg.
U.S. officials said they could not verify the authenticity of the tape, but his family confirmed that they had been told Berg had been decapitated and that his body had been found on a highway overpass outside Baghdad last weekend.
Berg's mother said the family had not seen the tape and were still trying to decide whether to view it. They had been having trouble accessing it because of a slow computer connection.
"I don't know if I want to see it. It's just so awful," Suzanne Berg said.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan, who was in Arkansas with President Bush, acknowledged Berg's death, the Associated Press reported. He told reporters, "Our thoughts and prayers are with his family. It shows the true nature of the enemies of freedom. They have no regard for the lives of innocent men, women and children. We will pursue those who are responsible and bring them to justice."
The title of the video broadcast by the Web site said the execution was the work of Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian terrorist leader with links to al Qaeda. Since the persons who attacked Berg were masked, it was unclear if Zarqawi actually wielded the knife or ordered the slaying.
Berg, 26, who disappeared April 9, came to Iraq in the hopes of winning a contract to help rebuild communications antennas destroyed during last year's invasion. He is the first U.S. businessman known to have been killed in Iraq. A Danish businessman feared kidnapped was found dead last month. After four civilian security contractors were killed and their bodies hung on a bridge in Fallujah, organizers of a business conference in Baghdad scheduled for April 5-8 canceled it.
The ever present violence in Iraq has stood in stark contrast to U.S. officials' optimistic calls for private companies to invest in the country. The U.S. Commerce Department during the past year has embarked on a three-continent road show to provide information about investment and reconstruction opportunities.
According to his family, Berg had gone to Iraq to inspect some radio towers that had been damaged during the war. Berg hoped to make a bid on behalf of his company, Prometheus Methods Tower Service, to provide parts and repair services
|
| bardan |
Posted
on 11-May-04 05:22 PM
this barbaric act makes me feel sick to the gut!!!
|
| Lokman |
Posted
on 11-May-04 09:40 PM
Not trying to play down the act of barbarous butchery of the american hostage, but that sort of barbarous acts are perpetrated by Maoists in Nepal everyday. That's exactly how Maoists operate, by killing anyone that dares to disagree or refuses to comply with their agenda. They have absolutely no regard to the sanctity of human life.
Just a few days ago (I believe this story did come up in a thread somewhere) they opened fire at a passenger bus killing many innocent civilians just because a handful of armymen were traveling in the bus. Grrrrr.... do they even care???
As much as I am horrified by this act of savagery, it pales compared to the killings of hundreds, if not thousands of civilians by maoists with the same degree of cruelty in Nepal.
What I am trying to say is, the murder of an american causes a tsunami across the world, whereas the death of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians by american forces fades into obscurity. A life is a life, an Iraqi life, or for that matter Nepali life, is no less important than an american life.
Badmash and fellow nepalese, I hope you are not shaken by this incident because he happens to be an american, but because you truly abhor the killing of any human being.
|
| bardan |
Posted
on 12-May-04 05:30 AM
look at the similarities between this murder and murder of gyanendra khadka.
|
| suva chintak |
Posted
on 12-May-04 09:56 AM
Lokman and bardan.
I echo your sentiments: I join you in condemning the cold blooded slaughter of Nick Berg of Philadelphia by fanatical, one tract lunatics who can not respect difference and the right of others to voice a different opinion; or to be different, period.
While we show natural and instinctive revulsion to this act of sheer savagery, we must also condemn the same kind of cold-blooded killings of one track lunatics in our own country.
Down with terrorism, murders, killings, torture, and the degradation of human dignity!
SC
|
| bhanja |
Posted
on 12-May-04 11:50 AM
When u r nobody, nobody cares about u.
When u r somebody, people care n take notice of u.
|
| Poonte |
Posted
on 13-May-04 02:52 PM
As much as I find the images of Nick Berg's murder truly gruesome and downright monsterous, I am also apprehensive about the fact that now the Pentagon may use that as a lame excuse to halt the process of making public the pictures and videos of their own atrocities in Iraqi prisons, further obscuring the truth about the war to the public.
Ironically, in a game of one-upmanship between two hardliners, the brutal and inhumane actions of one inevitably provides grounds for justifications [in the eyes of the other] to equally abhorent acts of the other. Thus, the vicious cycle of atrocites and counter-atrocities continues, often at an unbearable cost, both monetary and emotional, to the innocent public at large. What the Israeli PM Sharon has done to the Palestinans, for instance, has emboldened Hamas, and vice-versa. Similar trend has developed between the hardline leaders in the US and Al-Queda.
|
