Why Berg was murdered

So what does the Berg murder tell us? That the prison torture scandal led to the killing? Not even close. Terrorists (and al-Zarqawi is undoubtedly one) don't need such excuses to do their dirty work.

The lesson is that not finishing the job in Afghanistan and invading Iraq with no good rationale gave Al Qaida and similar groups time to catch their breath, reorganize, and direct their efforts against a conveniently near target -- Iraq. This is the neocon "flypaper" theory in all its glory. It's working. The neocons WANTED it this way.

And they got it. Congratulations.

And in the process, the killing of thousands of innocent men, women and children by errant American bombs, artillery shells, mortars, and bullets have swelled the recruiting offices of every militia and terrorist organization in the Mideast, in and out of Iraq. Congrats with that as well. You can't have flypaper if you don't have an enemy shooting at you. So we energized our existing enemies and gave rise to new ones who didn't seem to understand that "collateral damage" is acceptable in war.

And the abuse of Iraqi prisoners -- up to 90 percent of which could be innocent according to the Red Cross -- just added fuel to the fire.

So no, the prison abuse didn't cause Berg's horrific murder. Bush's (inept) War, in all its glory, did. The Neocon agenda, in all its folly, did. The war cheerleaders now trying to use this for propaganda purposes, in all their idiocy, did.

Congrats. Your war spirals ever out of control. Good luck trying to wash the blood out of your hands.

•  Amen to all you said Kos

  by pacifica on Tue May 11, 2004 at 09:19:39 PM PDT

•  Amen

  You've just posted everything that's been bouncing around my head for the past few hours.  You're far more eloquent, though.

  by fraveydank on Tue May 11, 2004 at 09:23:45 PM PDT

•  al-Zarqawi

  Speaking of al-Zarqawi, did the NBC news story about Bushco passing up multiple opportunities to take him out pre-invasion ever get any legs?  Anyone?

  by grover738 on Tue May 11, 2004 at 09:24:10 PM PDT

  •  link?

    n/t

    by jsavage on Tue May 11, 2004 at 09:31:11 PM PDT

    •  link

      link to NBC story

      by grover738 on Tue May 11, 2004 at 09:42:10 PM PDT

  •  link.

    Every time Zarqawi is mentioned as being related to any attack, the first question out of the media's collective mouth should be this:

    Why, Mr. President, did you refuse to try to kill or capture this terrorist mastermind when you had repeated opportunities to do so?

    Avoiding attacking suspected terrorist mastermind
    Abu Musab Zarqawi blamed for more than 700 killings in Iraq

    By Jim Miklaszewski
    Correspondent
    NBC News
    Updated:  7:14  p.m. ET  March   02, 2004

    With Tuesday's attacks, Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant with ties to al-Qaida, is now blamed for more than 700 terrorist killings in Iraq.

    But NBC News has learned that long before the war the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself -- but never pulled the trigger.

    In June 2002, U.S. officials say intelligence had revealed that Zarqawi and members of al-Qaida had set up a weapons lab at Kirma, in northern Iraq, producing deadly ricin and cyanide.

    The Pentagon quickly drafted plans to attack the camp with cruise missiles and airstrikes and sent it to the White House, where, according to U.S. government sources, the plan was debated to death in the National Security Council.

    "Here we had targets, we had opportunities, we had a country willing to support casualties, or risk casualties after 9/11 and we still didn't do it," said Michael O'Hanlon, military analyst with the Brookings Institution.

    Four months later, intelligence showed Zarqawi was planning to use ricin in terrorist attacks in Europe.

    The Pentagon drew up a second strike plan, and the White House again killed it.  By then the administration had set its course for war with Iraq.

    "People were more obsessed with developing the coalition to overthrow Saddam than to execute the president's policy of preemption against terrorists," according to terrorism expert and former National Security Council member Roger Cressey....

    by thirdparty on Tue May 11, 2004 at 09:39:42 PM PDT

  •  Earlier Post

    An earlier post

    by blank on Tue May 11, 2004 at 09:46:09 PM PDT

•  Here here

  This is as good as a synopsis of our current condition as I have heard.  Well said.

  by Gearhead on Tue May 11, 2004 at 09:24:36 PM PDT

  •  Hear hear

    too.

    by Gearhead on Tue May 11, 2004 at 09:25:30 PM PDT

•  Spiraling out of control

  says it perfectly. It is just piling insanity on top of insanity. Tell me where we go from here? What's next? And how much of this can we (and they) take? Will we all just end up mano a mano strangling each other? Are we going to divide as a nation just like Vietnam again, screaming over dinner tables at night (if people actually eat dinner together anymore). It seems like the only thing missing is fathers throwing their sons out of the house because their hair was too long, and for those of you too young at that time, it was really happening on blocks all around America.

  by wilfred on Tue May 11, 2004 at 09:24:37 PM PDT

  •  Same thing happened in Quebec

    Although it wasn't about long hair, it was about political views. The Quiet Revolution in Quebec (1960 to present) tore families apart and pitted Quebecers against one another - people that had lived side-by-side and inter-married for 100s of years. Although there were some ebbs along the way, political erruption was never very far from the surface and is brewing once again.

    I lived in Quebec for 30 yrs. and felt the undertow of political tension nearly all of my adult life. I was considered a 2nd class citizen because I was English - it didn't matter that I was flawlessly bilingual and had been all my life. I had English blood and an English name and that was enough for the diehards to relegate me to a 2nd class citizen.  This kind of discrimination was institutionalized in Quebec. For example ... the civil service which is Quebec's largest employer discriminates (to this day) against Anglophones.  While Anglophones make up 10-15% of the population, only 2% of Anglophones are employed in the whole sector.  

    The dangers of polarization like this are looming in the USA. It is not as blatant at the moment but it definately has the potential to arrive if Americans do not demand that their elected officials represent their constituents. The situation in the US is like a cancer and cancer can be beaten :).

    by banjon on Tue May 11, 2004 at 10:26:54 PM PDT

    •  Tribalism

        One of the similarities (the differences are huge) with between Quebec the present situation in the US was the way dissent on the francophone side was suppressed.  Dissenters were branded as sell-outs ('vendus') and worse-- they were not 'true' quebecers; the psychological pressure on ordinary uneducated people to conform at least publicly was immense. The francophone press pretty much went along the with the underlying assumptions of the separatists even when they didn't support their policies.

      But what was most prominent and what is most like the Conservative movement in the Red areas of the US was the tribalism, a visceral 'us against them' that seems to have overridden all other considerations. The Quebecois tribalism came out of a common history, but it also expressed a deep sense of inferiority and insecurity thatis happily eroding.  Where does this sense of insecurity and inferiority come from in the United States?  I think if you examine the heartland of Redness, you see it is concentrated in small towns and rural areas that prosperity by-passed populated by persons who didn't lacked the educational and financial means to leave, or who self-selected to stay.  There is a good book on western South Dakota that discusses this phenomenon.  They have a deep and abiding resentment against the meritocracy that was the Clinton administration and all that it stood for.  If we are ever to get ourselves out of this existential mess, we have to find the root of that insecurity, which in effect has sponsored a home-grown tribalism.

      by Knut Wicksell on Wed May 12, 2004 at 07:08:43 AM PDT

      •  tribes

        This is a highly perceptive post, Knut.  American tribalism among the "non-advancers" of society.  This helps explain why many white poor support Republicans against their own economic interests, and especially why they support dunce-friendly leaders like Bush.

        It's not just social conservatism trumping their economic interests.  It's also, for some: "Rah Rah Tribe. I vote stupid."

        Now what I just wrote demeans some rural and poor white folk, so I want to caveat it by adding two thoughts:

        1. The characterization I made above only describes some rural or poor whites.  I'm not sure what percentage.
        2. There are positive aspects of tribalism too -- such as the generosity and support small town people are apt to give one another, and the tribes friendliness and solidarity among its own people.

        by Civil Sibyl on Wed May 12, 2004 at 08:51:53 AM PDT

•  Bring it on!

  he said. Well, it's been brought.

  by LAS on Tue May 11, 2004 at 09:28:37 PM PDT

•  Huh?

  "So what does the Berg murder tell us? That the prison torture scandal led to the killing? Not even close..."

  No connection? That's a bit far fetched. Maybe they do not care about Iraqi prisoner torture, but what a stage it gave them. The torture stands on its own as a crime against humanity perhaps worse than the rush to war. It sure did as much to destroy the standing of the US as the war, if not more. And it was every bit as effective as a recruiting tool for AQ. Indeed, the torture by US troops was powerful enough to render the entire US military impotent and the US unable to "win" the war in Iraq. Why walk away from that?

  by schemp on Tue May 11, 2004 at 09:28:58 PM PDT

  •  I think kos' point

    is that Berg's killers would have done it regardless. The prison torture revenge thing is just something they're using to create a convenient storyline

    by dacarlton on Tue May 11, 2004 at 09:36:24 PM PDT

    •  hard to swallow

      openly killing the innocent is bad press.  This is not like 9/11.  Nobody ever took credit for that.  The only way this works for Al-Qaida is if it fulfills a searching desire among the public.

      by Jeff Simpson on Tue May 11, 2004 at 09:41:25 PM PDT

      •  yeah, on second thought

        what you suggest sounds a lot more reasonable. Though maybe the torture-revenge was the reason for videotaping his murder (and doing it in a particularly brutal manner). The murder itself they were certainly motivated to do anyway.

        by dacarlton on Tue May 11, 2004 at 09:47:29 PM PDT

      •  Unfortunately,

        it works for Bush.  The decapitation incident is enough to turn thousands of undecideds toward Bush because there is a tendency to believe that he will be "tough on terrorists".  Never mind that we haven't really caught any, except the Hussein family.... people just think that way.  I wonder if the perpetrators of this crime thought about that before they murdered Nick Berg..... they may have just assured another 4 years of Bush, and maybe that's exactly what they want. Who knows with these people?
        

        by tomathawl on Wed May 12, 2004 at 08:28:17 AM PDT

  •  Right

    This is all about propaganda. It's highly significant that they had held on to this guy for some time, but chose to kill him in this highly theatrical fashion when the abuse/torture scandal was full blown.

    Another angle: Do we even know how many Americans, not to mention Westerners, are held hostage now? Remember the way the Iranians taking the US Tehran embassy staff hostage had completely paralized the Carter administration? BushCo wasn't going to repeat that mistake. They just ignore or downplay any hostages in Iraq. So decapitation is one of the few ways that Iraqis have available to point out that they are holding Americans captive.

    Dose BushCo even bother to determine what Americans are being held hostage by Iraqis? Not that I am aware of. It's bad P.R.

    by Alexander on Tue May 11, 2004 at 11:24:27 PM PDT

  •  The fire has been burning

    like a barbeque quieting down to hot coals

    this was like lighter fluid added and
    it burst into flames

    What gets me is all these scandals and BS and
    we are still polarized, 50-50 with BUSH?
    Thomas Frank had a good article in Harpers recently about the rethugs base and how they get their base to vote for them even when it is against their own interest.
    Im off on an open thread tangent........

    by JackAshe on Wed May 12, 2004 at 06:01:24 AM PDT

  •  propaganda tool for AQ

    this, to my mind, is the major reason behind this video.  yes, it shocks the American public but, better for AQ, it instructs impressionable young fanatics over there that this is the proper response to the atrocities visited upon their people.

    by haglera on Wed May 12, 2004 at 07:30:07 AM PDT

  •  Remember Fabrizio Quattrocchi

    the Italian security guard who was taken hostage virtually at the same time as Berg and was shot in the back of the head/neck after being forced to dig his own grave and after reportedly defying his captors by saying, "Now I'll show you how an Italian dies."

    I raise it as an open question about the similarities and differences between Berg's murder and Quattrocchi's, which was also videotaped and was not run by Al-Jazeera because it was too horrific.

    For example, it might be worth noting that the Quattrochi killing was assertedly prompted by PM Berlusconi's remarks refusing to withdraw troops from Iraq.  As confirmed by the demands with respect to Berg, it seems that the hostage-takers are paying attention to news cycles in the West and then tailoring the demands and timing the murders to generate attention more than anything else.  And generating attention I think serves two purposes.  One is as a recruiting tool (as posters below have mentioned).  The other is perhaps to prompt a violent and irresponsible reaction by the US.  Which of course, become a terrorist recruiting tool ...    

    Another question: the Guardian article noted that the "Green Brigade" took the Italians hostage, but said no one had heard from that group before.  I wonder if anyone knows more about that group and, if it's connected to Zarqawi.  Maybe the Italian killing by an unkwown "brigade" was a test run for a more publicized, gruesome, and emotionally twisted murder of an American.  

    by phaedrus on Wed May 12, 2004 at 11:44:02 AM PDT

•  Berg's Family Outraged at Bush Gov't

  http://pennlive.com/newsflash/pa/index.ssf?/base/news-16/108430077760820.xml

  by crone on Tue May 11, 2004 at 09:33:53 PM PDT

  •  I heard

    the audio clip of dad (on npr) on my ride home tonight.  

    Michael Berg lashed out at the U.S. military and Bush administration, saying his son might still be alive had he not been detained by U.S. officials in Iraq without being charged and without access to a lawyer.

    Nick Berg, a small telecommunications business owner, spoke to his parents on March 24 and told them he would return home on March 30. But Berg was detained by Iraqi police at a checkpoint in Mosul on March 24. He was turned over to U.S. officials and detained for 13 days.

    His father, Michael, said his son wasn't allowed to make phone calls or contact a lawyer.

    FBI agents visited Berg's parents in West Chester on March 31 and told the family they were trying to confirm their son's identity. On April 5, the Bergs filed suit in federal court in Philadelphia, contending that their son was being held illegally by the U.S. military. The next day Berg was released. He told his parents he hadn't been mistreated.

    Michael Berg said he blamed the U.S. government for creating circumstances that led to his son's death. He said if his son hadn't been detained for so long, he might have been able to leave the country before the violence worsened.

    by 007 on Tue May 11, 2004 at 09:58:21 PM PDT

    •  US Officials Blame Berg for Own Death

      Well, close.  The Guardian ran with the headline:   Beheaded hostage 'had been warned to leave Iraq'.  First line:  "A US civilian hostage who was beheaded in Iraq had been warned to leave the country but refused to, US officials said today."

      But, of course, Berg was trying to leave Iraq ... until he was detained by Iraqi police and then the American military.  I guess it's comforting among all the chaos to know that whatever happens, Administration PR reps will respond with an up-is-downism.

      What a-holes.

       

      by phaedrus on Wed May 12, 2004 at 10:59:26 AM PDT

  •  Father signed anti war petition

    http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1092851/posts

    got this from a google on "Prometheus Methods Tower Service"

    Michael S. Berg, Teacher, Prometheus Methods Tower Service, Inc., West Chester, PA
    

    by llamasonic on Tue May 11, 2004 at 10:29:16 PM PDT

•  Visceral

  There is something visceral about this death.  We get conditioned to see fake violence on TV.  We hear about true violence but do not really get exposed to it first hand.  (That's not entirely true-I should simply say that I have not been exposed to it for which I am grateful.)

  I imagine that the right wing will point to this and ask, "Aren't you glad that is happening in Iraq and not in the homeland?"  (Anyone else find the word "homeland" to be disconcerting?)

  At some point, I'd like to think that there will be enough humans in the US who will tell the right wing to shove it up it's you-know-what.  The polls are suggesting that the humans in the US are awakening.

  by JP on Tue May 11, 2004 at 09:36:18 PM PDT

  •  yes

    (Anyone else find the word "homeland" to be disconcerting?)

    I do. Very much so.  And, I am really creeped out by the U.S. flags that some people fly from their car windows (on both sides).

    by raincat100 on Tue May 11, 2004 at 09:47:41 PM PDT

    •  I find it difficult

      Not to flip those people off.  I don't do it, but I'm surprised at how strong the impulse is.

      by paradox on Wed May 12, 2004 at 04:55:30 AM PDT

      •  GBA Mother F*#ker!

        A few weeks ago a friend told me that she's begun quietly saying that little phrase every time she runs into anything that strikes her as overly nationalistic. For example, red, white, and blue oven mits...

        GBA -- God Bless America

        by Jeff in NY on Wed May 12, 2004 at 05:54:31 AM PDT

        •  Consumerist Patriotic Garbage

          D people love to collect stuff because it reflects who they are?
          Scary.
          Walmart
          How is this crap patriotic?
          The Franklin Mint offers its share of junk
          I whole heardetly believe Ashcroft went out and bought this garbage
          Their motto:
          "Sharing the passion of collecting",
          bull,
          Merging the Passion of Collecting with Distorted Patriotism

          by JackAshe on Wed May 12, 2004 at 06:17:58 AM PDT

          •  It's all made in China, anyway

            at least in my local (southern NH) branch of the discount store Christmas Tree Shops.

            About twenty feet of patriotic junk - flags, greeting cards, lawn ornaments, Uncle Sam figures, et cetera.

            Not one item made by American workers in America.

            by Jon Meltzer on Wed May 12, 2004 at 11:42:51 AM PDT

  •  I find the term a lot more

    than disconcerting... I abhor it! It's a Fascist term... I emailed Kerry and told him when he gets elected, his first Executive Order should be to change that d#$% name, and then abolish the dept.! We have the National Guard --- 'course they're never home these days! - what do we need with __ ? Has Tom Ridge actually 'done' anything? I mean besides move the color code up and down and recommend duct tape?

    Peace

    by crone on Tue May 11, 2004 at 09:53:10 PM PDT

  •  "Homeland" sickens me, too,

    because it harks back Hitlerian Germany when the Nazis extolled "Heimat" (homeland) at every opportunity.  When I first heard the news that the new department would be called "Homeland Security" I cringed.  Hitler had precisely the same thing, the "Heimatschutz."  What was/is so horrible about it is that you can justify just about anything in its name.  And I agree about the flags, too.  They're flying everywhere in the US just as they were in the Drittes Reich in Grossdeutschland (Greater Germany).  There are good many other parallels beyond these, but I'm too spooked to continue...    

    by GulfExpat on Tue May 11, 2004 at 10:27:10 PM PDT

  •  Homeland disconcerting?

    Why?  Because it sounds so much like "the Fatherland"?  Anybody remember Mein Kampf?  The echoes are getting louder and louder.

    by tomathawl on Wed May 12, 2004 at 08:54:52 AM PDT

•  so depressed

  My girlfriend was friends with this guy. It's just unspeakably awful. I didn't even know him, but this hits home really hard. I dunno...I have so many mixed feelings about this but I don't feel up to expressing them right now. I just wish this whole awful thing could be over with

  by crayz on Tue May 11, 2004 at 09:36:52 PM PDT

  •  Your confusion speaks volumes

    I feel for you, and I can only imagine how you and your girlfriend must feel. This is, without question, one of the biggest punches in the gut so far -- simply because it's so immediate and real, with this poor man's final moments horrifically presented for the world to see. For me, Daniel Pearl's execution held a similar sacred space, because he was a fellow journalist; his videotaped death put a crystallizing face on this obscene, and wholly avoidable, conflict.

    I know that it's hard, in a time of such overwhelming violence, to believe that peace and humanity will ultimately prevail. But, despite the gathering darkness, I truly do believe that it will. It's going to take time (and, sadly, more deaths than we should ever have to bear), but I have to believe that the majority of Americans will see these images for what they are: a grotesque testimonial to the failure of our current leadership, and a wake-up call for everyone who supported this neo-colonial idiocy in the first place.

    Stay strong, and keep Nicholas Berg's name alive. His exceptional journey (adventurer, job-seeker, detainee, prisoner, martyr) provides an example for us all. We cannot remove the small, splintered cells of hatred and violence that plague this world. But we can sure as shit remove the powerful governing cabal that helps fuel these murderers. Until our government recognizes that violence begets violence, the Nick Bergs and Daniel Pearls of this world will remain unavenged. It really is just that simple.

    by Hard Left on Tue May 11, 2004 at 10:43:21 PM PDT

    •  I truly hate to dissent here, but...

      The only example Berg gave us is What Not To Do.

      I have a friend I respect who sits on The Other Side of the Aisle, who is going to go to Iraq next month as a contraft firefighter (he's a firefighter/paramedic from Houston), and my first reaction on hearing that was to tell him I hoped he didn't get stung to death sticking his hand inside a hornet's nest.  And I told him further, my good friend, that if he got killed I would put it down to stupidity, the one crime for which capital punishment is appropriate.

      Does that shock you I would say that?  In aviation, stupidity is generally considered the one crime for which death is likely, since nearly every aviation fatality involves stupidity in the decision-making process of the person who died. (and no, 9/11 doesn't fit in this categorical analysis of aviation failures)

      What was this guy doing, going on his own to Iraq????  This is BONEHEAD STUPIDITY!!!!!!!!  No wonder he got picked up for being "suspicious" by the US Military. (And no, that doesn't justify what happened, or their right to pick him up.)

      My girlfriend asked me today if I had watched the video.  I told her that, as a screenwriter who had done my share of horror movies, my imagination was good enough that I didn't need to do that.  I did, however, listen to the audio, and that will never leave my memory.  No "scream queen" will ever come close to that.

      I think that everyone posting to this thread saying Kos is right is whistling past the graveyard - even moreso than when I supported him on the merc thread.  I have spent a considerable bit of time tonight talking to liberal friends of mine, who take what these scum did to this guy as proof that it's time to nuke Mohammedan-Land.  I hesitate to think what the Little Green Footballs, the Freepers, and just your general garden-variety Bush-voter are thinking now.

      These assholes prove every Israeli combat veteran and every Gulf War I combat veteran I have ever heard say that "the best way to combat Arabs is let them do what they do."  

      I mean, these people are Oscar-winners when it comes to Snatching Defeat From The Jaws Of Victory.  What do these morons think this is going to do for the human rights struggle over Abu Ghreib????

      What a bunch of idiots.

      by HollywierdLiberal on Tue May 11, 2004 at 11:48:13 PM PDT

      •  and what of us?

        As you say, everyone on our side is calling for blood now. Are we so different? All the conservatives who say that Abu Gharib was understandable given the pressures in the country and the deaths of these guards fellow-soldiers have the same mindset as these brutal murderers. They are both willing to condone indiscriminate torture and murder so long as it's happening to the "bad guys."

        Gee, that's worked out real well for us so far. Let's just keep it up.

        by crayz on Wed May 12, 2004 at 01:15:55 AM PDT

      •  Is your commentary tainted by his parent's actions

        How is Nick Berg different from the Blackwater Security Consulting contracotrs?

        NickBerg, 26, owns a business called Prometheus Methods Tower Service Inc. He climbs communications towers to inspect the antennas, the electrical connections and the structure. He first went to Iraq on Dec. 21.

        He stayed until Feb. 1, making contact with a company that indicated there would likely be work for him later. But he returned on March 14 and there was no work, so he began traveling. He usually called home once a day and e-mailed several times; Michael Berg is his business manager, and they needed to stay in touch.

        It is know even former soldiers have gone back over knowing that there is money to be made in them there hills. I even know some construction guys here in UaSSA who have got word that they can make over $1000 bucks a day tax free, like the trucker from the south who got kidnapped. I mean why did John Walker Lindh get off relatively easy yet, others are treated differently. Youre right, "And no, that doesn't justify what happened, or their right to pick him up."
        That is the main point despite how anyone may "Monday Morning Quarterback" his intent there. Flat out, improper treatment by even his own fellow citizens, let alone Iraqis. bad Bad all the way around. And his parents have every frickin right to express whatever the frick they feel right now after what they went thru. Give them the "Tillman" treatment of respect and privacy instead of calling them the enemy
        

        by JackAshe on Wed May 12, 2004 at 06:36:08 AM PDT

      •  I never said...

        It was an example we should follow -- just a perfect, encapsulating example of what happens when a government lies to its citizenry ("We don't want the smoking gun to be a nuclear bomb," "Iraq is a safer, stronger place now, with just a few isolated pockets of resistance") and fosters a situation where there are far more opportunities in a horrific war zone than there are at home. (All that job growth the Bush crime family has been crowing about? It should shock no one to discover that it's almost entirely due to military spending.)

        Equating Nick Berg with those mercs is wrong-headed and insulting. Yes, he was foolish in the extreme for going over there, but who hasn't done something a little stupid in the name of adventure and opportunity? From what I know, he just wanted to help out and make a little scratch, not participate in a culture of shiny metal weaponry and consequence-free joy killing, like so many mercs (and their Al Queda counterparts) sign up for.

        Nick was an innocent who put himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nobody deserves the sad end that he faced -- and his blood is on both the hands of his captors and those of the heinous, happy-talking war pigs at the Pentagon.
        

        by Hard Left on Wed May 12, 2004 at 08:40:30 AM PDT

•  Well, cynics like me suggested....

  .... that, if we MUST invade Iraq  (let's pretend there was no other option, just for funs), then why not imitate the Afghanistan model:  roll in, install our puppet, and roll out.  Brutal, but not hypocrtical.

  Nah.  Instead, Bush serves up lies about WMD.  THEN  "democracy"  in Iraq.  THEN . . . who knows.  All I know is that we're all paying the price.

  The worst aspect of all this has been Bush's unbearable sanctimony, particulary with regards to America being a purveyor of  "God's gift to humanity"  (e.g., freedom)  to the world.  Abu Ghraib, apart from its nastiness, made us look like idiots.  Oh, and it provided a handy excuse for al-Quaeda to make cinema out of beheadings.  I suspect the vile Administration is rather pleased with this latest turn of events, as it gets everyone's mind off of that Appalachian pixie, Ms. England.
  

  by Romulus Augustulus on Tue May 11, 2004 at 09:37:15 PM PDT

•  Well...

  I think we have to admit that these atrocious pictures have taken things to a new level of permissibility.  I don't think Al-Qaida would be advertising themselves in this way if the images of torture hadn't created a blood-lust among the throng.  And now, of course, the military will retaliate against the innocent.

  It's all so fucking horrible.  What a world for our kids to inherit!  This spiralling violence needs somehow to end or de-escalate.  I don't think this situation is going to wait a year for Kerry's inauguration and the UN's possible entry.  We need to find ways of slowing this monster down before it engulfs us.

  Can we see some more baby pictures now?

  by Jeff Simpson on Tue May 11, 2004 at 09:37:15 PM PDT

•  I fear a hardening of positions

  The Us versus Them mentality and rhetoric that ties everything to justice about 9/11 seems to appeal to a large slice of America.  I know most of us in this discussion space were horrified at the comments by the Senator from Oklahoma today, but look at some of the other boards and see the cheering.  My concern is a gruesome murder like Berg's just fuels their underlying hatred toward the Iraqis.  And the louder anyone criticizes, the more the entrenched say, "stay the course."  

  Anyone else suffering outrage fatigue?

  by egoldstein on Tue May 11, 2004 at 09:42:22 PM PDT

  •  I fear you're right.

    The partisanship has not let up for one minute.  And now Berg's murder has provided impetus for the right-wing to vent blood-lust.

    I'm not as hopeful as most on this site.  I can easily envision that evil Bush riding to easy victory in November on a wave of Two-Minute-Hate aggression, Fox-administered ignorance, and pure fear.

    by Romulus Augustulus on Tue May 11, 2004 at 09:47:33 PM PDT

    •  True -

      which is why we need to point out clearly that this act of 'revenge' is the beginning of the price everybody feared, and knew would need to be paid once the Abu Ghraib atrocities came out.  No one could doubt there would (and will) be a terrible backlash.

      But how do we avoid the Sharon 'solution'.  It is so clear that revenge is destructive - whether ours or theirs - yet so hard for people to resist.

      by Citizen Clark on Tue May 11, 2004 at 11:20:37 PM PDT

  •  It always sticks with me...

    long ago, maybe somewhere in the PNAC papers which I read in the summer of 02, it clearly says, PlanIraq is to, above all else, divide and harden at home.  It is in the process.

    by Marisacat on Tue May 11, 2004 at 09:47:51 PM PDT

    •  Yep

      Unfortunately, things seem to be going according to plan. Though whose plan? The Devil Usama or someone else?

      "Those people," "the other," "the Enemy of Civilization," whatever the term of the day is, seem intent on driving us mad, then driving us over the cliff. One could sort of scope out a strategic purpose in their actions when time was, but not any more -- unless their strategy is, as both the Usama-ites and the PNAC fanatics seem to say, all-out massive casualty and even nuclear war.

      Warmonger in chief Rumsfeld has long been open about his admiration for blitzkrieg and the Iraq example is a holy fek-up, paralleled only by the Napoleonic and Nazi invasions of Mother Russia in the history of invasions and pseudo conquest, but apparently that's OK in his and Bush's mind (sic) so long as it 'sets the conditions' for further outrage and havoc (ie: 'flypaper') which in turn leads to their desired non plus ultra: Armageddon, which Rummy seems to really, really want to fight with nukes.

      He's said he thinks we can survive it.

      And it seems "the other" is all for it, too.

      Unbelieveable.

      --felix

      by felix19 on Wed May 12, 2004 at 06:00:00 AM PDT

•  I have to say...

  that when I first heard the news of the beheading story today, I was pretty sure that it would  help Bushco negate the torture stories running previously and that it would provide the Bush team with some cover.  I didn't watch all the talking head shows tonight, but Andrea Mitchell on Hardball and CNN's Newsnight both worked it into the context of their ongoing coverage of the prison stories and it didn't really have the effect of defusing the stories coming out of the Iraqi prisons and didn't seem to give the repub or conservative guests much room to manuever.  Even Saxby Chambliss didn't take the opportunity to equivocate on the morality of the two situations...

  by blueman on Tue May 11, 2004 at 09:46:38 PM PDT

  •  that's today but

    what about tomorrow? the Slime machine is turning all night long, what will we be talking about in 24 hours?

    by wilfred on Tue May 11, 2004 at 09:53:41 PM PDT

    •  I'm optimistic

      Some conservatives are starting to distance themselves from the slime machine. We don't want to quiet it completely because it is still responsible for a big chunk of the hard-core base who get all their news from slime-R-us.

      A lot of people, including a lot of hard-core conservatives, are very angry. They know that the incompetence has made conservatism look bad. That is not going to go away. In fact, Bushco seem to go out of their way almost every day to squeeze another foot in their collective mouths. Are we all prepared for the Syrian invasion? I hear they have weapons of mass destruction and represent an imminent threat to the US. (Well, OK, "imminent threat" hasn't come out. Probably won't till around June 30). I have visions of US troops facing an opposing allied UN force at the Syrian border. Wouldn't that make a pretty picture?

      My deepest fear at this point is that Bush will be asked to step down at the convention and be replaced by a sane conservative (yes, I believe they exist and they've made themselves known at the hearings). Such a person could win big. We need Democratic leadership for 4-8 years to undo some of the damage.

      I signed the Dump Rumsfeld petition, but I'm cheering for the way Bush is standing by his man. The more praise he heaps on, the longer it takes for the inevitable resignation, the more slime will backwash onto Bush and Cheney, so that even some of the staunchest dittoheads might be a little hesitant. "Best Secretary of Defense" ever. That was hilarious. I love it. I think Mediamatters.org ought to feature it, along with a comparison of Rumsfeld's nation building and the Marshall Plan.

      I agree with Kos that the prisoner abuse was just an excuse. Remember, we already saw a public beheading on video (Daniel Pearl) and the reasons were much murkier. There are real enemies out there, and I'm fully convinced they are already resident in the US and planning the next major attack, with rationale to be decided later. I wish I had an administration that actually cared and wanted to do something about that.

      OK, I'm psyched. Let's do Syria. Then France. Then Canada.
      

      by rppa on Wed May 12, 2004 at 07:37:50 AM PDT

  •  No wonder

    The pennlive link above has some unflattering details about the U.S. contribution to his death. It says that Iraqi police stopped him at a checkpoint and turned him ove to the U.S., who detained him for 13 days, releasing him after the violence spiked upward.

    by KeithH on Tue May 11, 2004 at 09:54:33 PM PDT

    •  How about "MI murdered Berg" ???

      What if US didn't release him? What if this is done by the same US/Iraqi police that captured him?

      Rummy gave a call something like this:
      " Hey, this sh*t photos of this f*ck*ng prison is making the news too much, let's give them something else that will make us look not so bad and tough... Do some "head roll" for us!"

      So, US had some head to roll...

      by cakle on Wed May 12, 2004 at 11:42:55 AM PDT

  •  And Reuters reports CBS

    coming again - this time with a video diary...

    CBS to Air U.S. Soldier's Video Diary of Iraq Abuse
    By REUTERS

    Published: May 11, 2004
    Filed at 8:20 p.m. ET

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An American soldier's video diary showing her disdain for Iraqi detainees who died in her charge is to be broadcast by a U.S. network on Wednesday in a further escalation of the prisoner abuse scandal that has shaken the Bush administration and provoked world outrage.

    http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-iraq-abuse-video.html

    by crone on Tue May 11, 2004 at 09:57:35 PM PDT

    •  Another report

      The Globe and Mail International reports a communique (statement) by one of the killers. It's chilling!
      

       "For the mothers and wives of American soldiers, we tell you that we offered the U.S. administration to exchange this hostage with some of the detainees in Abu Ghraib and they refused."

      "So we tell you that the dignity of the Muslim men and women in Abu Ghraib and others is not redeemed except by blood and souls. You will not receive anything from us but coffins after coffins ... slaughtered in this way."

       

      by banjon on Tue May 11, 2004 at 10:52:55 PM PDT

      •  hmm. Maybe it *is* al Qaeda...

        I only say that with some hesitancy as this seems a complex story. Only partly clear tonight...
        One tape I remember very clearly a brief few months ago, from bin Laden, said:  
        our children will kill your children.

        I believed it.

        by Marisacat on Tue May 11, 2004 at 10:58:45 PM PDT

•  This is a recruiting pitch based on the pictures

  So what does the Berg murder tell us? That the prison torture scandal led to the killing? Not even close. Terrorists (and al-Zarqawi is undoubtedly one) don't need such excuses to do their dirty work.

  True but that little snuff flick was not designed to "terrorize" anyone.  It is just a video recruiting commercial done as a high tech version of a tenth century ritual for the redemption of lost honor and it was designed with care to dovetail with the dirty American pictures now going the rounds.

  The whole point of AQ is that it taps into Arab feelings that as a people they have been shamed and disgraced over the last few centuries by western invaders.  Bin Laden can talk about the Fall of Baghdad to Gengus Kaun or the Tragedy of Andalusia and an illiterate Arab audience will understand exactly what he is talking about and with his inimitable silver delivery he can keep them captivated for hours making  them burn with the shame of it as though these things had happened just yesterday rather than centuries ago.

  But not every potential Jihadi really has the education or imagination to be reached in this way.  But give them something that is more imbedded in their culture to burn with shame about and things can work much better.  Until recently the occupation of Iraq was what AQ used to make real the ancient shame of the Moslem world at the hands of the western devils.  But now, with the pictures of the sexual humiliation of Arab men at the hands of depraved western women and their untermenschen minions, there is something even an Arab boy with no sense of history and no fond memories of pre-occupation Iraq can get into. 

  If you don't understand Arabic that film just seems like a snuff flick where you have to wait 5 min. to get to the action.  But if  you understand Arabic you get the clear message that this is a rediscovered ritual of for the redemption of the lost pride of Arab manhood.

  "How can a free Muslim sleep well as he sees Islam slaughtered and its dignity bleeding, and the pictures of shame and the news of the devilish scorn of the people of Islam - men and women - in the prison of Abu Ghraib?. . . So we tell you that the dignity of the Muslim men and women in Abu Ghraib and others is not redeemed except by blood and souls."

  This is a pitch that makes it clear that every Arab kid who has been hunched over his computer getting madder and madder seeing those pictures that there is another way.  A way that his culture and his religion call upon him to take.  He will be passed the link, down load it, and going forward will always have it to run again and again to comfort his pride and help him get to sleep dreaming of becoming a real man: one who can stand up to the humiliation shown in those dirty American pictures,  a man who knows how to perform the blood wedding of redemption that the Arab soul and Islam demand for such affronts.

  So yes these killers don't really care about Abu Ghraib, or about the fall of Baghdad or even Palestine.  But they are good judges of the Arab mind and they seem to think that at least their potential members are ready for this stuff based on those Abu Ghraib pictures.  I hope they are wrong and it will backfire, but I fear that they are right and that they will get many new members in using this thing.

  by Fred in Vermont on Tue May 11, 2004 at 09:48:35 PM PDT

  •  In my opinion, from

    a breaking news single line on the BBC web site, to the whole of the tape with beheading on FOX was in warp speed time.

    Fox had a purpose and they sped to it.

    by Marisacat on Tue May 11, 2004 at 09:59:19 PM PDT

  •  The Republican Tactic

    AQ uses the same tatics agaisnt the west as the republican s use against "the Left."

    by David in Burbank on Tue May 11, 2004 at 10:45:00 PM PDT

    •  precisely

      we're caught between two groups of sick religious fanatics who actually look forward to the end of the world.  "All flesh is grasse."  

      They're gonna get a lot more of us killed, and each death fuels more deaths as each seeks retribution, believing that their violence is somehow different from the other group's, and believing that the other group's violence justifies ours.  

      If force isn't working, use more of it, right?    

      I learned a long time ago never to try to break up a fight, at least not alone.  But we don't have a choice here, we're stuck.  

      If any of us were to be killed in this war tomorrow, both Rove and bin Laden would see it as an opportunity, and as a vindication.  al-Quaeda calls us "white meat."  The right would use it to justify continuing the crime.  We'd be dead and the murder would continue.  No difference.  

      Bush cannot say that "you're either with us or you're against us" [correct punctuation graciously supplied], because both sides are sadistic and self-defeating, feeding on blood to justify spilling more blood.  Neither side is better for us or safer for us.  

      It's like the whole world is the Middle East, now.  

      by Grand Moff Texan on Wed May 12, 2004 at 06:49:45 AM PDT

  •  very perceptive

    This is devastatingly insightful, Fred.  Please consider adapting this as a diary entry.

    Do you know of any links to info about the 10th century ritual you describe?  Also, I'm curious - do you know Arabic?

    by Civil Sibyl on Wed May 12, 2004 at 09:17:46 AM PDT

•  Are we safer yet?

  As they say here
  

  In order to fight terrorism, we must cause it, says Donald Rumsfeld.

  According to a classified document prepared for Rumsfeld by his Defense Science Board, the new organization--the "Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group (P2OG)"--will carry out secret missions designed to "stimulate reactions" among terrorist groups, provoking them into committing violent acts which would then expose them to "counterattack" by U.S. forces.

  Are we safer yet?

  by i dunno on Tue May 11, 2004 at 09:49:52 PM PDT

  •  Is this dark comedy?

    This is something the Onion would say.  If true, it has to be the dumbest philisophy/tactic I have ever heard.  It would be akin to the gun-control advocates in this country saying the only way to get stricter gun control measures would be to go out and provoke "responsible" gun owners into doing something stupid with their guns and presto, you have more irresponsible gun owners therefore you need to have stricter gun control measures.

    This reminds me of a tag-line a rock station use to use in Cincinnati, "creating a need and then filling it".

    by bearcat on Wed May 12, 2004 at 04:25:45 AM PDT

  •  not yet

    In order to fight terrorism, we must cause it, says Donald Rumsfeld.

    That is a very scary link. It fits in with the idea being floated around that somehow the spooks, after vetting him and his family for several weeks somehow released Nick Berg in a way that delivered him to AQ types lusting for a chance to make a blood wedding tape like with Daniel Pearl.

    I don't buy it myself, but I do believe that Rummy takes a "the worse thing are the better" view of the war on terror.

    by Fred in Vermont on Wed May 12, 2004 at 04:28:10 AM PDT

    •  It's not like such an event has never happened

      This is the 40th Anniversary summer of Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman. Have we forgotten how the Neshoba County Sheriff's office picked them up and held them long enough to release them at the time of day when the Night Riders were around?

      Maybe it's time for us to all watch Costa-Gavras'"Missing" again. The fact that Berg's family had filed a lawsuit against the federal government for their son's release couldn't possibly have influenced the conditions of Nick Berg's release into a dangerous environment, right? Just because the government's attitude of "If you're not with us, you deserve whatever you get," is a historical fact shouldn't make us suspicious, eh?

      The murder of Nick Berg is a tragedy, a horror, an outrage, a miserable if not surprising outcome of what seems to be a neverending spiral into the worst of human behavior by people on both sides. Certainly there are many on the Right who seem to be getting a hard-on at this development - Rush today will probably be frothing at the mouth, if not some other body part.

      But it's not like the White House isn't cynically using the outrage for its own purposes. Why, today of all days, do they announce the ratcheting-up of a hard-line approach to Syria because of its "support of terrorists" and "development of weapons of mass destruction"? The statement made me almost as nauseated as the headlines about Berg's beheading did.

      by Louise on Wed May 12, 2004 at 07:06:20 AM PDT

  •  New phraseology

    This is not a
    WAR ON TERROR
     

    In fact, this is a
    
    WAR FOR TERROR
     

    We're trying to monopolize terror.  I they do not love us, they should fear us, or, as Marshall has said:  
    
    Inhofe's America is one that is glutted on pretension, cut free from all its moral ballast, and hungry to sit atop a world run only by violence.

    Who can win a war for terror?  

    by Grand Moff Texan on Wed May 12, 2004 at 06:57:02 AM PDT

  •  Are they aware

    ... that the people who die in those attacks are actual breathing human beings?

    Apparently not. Wow. Americans really are just faceless pawns to these guys.

    by rppa on Wed May 12, 2004 at 07:43:23 AM PDT

  •  sounds familiar

    N E W  Y O R K, May 1 -- In the early 1960s, America's top military leaders reportedly drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Cuba.  

    Code named Operation Northwoods, the plans reportedly included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and even orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities.

    The plans were developed as ways to trick the American public and the international community into supporting a war to oust Cuba's then new leader, communist Fidel Castro.

    America's top military brass even contemplated causing U.S. military casualties, writing: "We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba," and, "casualty lists in U.S. newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation."

    Details of the plans are described in Body of Secrets (Doubleday), a new book by investigative reporter James Bamford about the history of America's largest spy agency, the National Security Agency. However, the plans were not connected to the agency, he notes....

    by sendtoscott on Wed May 12, 2004 at 08:10:05 AM PDT

•  Welcome Back, God what a mess

  Kos, I hope your holiday into the homelands of Central America was both relaxing and mind clearing.

  I have witnessed, like everyone else, the degrading events of the last several days. I have yet to find an explanation yet from the Neothugs that even begins to ring true. How can Rummy claim he takes full responsibility without a thought to the consequence of his actions? Or other's actions?

  It is disheartening to find our leaders so woefully unprepared for responsibility. Not unexpected, just disappointing in the extreme.

  As those of you who may have followed some of my posts on military matters have gathered, I can find no reason for this situation beyond mere hubris. These guys are so wrapped up in their delusion, both the Neothugs and their enablers in both houses and the courts, that they STILL don't understand. Inhoff, today, was just disgusting, and these apologists claiming now with the beheading that that makes everything all right make me ashamed of being an American, again.

  After I got back from 'nam, I was so thoroughly reviled, by virue of my being a soldier, by the people I came into contact with that I began to be ashamed. A sort of amorphus shame. I really didn't see what I had done wrong. On the other hand, all the feedback I got wasn't just negative but vitriolic. I carried this shame for many years.

  In the last several years, with my retirement from military responsibilities, and with society's reinstatement of military regard, I came out of the shell a bit. Now, I am back in it. I hate this.

  I can't say I'm not responsible. I trained cadres of troops in skills better left undescribed. My only pride was how good I was at my job, as lethal as it was, and that I would keep most of these men and women alive by transferring skill sets and instinct.

  The idea of torture is so far from both my training and my orders. I can assure you all that it is only since these crazy Nazis took ahold of the command structure that torture and poor, irresponsible handling of prisoners was strictly the stuff of general court-martial. Levenworth. Long, ugly stay.

  Now, I just don't know. My friends tell me of gestapo like intels, civilian 'aparatchiks', and looney standing orders. Many of us still in have refused to do many things. Many have retired just when they didn't want to. We actually had something to fight for here. All of the 'lifers' feel severely betrayed. At least all I know, even the more conservative head bangers.

  Mea Culpa.

  There is a real cancer on the body politic in this country. We are suffereing from propoganda, lies, delusions, oligarchy, and incompetence. This election upcoming may be our last chance to rescue ourselves from the real evil doers. Can there be any doubt who I am taking about? UBL has peers. And they are terrorists, too.

  Anyway, this shame I feel is almost overwhelming. All these dead soldiers, all these traumatized Iraqis, all this preventable conflict. Sure sometimes we have to fight, but what we are doing now is far more reminiscent of the Sudetenland and the occupation of Yugoslavia by the Germans than
  a honorable stand against those that attacked us.

  Bring 'em on, indeed.

  by oofer on Tue May 11, 2004 at 09:52:58 PM PDT

  •  oofer, I have read many of

    your posts.  Where did it all go so wrong?  A long slow slog from Vietnam, the Central American and other wars, the many installations around the world.  The heavy mix of military and CIA, the brutal use of military for destabilising nations... likely too far gone by now.

    Thank you for the many valuable posts, please keep posting.

    by Marisacat on Tue May 11, 2004 at 10:07:04 PM PDT

    •  Scaife and Norquist

      Thank you, Marisacat,

      This went wrong when we let the Scaifes and the Norquists dump their billions into our political system. That whole cabal has only self-interest in mind. A sort of new aristocracy, just as banal, mean and cruel as the last. Oh for the good old days of serfs and castles, huh?

      This is all about the corruption of the electorate by infusion of money, defusion of thought, and the delusion of religion. A heady blend of social acids.

      I alsways used to enjoy the Agnewian turn of phrase, 'effete corps of impudent snobs'. Maybe that's a Buchanan coin. Anyway that is what we have now. It is what we are now to the world.

      by oofer on Tue May 11, 2004 at 10:21:48 PM PDT

  •  Wonderful post

    I think you hit the nail on the head when you called them NAZIS. Let's make that stick. It's obvious the only bible they read is The Third Reich.

    by banjon on Tue May 11, 2004 at 11:14:04 PM PDT

  •  I know you're right, oofer

    The majority of the American military thinks as you do on this subject, oofer.  Because of my writing, I have a good number of senior career military I correspond with, and they are just as gobsmacked by this stuff as you are.

    Don't stop talking, my brother.  You have lots of great insight, and you're right about what you say.

    I know exactly how you felt about what happened in Nam and the return to The World.

    by HollywierdLiberal on Wed May 12, 2004 at 12:22:13 AM PDT

  •  Thanks for your input

    someone like you carries greater weight with a wider variety of types than someone like me, who has never served.  

    That said, testimony from Abu-Ghraib shows how much this stuff has NOTHING TO DO WITH MILITARY CULTURE AND SOP.  People without training or background, "cooks and truck drivers," were "acting like they were in a movie."  

    The shame isn't on America's military, it's on America.  This is our feral culture at work.  It infected both those who committed the acts, and their superiors who failed to stop them.  It infects those who support the actions, even after those responsible have begun distancing themselves and point fingers, indicating that THEY don't think it's OK.  

    It's that sick.  

    What have YOU got to apologize for?  Or rather, what have YOU got to apologize for that I do not?  We're both Americans, and that means we're both responsible.  

    At least if we lived in a dictatorship, we could wash our hands of these things...

    by Grand Moff Texan on Wed May 12, 2004 at 07:10:21 AM PDT

•  Paul Begala is right....

  ...today's events leave us no choice but to withdraw from Iraq so we can invade it again in response.

  by Otis Noman on Tue May 11, 2004 at 09:54:19 PM PDT

  •  Good One

    by David in Burbank on Tue May 11, 2004 at 10:48:31 PM PDT

•  Reparations, Compensation, whatever...

  QUESTION: You mentioned reparations. Could you please provide more details?

  RUMSFELD: I don't think I used the word reparations. I think - I hope - I used the word compensation for the detainees who were cruelly treated. And I am told that we have - the lawyers have looked into it and we believe there are authorities where we can do that and it is my intention to see that we do do it, because it is the right thing.

  OK, so what is he talking about. Did Rumsfeld promise some sort of compensation to the prisoners that were abused? Does this only apply to the ones that were abused on digital photos or videotape. Because, I am willing to bet that there are a bunch of other Iraqis who would like to tell their story and get reparations or compensation for their experience. What is the program for compensation for the prisoners that were abused? Or is this just another crock? How can we possibly administer such a program of compensation? Why are we in Iraq?
  

  by MediaFreeze on Tue May 11, 2004 at 09:55:37 PM PDT

•  The Video Itself

  For those who have the stomach, the whole video can be seen at The Memory Hole.

  I forced myself to watch it and it was about the most upsetting thing I've seen or heard.

  Forget about the other religions. I think the Hindus and Buddhists have it right that we're smack in the middle of Kali Yuga, the time of extreme moral degeneration. Between this and Hamas riding away on motorcycles with bags full of Israeli body parts...I don't even have the word for how I feel.

  by Mad AZ Monk on Tue May 11, 2004 at 09:55:42 PM PDT

  •  godawful

    I just watched it and frankly, I wish I hadn't, and I wish I could destroy every copy in existence.  this thing is an abomination.

    I will never again commit such violence against myself.

    by Jeff Simpson on Tue May 11, 2004 at 10:07:02 PM PDT

  •  We can't hide from this...

    This is our world now. We are being assaulted by graphic images and it will only get worse. This time the war is being televised. I hope we are ready for what is to come. Horrible, absolutely horrible. Why are we in Iraq?

    by MediaFreeze on Tue May 11, 2004 at 10:13:03 PM PDT

    •  oil

      by banjon on Tue May 11, 2004 at 11:18:40 PM PDT

  •  I tested myself. . . .

    I watched this with the intent of measuring my attitude AFTER watching it.  Would I feel more supportive of the war in Iraq?  Can I attune myself to today's new  "realities"?

    The answer is:  No.  What I feel instead is an anxiety attack and a real urge to weep.  Which I think I'll go ahead and do.

    It's a sin to watch this.  Don't do it.  It helps nothing - it only hurts.    

    by Romulus Augustulus on Tue May 11, 2004 at 10:18:03 PM PDT

  •  30 seconds

    By my count, that's how long it took him to die. It felt like the longest thirty seconds of my life. I can't imagine what it was like for him. Americans should watch this if only to understand what war means, and that our actions have consequences.

    I disagree with kos. This was absolutely a response to the prisoner abuse. That doesn't even begin to justify it, but it should give more than a little pause to everyone who brushed off our crimes as horseplay or hazing.

    by crayz on Tue May 11, 2004 at 10:22:56 PM PDT

    •  Edited

      I've watched it too.  I don't think we saw him die.  There was an edit after the 30 seconds of hacking.  I don't want to imagine how much time was cut out.

      by David in Burbank on Tue May 11, 2004 at 10:52:10 PM PDT

  •  I won't watch this thing

    I grew up on a farm.  We butchered our own animals for food.  The typical way to kill a sheep was to cut its throat.  It would take everything I had to force myself to do this.  It's impossible to describe the act or the eternity it took for the animal to lose consciousness, bleed out, and finally give up its desperate struggle for every bit of life it was losing as I held it down.

    I can remember the first person I ever saw who said a prayer and asked for forgiveness from God and from the animal just before killing it.  It was clearly just as hard on him.  Afterward I would do the same thing when this task was put before me.  It helped relieve the guilt, and the horror, I felt.

    A back-to-nature, environmentalist fellow with whom I once worked wanted to purchase a sheep from a farmer and butcher it in order to feel in the gut, something beyond the intellect, just what the inescapable cycle of life was all about and what the cost was for the food he ate, costs from which those in the man-made, delusional environments of cities are typically isolated.  This fellow had never before killed an animal.  [dedicated plant eaters also incurr a cost in terms of animal deaths associated with the production and delivery of that vegetable matter]

    Even after summoning up all his courage-- and he was no shrinking violet in the participation of life-- my friend couldn't complete the task and I had to take the knife from his hand and finish dispatching the sheep for him.  Later as we dressed the animal out, he would break into uncontrollable sobbing every few minutes, indicating the trauma he'd experienced.  We later said a prayer for the animal and carried out a ritual of burying its heart in the earth that gave it life, symbolizing for us a return of the animal's spirit to the land.  This "hopeful wish"-- which was likely all it ultimately was-- was what was very much needed by him, and me to a lesser degree, at that time.  This helped my friend, but there is just so much help that can be gained.  There is not a meal that I eat that I don't think of what has given its life to give me mine for as long as I have it.  [perhaps we should think of Nick Berg and the tens of thousands of other dead the next time we fill the gasoline tank or eat a bite of food or relax at home or enjoy any comfy benefit whatsoever produced by our huge economic machine]

    I know what death is about beyond what I've described here.  And I will not show disrespect to this man by watching his last struggles to hold on to life.  May God, the Higher Power, Nature, whatever is greater than us, have mercy and love for this man and all others who have died and who will die in this despicable violence.  Take care of them in their return.

    by rangemaster on Wed May 12, 2004 at 12:50:53 AM PDT

•  Killing at a distance

  Americans are horrified because this killing was "up close and personal." Dropping huge bombs on people from high in the air and blowing thousands of them to smithereens makes us feel so much better. Except it's no more civilized. More here

  by elishastephens on Tue May 11, 2004 at 10:14:00 PM PDT

•  Seems purposeful...

  The administration's enemy is rational discourse.  Its friend is fear, and its chief tool is the brutalization of both Americans and Iraqis.  

  You can't reason with a mob crying for bloody revenge, but you can create that mob, you can manipulate it, and you can use it to consolidate power.

  It doesn't add up; a handful of unknown actors with a knife, whatever crimes they commit and however they came into possession of their victim, is not comparable to ten thousand prisoners in a gulag created with malice aforethought.  It doesn't matter.  Rove is not trying to win over the intellectuals.

  The administration may want a primal pre-rational war of civilizations, thinking that the chatterers and moralists will be silenced and the technologically more advanced side will win.  Bad calculation: colonizers are almost always technologically superior to the colonized, and yet colonizers regularly lose.  But the moral price is paid by the populations on both sides.  George Bush is the figurehead and chief spokesman of the party of immorality.

  by C S McCrum on Tue May 11, 2004 at 10:19:33 PM PDT

•  I posted this earlier to Kevin Drum's blog

  ...I'm reposting it here.  
  ------------------------------------------------
  I forced myself to watch the video because I didn't want to have its impact filtered through other people's interpretations.

  I'm sick tonight.

  Emotionally, I want each one of those hooded cowards dead. The sooner the better.

  Intellectually, I know it will do no good. We have lowered ourselves to their level. The hearings before the Senate committee seemed focused on whether the atrocities were a few renegades or symptomatic of orders from above. That's an important question for American ears. It's completely irrelevant for the average Muslim.

  Because of Bush's attempt at secrecy in his presidency and in the Iraqi prisons, because of the lack of oversight, because of the culture of Gitmo, we are vermin in Muslim eyes. In their view, we all deserve to die.

  This is the legacy of GW Bush. This is why he should never have been appointed to the presidency. I remember the late 2000 cover to the journal The Nation, with Alfred E. Bush wearing a pin that said "Worry." I had no idea just how worried I should have been.

  Please, please, any Nader fans: Don't you see what is happening? Do you think it will get any better? Put aside your idealism and join those working to get Bush out of office in November. There is too much riding on this election to enjoy the luxury of a vote for conscience. If you love this country, work to get Bush and the Republicans out of office as soon as possible.

  by Ernest T Bass on Tue May 11, 2004 at 10:26:07 PM PDT

  •  Work on Kerry

    to pull out of Iraq. Bush and co. - The Nazis, are a lost cause. Kerry must not stay the course at any cost. If he does - it's still about oil.

    by banjon on Tue May 11, 2004 at 11:26:52 PM PDT

•  neo-cons were kinda right about one thing.....

  The Neo-cons were kinda right about one thing, Iraq is flypaper. But not for the terrorist. It seems al-Zarqawi is the only big-wig terrorist in Iraq. So where is bin Laden and the rest of Al-queda? And what are they planing next? While Al-queda is free to move around and plot future terrorist attacks around the globe, the US is caught in a long, hard, expensive slog. It is trying up American troops, equipment, money, etc... so much so, that military is being pulled from South Korea, Kosovo and points between. Funding for Homeland Security has been slashed to pay for the quagmire in Iraq. Due to Bush's recklessness, the USA's not only stuck in Iraq, but America's homeland is left exposed and venerable.
   

  by RINO on Tue May 11, 2004 at 10:34:33 PM PDT

  •  Beat me to it...

    While I was composing the following paragraphs you managed to say the same thing, but more concisely.  Got to type faster. :)

    The fallacy of the neocon "flypaper" theory is that it hasn't made the US safer by causing Bin Laden and Al Qaeda to focus on Iraq.  Instead, it's done just the opposite.  We're stuck to the flypaper of Iraq, frittering away our resources while Bin Laden and his compatriots remain at large and continue to plot their next attack(s).

    What has Iraq cost Bin Laden?  The part time services of one lieutenant - that's about it.  al-Zarqawi has possibly been distracted from focusing on grand Al Qaeda attacks by the need to organize the new militant recruits generated by our actions in Iraq.  But it hasn't stopped him entirely, as he was still able to coordinate the thwarted chemical attack in Jordan.

    In return, what has Iraq cost us?  The lives of over 750 of our troops.  Over 4000 troops wounded.  Over a hundred billion dollars spent already and four to six billion a month more needed for the foreseeable future.  Not to mention the financial and personal costs born by the National Guardsmen and reservists who've been called up.  Or the cost to businesses and our economy when those same guardsmen and reservists are away from their jobs.  (But hey, there's a silver lining in that one - job creation.  I wonder how many of the jobs recently created are directly attributable to employers needing to fill in for activated reservists.)   Or what about our tattered standing in the international community?  The friends who once stood shoulder to shoulder with us against Al Qaeda's vileness have fallen away one by one as we've become more and more like our enemy.

    Sorry to ramble here.  I just got caught up in how depressing the whole situation is.  My point is that the neocon's got this one exactly wrong, like almost everything that they touch.  Their vision of strength is rotten to its core.

    by mlharges on Tue May 11, 2004 at 11:50:13 PM PDT

    •  Iraq isn't flypaper

      B'rer Dumbya and B'rer Cheney are fighting the tarbaby.

      by HollywierdLiberal on Wed May 12, 2004 at 12:28:17 AM PDT

      •  ya beat me to it!

        by Grand Moff Texan on Wed May 12, 2004 at 07:18:33 AM PDT

  •  FLY PAPER --> TAR BABY?

    by Grand Moff Texan on Wed May 12, 2004 at 07:14:11 AM PDT

•  And I'm sure Kerry gave

  an official statement to the press today about this, but i sure haven't seen one. Has anyone?

  by wilfred on Tue May 11, 2004 at 10:36:32 PM PDT

  •  If you plow thru

    whatever is today's message, I think health care again...there is a quote about ''outrage'', and "horrified and deeply saddened".  There is likely a press release (I don't know tho), I suppose.

    by Marisacat on Tue May 11, 2004 at 11:07:57 PM PDT

    •  Don't forget the "contribute" link

      there is a quote about ''outrage'', and "horrified and deeply saddened".  There is likely a press release (I don't know tho), I suppose.

      Yes here is the press release.  Not much to it of course

      "Like all Americans, I'm horrified and deeply saddened by the senseless murder of Nicholas Berg.   My thoughts and prayers are with his family and with the families of all our troops and civilians working under such dangerous conditions to rebuild and bring peace to Iraq.  We are grateful for the work you do and the risks you take.  The terrorists who committed this atrocity will not prevail, and America stands together against them."

      But I am sure that the Republicans will claim that this is another example of John Kerry using bad news as a fund raising tool.  It you look at that press release you will see that among the links going down the left hand side there is one to "contribute". 

      There was a link like that on a thing about how Rummy should resign and that was enough to generate a GOP bullet point about Kerry using bad news as a fund raising tool.  Something the Senator Inhof injected into the hearings yesterday.

      by Fred in Vermont on Wed May 12, 2004 at 04:43:10 AM PDT

  •  Remember the slime machine

    Remember that the slimers are just waiting for any chance to jump on the their opposition and say "aha, their using this for crass political purposes".

    Kerry has hit exactly the right tone. He condemned the actions, he called for Rumsfeld's resignation BEFORE the bandwagon got going, and he is letting the idiots stew in their own juices. What's the old political saying about not committing homicide when your opponent is committing suicide? Any campaigning on this would be wrong and unseemly. Let the Repubs try to campaign on it.

    Some of the right wing can't wait for something to jump on, so they just make it up. Sean Hannity is condemning "some Democrats for calling it [something]gate", when he's the only one who has used the term. (Reference: O'Franken Factor, 5/11/04).
    

    by rppa on Wed May 12, 2004 at 08:05:20 AM PDT

•  Here it comes

  It's the liberals, it's CBS, it's the people who hate America.  Two minute hate indeed. I feel like I should be in line at the liquor store waiting for the bad gin.

  This "commentator" forgot the "let's clear out the towns and cities in Iraq and use tactical nuclear weapons on them" part, but I guess he'll get to it tomorrow. World. gone. mad.

  From an AM station web site in OK City

  Webb's World: Behead CBS

  By Tedd Webb - Clear Channel News

  I predicted the terrible beheading of American Nick Berg of Philadelphia at the hands of the terrorists in Iraq. I blame none other than CBS 60 Minutes. His blood is on their hands as much as it is on the hands of the thugs who murdered him. Do I hear any liberals crying out for an apology? None.

  CBS knew the airing of those photos would inflame the Arab world, that was the purpose. To make the USA and George W, Bush look bad heading into the elections. It did not matter that it might cost more lives in the Middle East, so be it, that is one small price for winning the White House in November.

  There should be rage against that network; you should let them know they are responsible for a tragedy that could have been avoided.

  The left has no sense of country, no patriotism. The left is laughing at the road bumps we are experiencing in Iraq, they love it, they cheer like Palestinians on September 11th, 2001.

  Woe be to them that put politics ahead of country. These people are so low they can crawl under whale crap with a top hat on, and that sits at the bottom of the ocean.

  by stilwell on Tue May 11, 2004 at 10:39:37 PM PDT

  •  What The F@#$

    "Woe be to them . . ."

    He sounds like the terrorists now.  The use of language is strange and I'm seeing this reapeated in wacko-right wing blogs.  Everyone is talking like characters out of a Conan the Barbarian Comic Book.

    by David in Burbank on Tue May 11, 2004 at 10:58:58 PM PDT

    •  They think

      they sound Biblical. I think.

      The BBC was playing some excerpts from a call in show in Florida...you can imagine. As Franken would say "oy."

      Unfortunately I think Imhoff is getting mileage out of his