I just finished a nice little rant on this topic myself. I'm amazed at how many Arab experts there are on the Internet these days...and how few of them have Google.

arabic experts?

the tinfoil hat! i love the allusion.

nick berg. i have to keep my faith in the fbi and cia.... and all of the rest of the alphabet soup. i had no reason to doubt them before, and my trust remains the same. how is this applicable to mr berg? the fbi investigated him and let him go. case closed from my point of view.

very interesting coincidence, true. but if the fbi decided it was a non issue, that's good enough for me.

nick berg had great big huevos to go over there without an escort/interpreter. he was the epitome of an american. looking to make a buck and do the right thing at the same time.

he has my respect.

He has my respect until facts come out that suggest otherwise ... it was and is certainly worth covering (the password/FBI connection), but some folks were jumping to some conclusions a bit too quickly ... especially after his dad came out swinging with the outrageous rhetoric.

Well, there's a big difference from "WTF?" to "He's dirty". What I kept seeing was: "This raises more questions than it answers."

Sure, you can read the communist manifesto without being communist. And you can be uncareful about your password and have it used by someone unscrupulous. And you can be an adventurer and go uninvited to a location considered a combat zone. And you can refuse your government's help in getting out when things get tense. And you can have no biological/resume data that explains where you got the expertise to engage in the job you claim to be doing.

But if you have all those aspects rolled up into one person, something is fishy. There may be a perfectly reasonable explanation for the confluence of all those interesting tidbits, but I've yet to see a plausible one. "Naive and trusting" doesn't begin to explain all that.

So: Is he dirty? Heck, I think it's equally as plausible that he was covert CIA. Who knows? But I wouldn't have even heard the interesting points if the blogosphere hadn't made an issue of it, so I don't find myself all that irritated, and I look forward to more evidence that might answer the puzzle wrapped in a mystery contained in an enigma that is Nick Berg's life and death.

I agree with much of that nathan, but sometimes coincidences do happen - and i'm glad the blogosphere covered it - but jumping to concrete conclusions are the problem. Circumstantial evidence is almost the entire basis behind the halliburton conspiracy nonsense, for example.

Like you said - "... there's a big difference from "WTF?" to "He's dirty"."

I think we are losing the point here people. This man was murdered. Better yet, he was butchered. I couldn't contain my feelings..I cried. Whether he went there sympathetic to the the cause, it will never justify his death. It was brutal, inhumane and it shows how the enemy is turly. They kill because you do not believe what they do...whether you are a Jew a Christian, and better yet, a moderate Muslim.

Whatever rose colored glasses you wear, just ask his OWN FATHER, you cannot tell me in any rational conversation that these murderers, not freedom fighters, will result in peace. Wake-up America. We are at war with the same people we mollify in the West...the ultra right wing christian. The only exception is that we know christians don't preach death.

the tin foil hat on the left:

http://oldamericancentury.com/17_anomalies.htm

17 Anomalies Surrounding Death Of Nick Berg
Some may seem far fetched. Others...not so much

See the video here

1.Arab linguists have said the man posing as the Jordanian Zaraqawi did not

speak with a Jordanian dialect. Others have suggested the man reading the
written statement may not have been a native speaker of Arabic.

2.Zaraqawi was missing one leg and had been outfitted with an artificial leg
that did not fit or function properly. He was unable to walk or stand
normally with his ill-fitting limb. No man in the group showed evidence of
such an infirmity.

3.Numerous indigenous sources have said Zaraqawi was killed by a US
helicopter attack months ago when he was unable to move quickly enough to
escape the targeted house. While others managed to exit the house in time to
survive, he died in the collapsed building.

4.As any surgeon will testify, the alleged beheading was a fake. A beheading
would result in a tremendous amount of spurting blood. There would have been
blood everywhere had an actual beheading taken place. When the executioner
holds up Berg's head immediately following what is represented as an actual
decapitation of a living person, there is no significant blood flow from the
neck or blood splatters showing anywhere on the executioner. Furthermore,
the cut was simply too neat to have been done crudely and with such amazing
speed by a man wielding a knife. Anybody who has ever carved a turkey knows
there is something wrong with the supposed beheading. The suspended head
looks more like Berg had been neatly beheaded by a guillotine.

5.The orange jumpsuit was standard US military issue to men in custody. It
is unlikely Berg would have continuing wearing a US custodial uniform if he
had been released by the military as they claim. The fact he was still
wearing the suit is both anomalous and suggestive. One is forced to
speculate as to whether there was an immediate transfer of Berg from the US
military to unknown persons, thusly preventing Berg from discarding his US
prison garb.

6.Several of the men in the film were fat by Iraqi standards. If they were
Feyadeen or mujahadeen, they probably have been living underground since the
first days of the occupation. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been shown on
news stories as they have marched and demonstrated. One would be hard
pressed to point out a single fat man among these thousands.

7.Some men had what can only be described as pasty-white hands. Once again,
one would be hard pressed to find Arab men with pasty-white hands.

8.The lack of spurting blood suggests Berg was already dead at the time of
the alleged decapitation. It is possible Berg's dead body was displayed with
his head already partially or totally severed. In any case, he almost
certainly was killed before the staged beheading. If so, it suggests the
captors had no stomach for an actual beheading of a living person, and they
opted to fulfill their assignment quietly and with the least amount of gore.

9.The scream that is heard has been interpreted as a woman's scream by many
viewers. Videotape cognoscenti have further said the scream was amateurishly
added to the tape.

10.The U.S. government translation of one statement made on the film is:
"Does al Qaeda need any further excuses?" This is a falsification. The
actual statement urged fellow insurgents to get off their hind ends and do
something. One assumes the translator being used by the US military is a
native speaker of Arabic, so this cannot be explained as an innocent flub.
This suggests the US government wanted to inject an alleged al- Qaeda group
into the murder of Nick Berg.

11.Iraqis who have seen the videotape on Arabic news broadcasts are
universally saying the men in the film are not Iraqis. Are they saying this
partly because the speaker does not employ an Iraqi dialect? Where does
their certainty come from?

12.Firearms experts have stated the AK-47 carried by one man was a "Gilal."
This actually is an Israeli-made weapon that improves on the famous AK- 47.
Feyadeen and other insurgents almost universally use AK-47s.

13.The man in the videotape who is purported to be Zarqawi is wearing a gold
ring. This is absolutely proscribed by Islamic law.

14.The US military has stated that Berg was never in US custody and that he
had been in custody of the Iraqi police. The Iraqi police adamantly deny he
was ever in their custody. On April 1, an e-mail from Beth A. Payne, the
U.S. consular officer in Iraq, was sent to the family of Nick Berg. It
stated that Ms. Payne had located Nick, and he was currently in custody of
the US military. We have to conclude that either the email was bogus or the
US military has been lying.

15.The chair that Berg was seated in during the filming was a standard issue
military chair of the exact same kind as seen in a color photo taken at the
Abu Ghraib Prison. The chances a terrorist cell would be using this same
chair are minimal at best.

16. The man on the far left standing at Parade Rest? This seems further
evidence the raises suspicions that these men were NOT Arab faction
Terrorists! Parade Rest is also - and would be a REFLEX action - that is
TRAINED into Military personnel and becomes a HABIT!

17. The Time set on the Video is indicative to 24 hour time and most Videos
have a 2 stage setting one in regular standard time, ie: am-pm and one for
24 hr. time or MILITARY TIME! Why would Terrorists find it relevant to set
their time to Military Time? Would it be more likely that a US intel or
military person or officer would have their video camera set to Military
Time out of reflex of training? My answer is YES!


I'm not saying that I agree with all of those, but they are worth considering.

the final statement was original to the text.

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...

Okay,
Lets face it people,,, something went on with Nick Berg that shouldn't have. That much, I think, that everyone who has reviewed the evidence thus far,, and the inconsistencies thus far would agree. It wasn't above board and it wasn't what ANYONE in our government would like to be made public. I am in the healthcare profession and I agree, that is was not what it appeared to be. I mean, ask yourself why the only forum for this kind of thought, is here, on the internet. I think he was working for the US gov. Who goes over there completely alone?,, no company?, no coworkers?, no protection?. Takes BIG balls. Just doesn't make sense. I do however, think that he still was a victim. To blame him, for his own death is ridiculous. I guess, I compare him, or equate him to Lee Harvey Oswald, not in a bad way, because I do not believe that Oswald killed Kennedy, but in the same tragic way, in that, forever more, Nick Bergs' name will always be associated with terrorists (and there will be the black mark of doubt) and Oswalds' with the assination of a President. Nick Bergs EXISTENCE has come into question. Maybe, he REALLY was there for a true, and divine reason in his eyes, whether he was on our payroll or his own. Terrible, Terrible, Tragedy, that ANY AMERICAN, in this day and age should have to die like that, simply because he is an American. We are SO much more than that. Just my 2 cents. OUTRAGED AT NICKS' DEATH!

51. Why the blankets on the floor, to collect the blood or hide the evidence? The blankets look like military issue, and resemble the blanket used as a make shift poncho in one of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse photos. The walls are the same color as Abu Ghraib prison, the wall trim is the same color, the cement floor is the same color (shown when the blanket gets bunched up during decapitation) and there is even a refection of a florescent light in the upper left corner of the Berg video, the prison abuse photos show these same types of lights on the top of the walls. The chair, the jump suit, flak jackets, looks like Abu Ghraib prison to me. If not, what a stunning coincidence that the kidnappers took Mr. Berg to a building exactly identical to Abu Ghraib prison, I suppose the prison look is a very popular decor used in all Iraqi buildings.