posted May 14, 2004 02:40 PM              

Here's what gets my dander up:

Flippin' Brown Recluses.
I shall kill them all.

I'm usually a pretty live and let live person with bugs - I've even shooed a few little brown house spiders and beetles out rather than harm them...
but anything that'll cause my kiddo's skin to rot if bitten will not see the light of another day once seeing me.

Rah.

posted May 14, 2004 02:44 PM            

I did go back and qualify it w/ "Radical", because a) I don't think too much of organized religion as a whole and therefore 2) I could not single out any one religion as being dangerous in and of itself. It's the radical element that is dangerous.

I find it difficult to express an opinion regarding sedition in our own country on the part of extreme liberals, both in the Democratic party, and in the activist anti-american element. I posted the Cicero quote because it best explains my feeling on the subject.

posted May 14, 2004 02:46 PM              

Sorry for the confusion.

I must've been preoccupied with these spiders.

Aaaaah!

posted May 14, 2004 02:49 PM            

I think the media (which IMO is decidedly liberal with few exceptions), refuses to show the footage, because they know it would "raise our ire", and then their attempts at getting Bush out of the White House at any cost, even if the candidate opposing him were Mickey Mouse, would be largely undermined.

But that's just my opinion.

Prox: NP, my bad, I thought you were referring to me.

posted May 14, 2004 02:58 PM              

May 13, 3:04 PM (ET)

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - The father of Nick Berg, the American beheaded in Iraq, directly blamed President Bush and Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Thursday for his son's death.

"My son died for the sins of George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. This administration did this," Berg said in an interview with radio station KYW-AM.

In the interview from outside his home in West Chester, Pennsylvania, a seething Michael Berg also said his 26-year-old son, a civilian contractor, probably would have felt positive, even about his
executioners, until the last minute.

"I am sure that he only saw the good in his captors until the last second of his life," Berg said. "They did not know what they were doing. They killed their best friend."

Two days after the publication of a video showing the execution of his son by five masked men, Berg attacked the Bush Administration for its invasion of Iraq and its sponsorship of the Patriot Act, which gives sweeping powers of surveillance to the federal government.

Berg described the Patriot Act as a "coup d'etat." He added: "It's not the same America I grew up in."

The criticism came amid finger-pointing between Berg's family, U.S. military officials and Iraqi police over the young
businessman's imprisonment before his execution.

Michael Berg rejected U.S. government claims that his son had never been held by American authorities in Iraq. The Iraqi
police chief in the city of Mosul has also contradicted statements by the U.S.-led
coalition concerning the younger Berg's detention.

'FBI CAME TO MY HOUSE'

"I have a written statement from the State Department in Baghdad ... saying that my son was being held by the military,"
Berg said. "I can also assure you that the FBI came to my house on March 31 and told me that the FBI had him in Mosul in an Iraqi prison."

Dan Senor, spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority, said this week that Nick Berg was arrested in Mosul by Iraqi
police on March 24 and released on April 6.

Senor said the FBI visited Berg three times during his detention by Iraqi police and determined that he was not involved in criminal or terrorist activities.

Brig.-Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, said American military police had seen Berg during his
detention to make sure he was being fed and treated properly.

Berg returned to Baghdad from Mosul in April and went missing on April 9, during a chaotic period when dozens of foreigners
were snatched by guerrillas west of the capital.

His body was discovered by a road near Baghdad on Saturday. The video of his decapitation was posted on the Internet on
Tuesday.

Berg had been in Baghdad from late December to Feb. 1 and returned to Iraq in March. He did not find work and planned to return home at the end of March, according to his parents.

Berg's communications to his parents stopped on March 24 and he told them later he was jailed by Iraqi officials after
being picked up at a checkpoint in Mosul.

On April 5, the Bergs filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government, naming Rumsfeld and alleging their son was being held illegally by the U.S. military in Iraq. The next day, he was released.

posted May 14, 2004 03:01 PM            

No wonder they think we're weak.

posted May 14, 2004 03:31 PM            

Although it was a terrible tragedy, this is what I am seeing:

1) Mr. Berg was not forced to go to Iraq

2) Mr. Berg made a decision, even after being held and questioned - to go BACK to Iraq

3) Mr. Berg did not even have a job lined up when he went BACK to Iraq in April - why did he go back there after he had already been detained and questioned? How many people here would go back into a hostile environment for no reason at all? Something isn't right.

4) The family is USING the son's first detainment and subsquent death as a means of making money.

5) Senior Berg is using this as a way to get publicity.

What do we really know about Nick Berg? What was his purpose? Why was someone accessing his computer and sending e-mails (they found out that Masoui (sp) ***actually that Massaoui had access to the e-mail through a university link.

My biggest question..."WHY DID HE GO BACK IF HE DIDN'T HAVE A JOB?"

posted May 14, 2004 03:32 PM              

quote:

---

'The total justification is not at issue, what is at issue is what we have accomplished for the people"

---

posted May 14, 2004 03:36 PM            

According to those who knew Nick Berg, 26, whose grisly execution -- apparently at the hands of an al Qaeda leader -- was shown on an Islamist Web Site, the adventurous spirit that led him to seek a living repairing communications equipment in postwar Iraq may also have blinded him to its peril.

"He was a risk taker by nature," said Andy Duke, a consultant who lived across from Berg in a budget Baghdad hotel favored by foreign journalists and independent contractors.

"His job was to climb up those towers in the wind and rain to keep the telecommunications system going," said Duke, gesturing from the window of his room to radio antennas jutting from the room of an adjacent hotel on the banks of the Tigris.

"It was inherently dangerous, but that's what he did."

Berg went missing on April 10 after leaving the Fanar hotel, to which he had returned after about three weeks of detention in northern Iraqi city of Mosul that are the subject of irreconcilable claims by U.S. officials and family members who blame the military for his abduction and death.

The U.S.-led occupation authority says the FBI (news - web sites) visited Berg three times after he was arrested by Iraqi police on March 24, but that he was never in U.S. custody. The chief of the Mosul police -- subordinate to the U.S. military, like all Iraqi security forces -- denies ever detaining Berg.

Berg's father flatly rejected claims his son had not been in U.S. custody. "I have a written statement from the State Department in Baghdad ... saying that my son was being held by the military," said Michael Berg in a radio interview.

"IT WAS AN ADVENTURE"

While the circumstances of Berg's detention remain obscure, his friends recall the episode and his account of it as an incident which showed Berg's ability to brush up against danger and emerge unfazed, until his death.

"He was not even ****** off," said a foreign reporter who ran into Berg upon his return from Baghdad after being released. "He said it was an adventure. He was like, this sort of thing happens."

"He told me, 'You wanna hear something funny? I got arrested in Mosul when the police asked me for I.D. I showed them my U.S. passport with the Jewish name and the Israeli stamp and I guess they figured I was a spy," said the reporter, who asked not to be identified.

The reporter said Berg told him he had been in Iraqi police custody only briefly, spending most of his detention with the U.S. military and representatives of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), the occupation's civilian administration.

CPA and military officials declined to comment immediately on that claim.

Berg's friends said his arrest seemed not to dent an optimism about his venture in Iraq that bordered on a dangerous naivety.

"I was worried for him. He was too white, he would walk around the streets in a sleeveless T-shirt, ripped jeans," said his journalist friend. "He looked military."

Duke, who saw Berg on April 9, the eve of his disappearance, said that though he was planning to return to the United States his optimism about his prospects in Iraq was undimmed.

"He came over and we had a few beers and talked about his future, how this was going to be an opportunity for a guy in the tower business." http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&e=3&u=/nm/20040514/ts_nm/iraq_berg_dc

posted May 14, 2004 03:42 PM            

Friday, May 14, 2004

WASHINGTON — Terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was the masked man who beheaded an American civilian in Iraq, U.S. intelligence officials concluded Thursday, leaving other questions unresolved about Nicholas Berg's final days and his contacts with U.S. and Iraqi authorities.

In an odd twist, it also emerged Thursday that the FBI questioned Berg in 2002 about an e-mail address traced to him that was used by an acquintance of terrorism suspect Zacarias Moussaoui (search). Investigators concluded that Berg had nothing to do with Moussaoui.

Through a technical analysis, intelligence officials were able to determine "with high probability" that the speaker on a video showing Berg's beheading was al-Zarqawi, said a CIA official, speaking on condition of anonymity. The same person is shown decapitating Berg, the official said.

Three days after Berg's body was found on Saturday, an Islamic Web site released a video, titled "Sheikh Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (search) slaughters an American infidel with his own hands."

U.S. authorities consider al-Zarqawi an ally of Usama bin Laden and say he is running his own terrorist operation.

The video shows five armed men disguised by head scarves and masks line up behind Berg, who is seated on the ground. Standing in the middle, the man identified as al-Zarqawi reads a lengthy statement that criticizes Islamic scholars and the "shameful photos" of the humiliation of men and women at the Abu Ghraib prison. He then decapitates Berg.

It is unclear when and how Berg, a self-employed telecommunications businessman, was captured. Accounts of his detention in Mosul in late March are also conflicting.

U.S. officials insist Berg was arrested by Iraqi police for involvement in "suspicious activities." The Mosul police chief has denied that. An April 1 e-mail from a U.S. consular official in Iraq, provided by Berg's family, said he was being detained by the U.S. military.

But State Department spokeswoman Kelly Shannon said late Thursday that the diplomat had been given erroneous information from the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority (search) in Iraq. Not until one day after Berg's release from jail was the diplomat told that Iraqi police had held Berg, Shannon said.

"As Mr. Berg had been released, the consular officer did not convey this information to the family because he was released, thankfully — he was released," Shannon said late Thursday. "And we thought he was on his way."

The FBI visited Berg three times before his April 6 release, a U.S. spokesman in Iraq, Dan Senor, said Wednesday. The agents told Berg that Iraq was too dangerous for unprotected American civilians.

Berg wrote his parents after his release that federal agents had questioned him about whether he had ever built a pipe bomb or had been in Iran.

Berg's family members have called on the government to tell all it knows about its contacts with the 26-year-old. They have blamed U.S. authorities for detaining him in Iraq until the anti-American violence worsened.

Berg had caught the FBI's attention before.

Speaking to reporters outside his home in West Chester, Pa., Berg's father, Michael, said Thursday that his son was investigated by the FBI over contact he had with a terrorism suspect while he was a student at the University of Oklahoma.

A senior law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Berg volunteered information about the 2002 investigation when he was detained in Iraq. The official said that an e-mail address traced to Berg had been used by an unidentified individual with purported connections to terrorism.

The investigation showed that Berg had never met the suspect individual and had not given the e-mail address to that person. Investigators concluded that Berg's e-mail address had been spread among dozens of people with links to the university.

The suspect individual appears to have been acquainted with Moussaoui, an Al Qaeda adherent now in federal custody and awaiting trial on conspiracy charges stemming from the Sept. 11 attacks, the official said.

Moussaoui attended flight school in Norman, Okla., home of the university.

In what may be Berg's last contact before his kidnapping, he checked out of Baghdad's Fanar Hotel on April 10 around 7 a.m., according to the hotel receptionist. American businessman Andrew Robert Duke and the staff there said Berg left some of his belongings in storage, with plans to return.

"Inshallah [God willing], I will be back in a few days," the receptionist said Berg told her.

A porter watched him walk down the street with his bags.

Berg's killing was reminiscent of the 2002 death of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl (search), who was decapitated while a video camera captured the slaying.

Pearl's killing is alleged to have been committed by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (search), a senior Al Qaeda operative and accused Sept. 11 mastermind.

The FBI is leading the investigation into Berg's death. Intelligence agencies are analyzing the videotape, which is of relatively low quality.

Al-Zarqawi appears to be seeking an increasingly high-profile presence. As late as March, U.S. officials said he was not known for making public statements or taking credit for attacks. But in the past five weeks, he has released three recordings, including the beheading.

The military has increased the reward for his killing or capture to $10 million in January.

Although al-Zarqawi has terrorist ties stretching from Europe to Central Asia, he is believed to have been working out of Iraq for some time.

The Jordanian-born Palestinian is a poisons expert. He is thought to be responsible for hundreds of deaths in Iraq. Last month, al-Zarqawi was sentenced to death in absentia in Jordan for masterminding the successful 2002 plot in the murder of Laurence Foley, a diplomat and administrator of U.S. aid programs in Jordan.

posted May 14, 2004 03:47 PM            

quote:

---

Berg's communications to his parents stopped on March 24 and he told them later he was jailed by Iraqi officials
after
being picked up at a checkpoint in Mosul.

---

His father is alleged to have made the statement his son was the best friend those who snatched and beheaded him had on earth.

Stay tuned, there's a lot more coming about Berg senior, who is a virulent anti-Iraqi war individual and his son who it appears may have has some connections of his own.

posted May 14, 2004 04:28 PM              

quote:

---

What do you think turned the tide?

---

this reminds me of the time my kids came in and complained that "those black kids out there are won't leave us alone"

well, as i went out to help make peace, i was met by these tough-looking black kids, assuming a stance of macho bravado

as we got into the nitty-gritty of it, and they saw that this big white mama was not a threat to them, but was caring and determined to be fair, they melted into the sweetest young men you could imagine, grinning just like those iraqis you used to see on tv before that mound of nude men

it was hard to discern the faces of those men, but serious doubts prevail as to whether any of them were grinning

did i mention that these kids were around five or six?

a little communication went a long way in determining that indeed my own kids had not been polishing their halos, because they had been using some racial slurs, much to my chagrin

what would have happened if i had not been responsible in tracking down the source of their grievances? how might it have escalated in the intervening years?

here's one scenario:
remember that commercial where the white kid and the black kid were each walking alone, suspicious of the other, thinking out loud what they might do...give up the watch...etc? and remember how they ended up on the steps of the same church?

does that help you to understand the motives of the people on the proverbial left, who merely wish to serve as peacemakers?

they are the true patriots and the very opposite of terrorists, so i hope you can you see the gross injustice in funneling people into two categories these days:

1) those who support our president, right or wrong, and

2) those who are terrorists/traitors

one of the february peace forum attendees here in iowa had gone to iraq on such a mission of peace...to try to get at the root of what the problem was--just as i had served as an ambassador to the neighborhood children

i believe it was jwhop who assumed it was to conspire with the iraqis. jwhop, you know what assume-ing makes out of you and me...

now what if i had indignantly assumed that "my kids can do no wrong"? THAT would have guaranteed a not-so-beautiful day in the neighborhood

but that is exactly what has been going on here, and in society in general. those bent on war and revenge assume that america can do no wrong. this is irresponsible, and more so when it is accompanied by the horrible things i have heard said about those who are earnestly trying to make peace

think, people!

by doing this, can you see how you have added to the general mix of misunderstanding and emotion that are brewing up more trouble than we can ever imagine?

it gives our leaders a carte blanche to lie or ignore red cross warnings, or quite incredibly, get their news from tv and move on with election fund-raising

i hope this helps some of you to understand more about what you are consistently railing against. as a child i learned the error of "condemnation without investigation"

let us each strive to not be personally guilty of this--thus adding to the pool of blood poor mother earth must absorb

i, too, have long wondered why it was that they were so angry at us. i am sure there is a reason. whenever i heard my kids say, "for no reason at all" i knew it was time to do a little excavating

from all of the racial slurs here (reference to what anyone wears on their heads would certainly qualify) we have a long way to go to do our part in "making up and being friends" and creating

a beautiful day in the global neighborhood

kids can learn this skill; what are adults? just kids whose parents were not responsible in preparing them for the necessity of conflict resolution

we can't change them, but we can change ourselves. i for one am going to continue to try to understand the grievances of the players in this drama, on both sides, because i believe the feminine water principle is wearing the white hat on the horizon...and is that a bugle i hear?

maybe we each could add a little bit of the milk of human kindness into the pottage, and invite esau and jacob to a meal?

and i can already hear it: "but they..."

don't go there. let's be more mature than that. what do WE need to do to be right? what can WE do to understand more of the conflict?

unfortunately, when people try to point out these things, they are called traitors and terrorists and told to love america or leave it...

we could start by stopping that behavior and starting to really listen for clues

i fear they are legion

just as my own kids had much to correct in their behaviors. but they did. they saw the error of their ways and apologized

and

quote:

---

unless you become as little children...

---

posted May 14, 2004 04:35 PM            

Your ideals are lofty, and I appreciate what you're hoping for. Dream of utopia, but live in reality.

War does make peace. I view that to be an undeniable truth. Is war good? No. Is it preferable to peace? No. But sometimes I think it IS necessary to secure peace.

posted May 14, 2004 04:45 PM            

quote:

---

now what if i had indignantly assumed that "my kids can do no wrong"?
THAT would have guaranteed a not-so-beautiful day in the neighborhood

---

Not so fast Raine. Some of those people who went to Iraq went to be human shields for Saddam's regime. Most of them left in disgust when he attempted to place them at what he thought would be military targets.

posted May 14, 2004 04:46 PM              

These are not six year olds. They will not drop their defences because somebody seems "nice". They've turned off the empathy valve in their hearts long ago.

I love what you said there. I hope to see it be a reality in my life time.

As for now, you cannot fight daggers with cream puffs.

posted May 14, 2004 04:47 PM            

quote:

---

does that help you to understand the motives of the people on the proverbial left, who merely wish to serve as peacemakers? they are the true patriots

---

I categorically reject that notion personally. The extreme left is a seditious group of internationalists, who don't have respect for the sovereignty of our own nation that affords them the very rights that they abuse. Capitulation will get them nowhere, and take us all down the road to hell along with them. These people speak in the true spirit of Neville Chamberlain. Forget history and you're doomed to repeat it.

posted May 14, 2004 05:06 PM              

He told me it was the most horrible thing he had ever seen, and that he might have night mares for a long time...

He also told me that the head was not severed with one whack, but sawed off (taking a bit more time than one stroke might have)...amidst blood curddling screams from Berg....

This is soooo sickening...so horrible...so gruesome, so ugly that it almost makes me ashamed to be a human...that other humans could be so evil...*sigh*

(tho Bush seemed to take delight in being the executioner with a record for the most executions while he reigned over the Texas Empire....I was particularly ticked when Karla Faye Tucker was murdered...*sigh*)

posted May 14, 2004 06:05 PM            

found guilty of murdering a couple with a pick ax in 1983, (Karla never once denied her guilt), was executed by lethal injection at a Huntsville, Texas, prison on Feb. 3, 1998. Americans debated the ethicality of the death penalty as they anxiously waited to hear if Tucker, who became a born-again Christian while in prison, would be spared at the last minute. The U.S. Supreme Court and Texas Governor George Bush denied her clemency.

She was the murderer. Just because she has a spiritual epiphany in jail doesn't exonerate her. Bush didn't murder her. She was sentenced to die by lethal injection for murder.

posted May 14, 2004 06:13 PM              

quote:

---

and i can already hear it: "but they..."

don't go there. let's be more mature than that. what do WE need to do to be right? what can WE do to understand more of the conflict?

---

you went there

now you can go to the destiny thread and see how these are not my ideas, but the universe reveals it in the stars

posted May 14, 2004 06:16 PM            

So I see, you just say whatever you want, and anything contrary to that falls under the umbrella of, "don't go there"?

Sorry but it doesn't work that way.

Technically, Rainbow went there, by saying, but "Bush took delight in his death penalty record". Not that I'm slamming you Rainbow, you can say what you want, I'm not the one telling people where to go and not to go, but Raine: does the "don't go there" only apply to those who ideologically don't agree w/ you?

posted May 14, 2004 06:19 PM            

And she's not around to murder again.

posted May 14, 2004 06:21 PM              

quote:

---

whenever i heard my kids say, "for no reason at all" i knew it was time to do a little excavating

---

it seems as though my children were more mature than you who say these things

quote:

---

unless you become as little children...

---