UPDATED: 18 May 2004
UPDATED: 17 May 2004
UPDATED: 16 May 2004

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My point has been made and I have no desire to keep dwelling on this particular horror. All of the crap being bandied about can be explained in reasonable terms without any conspiracy theory foolishness necessary.

If you have something that you believe proves something weird or odd or whatever other euphemism you choose to use then apply Occam's Razor to your supposition. If you cannot come up with a simple reason for whatever it is then contact the New York Times or a therapist. One or the other will be able to help you.

Sorry if this offends but I'm finding the continued curiosity to be somewhat macabre and disturbing and I want no part of it.

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Questions are popping up about Nick Berg. Was he involved with the terrorists who murdered him? Who was holding him during his period of arrest and why? Doesn't it all seem a little fishy? Why so little blood during a beheading? Why the orange jumpsuit like the ones the US clothes their prisoners in? Why was Nick traveling around Iraq without a job, a driver or a translator? Why was a Jew carrying anti-semitic books?

Calm down, folks. Please. This reaction is normal. Not necessarily healthy, but normal. You see, if it comes out that Nick was a terrorist sympathizer slain by the people he was nominally supporting then he wasn't one of us after all. We would get to release a huge load of hate and anger and pain. Releasing that pain is a very attractive prize and that means we have to keep a very firm grip on reality and common sense here to make sure we are not deluding ourselves in our desire to wash it away.

Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. In English, Keep it Simple Stupid. Don't be tempted to create links of causality. Don't get creative with postulations. When there are easily determined commonplace solutions for questions, nothing is gained by manufacturing complex ones. With that in mind, let me show how these questions may be easily and simply answered without conspiracy theory. If anybody has additional feedback or more complete knowledge of one of these subjects, please chime in.

[update] Special thanks to Ilyka for pointing out this Telegraph article that I missed at Meryl's place. (To complete the crediting chain, Meryl found it at an unsealed room.) Anybody who would like to delve into whatifs and howcomes should read that article before doing so. It does an excellent job of showing what Nick Berg was like and what he was doing over there. [/update]

[another update] Another great link from Ilyka. This piece at Kesher Talk has an excellent compilation of Berg links. [/another update]

Why was Berg wearing an orange jumpsuit like US prisoners wear?
The most obvious answer is that his Al Qaeda captors dressed him up deliberately to look like a prisoner. They were using the prisoner abuse scandal as their excuse to saw his head off.

Why so little blood when a slashed throat would ordinarily cause torrents?
Gushing blood happens in the movies, generally not in real life. It happens only when the heart is pumping and a major artery is breached. Nick was dead before his carotid arteries were severed. Update: To clarify, I'm not implying that he was dead before the video was made. I mean he died from his spine being severed before the knife cut through his blood vessels.

Why were the major US media outlets able to download the video from the original site when al-Jazeera could not locate it?
My guess would be that al-Jazeera is incompetent and couldn't locate it or they are biased and did not really want to show something that would be sympathetic to America or perhaps both. I think I'll go with "both".

And why was Berg arrested in the first place?
Ostensibly because he was acting strangely. He was behaving in a manner inconsistent with other Americans in Iraq. He traveled without a driver or translator. He was a Jew and his passport reflected that. Update: As adamg pointed out in the comments, US passports do not state the religion of the carrier. Berg did have the combination of a Jewish name and Israeli stamps in his passport. He himself believed that he had been arrested because he was Jewish.

Why did he travel without a driver or translator?
He was unemployed. He had been in country for some time. I imagine that he felt he had enough knowledge to get from point A to point B without the expense of hired hands and felt comfortable enough in the country to do so. "Most" Westerners travel with driver and translator but by definition that means that some don't. Update: Nick wasn't driving himself around, he was traveling in taxis. Don't confuse this with riding in an American taxi. Think of it as a very small bus.

Why was he in Iraq, traveling around, unemployed?
I'd really love to hear from a freelance contractor who's in Iraq because I don't really understand this one either. Is this how it's done? Just get a ticket to Iraq and hope to get picked up for work by one of the reconstruction companies? Does anybody know of any contractor bloggers out there?

How do we know that was Hakuna Matata (or whatever the hell his name is) murdering Nick Berg in the video?
There was a speech of several minutes duration. If it was not whatsisname it is reasonable to believe that this would be easy to reveal.

How do we know those were even Arabs in that video? It could have been CIA operatives under those hoods.
I'm not going to delve into moonbat theory here. If somebody genuinely believes that this is a possibility then a reasonable answer will not satisfy them anyway. If you are one of those people then get off of my site right now. Thanks.

Berg had his computer password "stolen" by Al Qaeda two years ago and is murdered by them now. Isn't that a coincidence?
Yes, it is a coincidence. I know that this question is really implying causality but coincidence is far more likely. It is not difficult to believe that a traveling student would let another traveling student borrow his laptop while they're traveling. This was already investigated by the authorities post 9/11 and they determined that Nick had been duped.

What's with the anti-semitic books that Berg was carrying with him when he was arrested?
One of the books was the Koran. I'm not even a Jew and I'm often curious about the Koran. Know thy enemy, you know? Imagine a bright fellow in the heart of Islam. If I had been in Nick's place I would definitely have picked up a copy. We don't know what the other book was but just about anything printed locally of a religious or political nature is going to be fairly anti-semitic.

Why did he refuse American offers of assistance to return home?
According to the people who tendered those offers, he wanted to work. That's what he went over there for.

He was released after his family filed a lawsuit in the US saying he was being held illegally by American forces. Is it not equally "moon bat" to believe the implications of this paragraph, taken from The Telegraph story?
The article definitely does imply causality that I look on as suspect. Although I wouldn't be surprised if it was discovered that the Iraqis released him on prompting from our people and that the prompting was spurred by the filing of charges that chain of events is pure sensational speculation. Still, I'd put it a few weeks behind the "killers are CIA agents, not terrorists" theory on the cycles of the moonbat chart.

Why do you think the video was edited exactly at the point where the figure in the middle was about to slash Nick Berg's throat?
I hadn't noticed the edit break here. Anything I came up with would be pure conjecture so I'll take a pass on this one.

Why do we hear what appeared to be a woman's scream several seconds before this gruesome act took place?
The sound was a few seconds off of the video. The most likely source of the scream is Nick Berg himself as he realized he was going to die.

The scream begins as the hooded figure removes the knife. Nick was looking towards the camera and did not move until he was kneed to the ground. Unless there was a mirror that he was looking in, he had no way to realize the actions behind him.
The sound is ahead of the video so it could certainly be Nick's scream on the audio track before Nick reacts on the video track. If it wasn't Nick then it could have been one of the murderers. They take quite a bit of pride in screaming.

About the last thing that it could be would be a woman screaming. These are Wahabi Islamites. Women are not permitted to see a goat get sacrificed; there's no way in the world they would let one see a beheading.

Did you notice the body language of the figure on the right of the screen? At one point, he has his finger "off" the trigger, which reminded me of the picture of Elian Gonzalez when the feds came in to get him. (just observing... not attempting to form a "moonbat" theory)
There was quite a bit of fidgeting by the murderers. They were probably either very excited about cutting off a man's head or bored from standing there through we know not how many takes of the scene. Maybe a bit of both.

Nick claimed that he could build a computer from cardboard and wires. He also stated in emails that he had setup an email account for a relative by marriage in Iraq during his time there. Why would he not setup a free account for Moussaoui? Why would he allowed unfettered access by a person he has just met?
Woah! Big error there. Berg did not meet Moussaoui. He ran into a flunky and said flunky later passed the access information to Moussaoui. In any case even though we do not have specific information on what happened during that meeting there has been no mention that Berg did anything other than letting a fellow traveler use his laptop for a while. I can very easily see letting somebody borrow my laptop if they asked to check their Hotmail account.

Agreed, but would you give that person the password to your own account? Or as you've stated, you would allow them access to check their *own* account. (or set one up for them)
If you recall, it was the password that was the important key element here.
We just don't have the information on what happened during that meeting. Maybe Nick was overconfident with his security. Maybe he had a text file called "passwords" on his desktop (don't laugh - I was a network admin and I've seen it more than once). The only real inferential data we have is that the pros who investigate this stuff for a living cleared him of suspicion.

If the government had cleared Berg of any involvement (excepting a chance meeting) with Moussaoui, why did they visit the Berg family residence 3 times during his confinement in Mosul?
Because their son was being held in Mosul and they wanted to speak with them. Once was to verify Nick's identity. They haven't released the reasons for any other meetings it's more likely that they were due to the Berg's increasing frustration with getting their son freed than with an incident from the past that had already been investigated and closed.

Who is going to bitch slap Michael Berg for whining and blaming everyone else for his son's misfortune. He's pathetic or maybe he is too intellectually challenged to realize that Iraq is a WAR ZONE!!!!!!
He was already predisposed against our actions in Iraq. His son being murdered there is not going to soften his ideology. I'm pretty sure that Michael Berg is going through quite enough at the moment so I honestly hope that nobody is going to bitch slap the man.

What's up with the video editing? Why two timestamps/angles?
Dorkafork does an excellent job of explaining that.