Pa. family angry with American government over son's brutal death

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

WEST CHESTER, Pa. (AP) — The family of an American civilian shown beheaded on an Islamic militant Web site huddled in in tears Tuesday after learning of the existence of the graphic videotape.

<snip>
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.

"I think a lot of people are fed up with the lack of civil rights this thing has caused," he said. "I don't think this administration is committed to democracy."


<snip>
This should temper Faux New's enthusiasm about keeping the story in the headlines.

that Michael Berg gets on the evening news and says that again:

"I don't think this administration is committed to democracy."

Am I missing something? He was in the custody of the US for some time and then he gets recaptured by Al Queda? That man must have had the *worst* luck in all the world. I think I smell diversion.... :tinfoilhat:

I guess I'm not so crazy after all. Well, I'm still crazy, but...

Including the freeper's outing of Berg.

Thanks Tinoire.

the pukes are trying to cover their ass because they know they're in deep shit! Desperados at OUR expense..

...Nick Berg wouldn't have been over there "looking for work" in the first place. (I'll forgo any commentary about how fishy that story sounds for now...)

They're responsible on so many levels...

Hmmmmmm

Don't you have to give him a bit of personal responsibility for putting himself in harm's way? I'm not letting Bush off the hook. He invaded Iraq and I think he should take responsibility for the prison abuse.

I remember after the first Gulf war I was unemployed and took a laborer's job looking for unexploded ordnance in San Diego. We were supervised by a bunch of ex military EOD's. A few of them got jobs doing remediation in Iraq and one of them died in an explosion. He was responsible for his death because he chose to go there. I think Berg did something similar.

Please consider this: Isn't the ascendancy of the pop philosophy of Personal Responsibility™ just a little suspicious in an age where it's profitable to blame victims and praise predators?

Most people, if anything, take too much Personal Responsibility™ and end up crippled with guilt over one thing or another. If you look closely, you'll notice that Personal Responsibility™ is invoked by people in positions of power whose consciences are beginning to hurt and are looking for an ego-soothing and authority-enhancing escape from -- can you imagine? - their own Personal Responsibility™.

Berg probably accurately calculated his risks. Being held incommunicado by his own government for so long dramatically increased those risks. And if it turns out that our own people delivered him to his killers either for political gain or out of incompetence, then Berg's head should not be the only one to roll.

--bkl

is not a pop philosophy, nor is it a new concept. Personal responsibility, and its reasonable limits, have been discussed a lot and continuously and for a long time now.

There certainly is a place for personal responsibility. Personal responsibility has a limited scope and we all decide what the limits should be for tough cases. For example, I don't think that an invocation of "personal responsibility" excuses me from my duty to feel sadness and pity for the deceased Berg and empathy for the Berg family.

On the other hand, I do believe that there is such a thing as "personal responsibility" and that it is an important factor to consider in thinking about many political issues.

Fashion sense among women who are raped is where the rubber meets the road. (There is no need for me to discuss that particular subtopic any further.)

Personal Responsibility™ is, indeed, a pop philosophy, every bit as inauthentic and cloying as every other deep insight that has been run into the shallows -- parental "blame" for infantile trauma, memetics, biological determinism (the "hardwired" argument), Free Enterprise, and the whole minefield of theology.

Real responsibility involves a tremendous complex of factors. Personal Responsibility™ developed as an outgrowth of the right-wing movement and its disdain for the complexities of law. They want something simple, that allows them to feel righteous anger and no guilt over a bad decision -- and the moral satisfaction they derive by screaming insults at the pregnant woman, bending the child over the chair, and affixing the electrodes to a condemned prisoner.

Don't be fooled; responsibility is philosophical idea that has been troubling the sleep of humanity since thinking became possible; Personal Responsibility™ is a bastard philosophy, a cheap moral liquor, and a right-wing Talking Point.

Be responsible. Make responsibility a part of your thinking. But avoid mass-marketed philosophies of slavery.

--bkl

but I'd ask what the hell he was doing over there in the first place, especially if he just went over there on a whim, like it was New Zealand vacation or something...

What exactly was his job? Who did he work for? and what did he do in the U.S. before going over there??

...Berg's mother, Suzanne Berg, said her son was in Iraq to help rebuild communication antennas. "He had this idea that he could help rebuild the infrastructure," she said. Michael Berg described himself as fervently anti-war, but said his son disagreed with him. "He was a Bush supporter," Berg said. "He looked at it as bringing democracy to a country that didn't have it."

Something is rotten here.

NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW.

They are trying to whip UP the TOOTHLESS WONDERS to support Raping and Killing the RAGHEADS (GI TERM which replaced SAND NIGGERS)



TAKE THIS SHOUTED "THE CONTRACT INTERROGATOR"


take this rubber glove up----------shouted cpl grainer

in West Chester?? I used to live there, it is decidedly RED. (Someone kept stealing my Gore/Lieberman yard sign...) Bu$h better start packing it in if Chesco swings Kerry, 43 doesn't stand a chance!

The family of Nick Berg, the 26-year-old American civilian beheaded in Iraq (news - web sites), said on Tuesday they were devastated by his death.

In a statement read on the lawn of the Berg family's home in West Chester, Pennsylvania, 15 miles west of Philadelphia, neighbor and friend John Hauser described Nick Berg as "a great kid."


"The Berg family is devastated by this loss," the statement said. "They want to extend their sympathy to other families who have also suffered. They are asking the army to expedite the release of Nick's body so they can make arrangements and put this behind them."


Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq beheaded Berg and vowed more killings in revenge for the "Satanic degradation" of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of U.S. troops, an Islamist Web site said on Tuesday.




http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040511/ts_nm/iraq_...

In a statement read on the lawn of the Berg family's home in West Chester, Pennsylvania, 15 miles west of Philadelphia, neighbor and friend John Hauser described Nick Berg as "a great kid."

John Hauser? From West Chester? Damn, that might be my old roommate! The link doesn't work... there a pic of him somewhere?

it's just turning into a cycle of violence, just like Israel/Palestine but on a bigger scale.

Michael Berg's complete statement. Surprise! Damn lie-beral media.

There are consequences to actions, and some of those consequences are events such as the unfortunate killing of Nick Berg (who I suspect was Jewish and was executed as Danny Pearle was in Pakistan).

Without duplicating Tinoire's excellent research on this topic, which is posted elsewhere in DU, I would like to know more about the circumstances regarding Berg's release from US custody and his nearly immediate capture by the alleged Al-Qaeda group. I would like to know why Berg was wearing an orange prison suit similar to the one the US uses at Guantanamo. I am suspicious that Berg may have been purposely turned to his eventual killers.

This is as good time as any to remember the stark warning that Pope John Paul II gave George Bush on the eve of the Iraq invasion:

Pope to Bush: Go into Iraq and you go without God
By CHB Staff and Wire Reports
Mar 5, 2003, 07:18

Pope John Paul II has a strong message for President George W. Bush: God is not on your side if you invade Iraq.

<snip>

Laghi came bearing the pope's message: A war would be a "defeat for humanity" and would be neither morally nor legally justified.

The Pope also questioned the President's statements invoking God's name as justification for the invasion.

"God is a neutral observer in the affairs of man," the Pope said. "Man cannot march into war and assume God will be at his side."

In Rome, the pope called for "common efforts to spare humanity another dramatic conflict."

The Vatican stands by its view that a pre-emptive strike on Iraq is immoral unless backed by the United Nations, Laghi said.

"It's illegal, it's unjust," Laghi told reporters after the session with Bush.

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi?archive=15&num=1883

,...they did NOT deserve this. Their "baby" did not deserve any of this. They did nothing wrong or horribly bad to deserve this :cry:

I stand by these people!!!!

I hope we can work to heal against all the additional FREEPER damage that is on these PATRIOT'S for DEMOCRACY doorsteps. :cry:

Or will those black-hearted fucking freepers mail swords rather than bulldozers to these people?

the media may treat them like Jessica Lynch after she outed the Pentagon in the end. I would rather they listened to this family's message; they see very clearly despite their grief. ;(