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--- Begin Message --- -Caveat Lector-NICK BERG OP GOES MAINSTREAM
MAY 29 , 2004.I print the article below, from the Sydney Morning Herald, to illustrate that much information on the Internet is making its way into the mainstream press. In this case, it�s the Nick Berg murder.
Of course, the article does not contain everything we�d like to see there, but the �spillover factor� is quite obvious.
Don�t imagine that I consider mainstream media pickups of Internet pieces a grand solution to the problems we�re facing. Far from it. But the lines are blurring.
If Berg had been killed during the Vietnam war, we probably would have learned about these anomalies 15 years later---if at all.
Here is the piece. Note the mention of Russian spoken during the videoed execution. Berg�s business parttner, Aziz K Aziz, had, years earlier, pled guilty to working with a Russian drug mob to distribute millions of vials of crack in the US:
Who killed Nick Berg?
May 29, 2004
Conspiracy theories about how the kidnapped American died in Iraq are flying around the world. Richard Neville explores the explanations.
Iraq in flames, Washington an object of disgust. What to do? At this pivotal moment, CNN and Fox News are tipped off to a clip of an American citizen being beheaded. The victim is a 26-year-old idealist from Pennsylvania, Nick Berg. Despite the perpetrators being masked, the vile deed is deemed the work of al-Qaeda.
The clip was first "discovered" on an Islamic website in Malaysia. Its Arabic title reads "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi shown slaughtering an American". al-Zarqawi is a 38-year-old Jordanian militant who fled to Iraq in 2001 after reportedly losing a leg in a US missile strike. al-Zarqawi's face is widely known and he credits himself with the deed, so why a mask?
The timing of the video was brilliant for the West. Media pundits judged the crime a deeper evil than the systemic torture of innocent Iraqis. But some people sensed a rat. But if it was not al-Qaeda, who? Surely not Uncle Sam. That's too dark, even for the CIA.
While this video shows a human body having its head chopped off, it does not necessarily portray an act of murder. Berg's headless body was found dumped on a Baghdad roadside on Saturday, May 8.
Three days later, the "live beheading" clip was uploaded from London to the Malaysian website http://www.al-ansar.biz. The statement in the video is signed with al-Zarqawi's name, dated May 11. After Fox News and CNN had downloaded the video, it disappeared from the site.
As no autopsy is available, little is known about the state of the body. No time of death, no forensic analysis. On April 6, a month before the discovery of the corpse, Berg had been released from custody. But whose custody?
Dan Senor, adviser to the US Presidential Envoy in Iraq, has said Berg was never held by the Americans. Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, the Coalition's deputy head of operations, claimed he was in the custody of Iraqi police from March 24 to April 6. However, the Iraqi police chief, Major-General Mohammed Khair al-Barhawi, told Associated Press "the Iraqi police never arrested the slain American".
Berg's family are certain his jailers were the US military. His father, Michael, had been told so by the FBI. He has produced an email from a US consular official in Baghdad, Beth Payne, confirming that his son was in the hands of the US. (Later, another official said this was an error.) On April 5 in the Philadelphia office of the US Supreme Court, the Berg family had launched an action against the US military for false imprisonment. The following day, Berg was released.
The issue of custody is significant; in his final moments on screen Berg is wearing an orange jumpsuit of the kind familiar from Guantanamo Bay. The official reasons for Berg's arrest were "lack of documentation" and "suspicious activities". He carried sensitive electronic equipment for which he lacked documents. In custody, he was visited three times by the FBI. Such interviews are bound to have been recorded but no transcripts have been produced.
After his release, Berg travelled to Baghdad and the $30-a-night Al-Fanar Hotel. A fellow hotel guest told Newsday that Berg recounted how Iraqi police had quickly handed him to US authorities in Mosul and that he had been held the entire time in a jail where his guards were US soldiers.
Berg was in Baghdad to win contracts for his family firm, Prometheus Methods Tower Service, a provider of communications facilities. He often "worked at night on a tower in the neighbourhood of Abu Ghraib", according to The New York Times.
The family last heard from him on April 9, when he said he was planning to leave Iraq via Kuwait as soon as it was safe. Berg was last seen walking with his bags the following day, apparently hoping to find his way through the turmoil engulfing the city and make it to the border.
On March 7, 2004, two weeks before his arrest in Mosul, an "enemies list" had been posted on a conservative website, FreeRepublic.com. The list was compiled from signatories to an anti-war petition, and its implied purpose was to encourage readers to harass those it named.
Berg's father was on that list, as was the family firm, Prometheus. This information may well have triggered the arrest of Berg in Iraq.
Berg's politics are not clear. His father, Michael, has described his son as a "staunch supporter" of US President George Bush. Friends said Nick believed he could help rebuild Iraq "one radio tower at a time". According to The New York Times, he was attracted to the Hebrew concept of tikkun olam - healing the world through social action.
The first few seconds of the video shows Berg sitting on a white plastic chair in an orange jumpsuit. He speaks directly to the camera in a relaxed way: "My name is Nick Berg ... I have a brother and sister, David and Sara. I live in Philadelphia." His white chair is identical to those in the photographs of the Abu Ghraib prison tortures, but such chairs are probably common in Iraq. It is highly likely that this segment is edited from the interrogation of Berg during his 13 days of custody. [!!! In custody of the Iraqi police or the US military? In either case, how did this segment get into the hands of his executioners???]
In the next scene, Berg is sitting on the floor with five masked figures standing behind him. We do not see the figures enter. Berg looks lifeless, though his body appears to make slight movements. A man reads a lengthy Arabic statement in a passionless monotone. He is identified as "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi", a Jordanian associate of Osama bin Laden who is tied to dozens of terrorist acts.
Yet a leaflet recently circulated in Falluja, by no means a reliable source, claims that al-Zarqawi was killed in the Sulaimaniya mountains of northern Iraq during a US bombing. A US military report last month has claimed al-Zarqawi was killed in the bombing of Falluja.
Also, the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, has said that al-Zarqawi was fitted with a prosthetic leg in a Baghdad hospital, yet the tape shows no evidence of a limp. CNN staff familiar with al-Zarqawi's voice have been quoted as saying the voice does not sound like his.
Among the many curiosities raised on the web about the fanatical five are:
� They are well-fed, fidgety, and reveal glimpses of white skin.
� Their Arabic is heavily accented (Russian, Jordanian, Egyptian).
� An aside in Russian had been translated as "do it quickly".
� One character wears wears bulky white tennis shoes.
� The man on the far left stands in the familiar "at ease" military posture.
� The men's scarves are worn and tied by people who "haven't a clue", says conspiracy theorist Hector Carreon, like actors in Hollywood movies.
� There is even a voice at the end that seems to ask in English, "How will it be done?" [http://www.aztlan.net/nick_berg_how_done.htm]
None of this proves a grand conspiracy, but it does raise questions. In the final segment of the tape, Berg is thrown to the ground, but doesn't move. During the decapitation, starting at the front of the throat, there is little sign of blood. The scream is wildly out of sync, sounds female, and is obviously dubbed.
Dr John Simpson, executive director for surgical affairs at the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, told Ritt Goldstein of the Asia Times, "I would have thought that all the people in the vicinity would have been covered in blood, in a matter of seconds ... if it [the video] was genuine".
Simpson agrees with other experts who find it highly probable that Berg had died before his decapitation.
But there is still the problem of Berg's slight body movements while sitting on the floor, before the beheading. According to a blogger (internet diarist), Nick Possum, "this footage was subsequently modified frame by frame to make Berg's body move very occasionally". Apparently, this can be achieved with "commonly available software". [http://www.brushtail.com.au/nick_berg_hypothesis.html]
Possum believes "the available evidence surrounding the case suggests that it was a 'black operation' by US psychological warfare specialists ... to provide the media with a moral relativity argument to counter the adverse publicity over torture at Abu Ghraib". The use of FBI footage in the opening sequence, if confirmed, suggests the involvement of high-level US Government operatives.
I do not know who killed Nick Berg, or how he died. But there's something fishy about this video.
In the end, the question is: who killed Nick Berg, and why?
End of Sydney Morning Herald article.
............
STRANGER AND STRANGER: THE NICK BERG OP
MAY 29, 2004. Here is a boggling May 17 article from the Philadelphia Daily News that spells out still more mysterious Nick Berg connections.
Was Nick Berg working for the US---for the FBI or the CIA? Why was his associate, Aziz K Aziz, treated so well by US law enforcement authorities?
I include my comments in brackets as the article below unfolds.
Posted on Mon, May. 17, 2004
BERG MET WITH SHADY IRAQI By WILLIAM BUNCH [EMAIL PROTECTED]
There's another strange new twist to the saga of Nick Berg and his final days of [in] Iraq before his savage videotaped beheading. Berg teamed up in Baghdad with an ex-Philadelphia man who led a controversial group of Iraqi expatriates encouraged by the U.S. government - even as he faced deportation for his role in Russian-emigre crime ring selling millions of vials used for crack. [Does this sound like a classic case of calling off the dogs because of a "higher purpose?" Details on the ex-Philadelphia man's velvet-glove handling by US law enforcement below.]
Aziz Kadoory Aziz, also known as Aziz al-Taee, hooked up earlier this year with the 26-year-old West Chester man [Berg] to start a small company called Shirikat Abraj Babil, or Babylon Towers Co., that would install, inspect and repair telecommunications and utility towers.
In interviews with several news organizations in Baghdad, Aziz claimed he may have been the last friend to speak with Berg before his kidnapping and beheading by terrorists possibly linked to the al Qaeda network. The radio-tower contractor [Berg] had come back to Baghdad after a 13-day detainment in Mosul, only to disappear again on April 10.
Aziz said that on April 10 Berg "surprised me by calling me at 9 or 10, to say that he found some friend to travel with to Jordan." Berg said he was en route, but Aziz doesn't know who he was with or what kind of vehicle they were driving. "He said they were nice people. I told him to have a nice trip." [Was Berg captured for the last time as he was actually on the way to Jordan, or was Berg feeding his friend a cover story? If the latter, was Berg already captured and acting under orders, under duress?]
After living in Philadelphia for two decades, Aziz arrived in Baghdad sometime last year. A friend said he left for Iraq before the government moved on the deportation case.
Here in America, Aziz was the highly visible spokesman for a group he'd founded called the Iraqi American Council and appeared frequently on major media outlets like Fox News Channel calling for the military ouster of Saddam Hussein. [You don't get that kind of access to the media on this topic, unless you're getting the seal of approval from some agency of the US government...and that seal obviously was offered because Aziz's organization itself had US government sponsorship...while, during this period, Aziz had run afoul of US law enforcement---more than once.]
Aziz' outfront role also included speaking at pre-war, pro-troop rallies. It continued even after it was reported the inner-city electronic entrepreneur had pleaded guilty in the crack-vial case in 1994 and later had legal run-ins involving stolen computers and bootlegged CDs. [Aziz was protected---for that "higher purpose."]
His partnership with Berg [were the meeting and the partnership arranged?] deepens the web of intrigue surrounding Berg's time in Iraq, his detainment by U.S.-backed authorities, his disapperance and his videotaped beheading by masked thugs claiming revenge for the Abu Ghraib prisoner torture.
Before traveling to Iraq twice this year, Berg had been investigated by the FBI because in 1999 - while at the University of Oklahoma - an associate of jailed Sept. 11 suspect Zacarias Moussaoui had obtained Berg's e-mail password. Attorney General John Ashcroft said Berg was cleared in that probe, but the apparent coincidence may have prolonged the Mosul detainment of Berg, who was interviewed three times by FBI agents before he was released on April 6. [Or Berg was getting briefed by the FBI on his role in some operation---and was soon to be doublecrossed, as a patsy, because his hastily planned death was a propaganda countermeasure to the release of the prisoner-torture photos.]
Officials have told the Daily News that Berg also aroused suspicion because he was an unescorted American carrying a copy of the Koran and what they called "anti-Semitic" literature. Berg, who is Jewish, also told friends that his passport contained an Israel visitor's stamp. [Clashing cover-story props---he's "pro Islam" while having that Israel visitor's stamp on his passport...of course we haven't seen what Berg was actually carrying, as opposed to what "officials" said he was carrying.]
Now, add the name of Aziz K. Aziz to Berg's strange Iraqi odyssey. Efforts to contact Aziz in Baghdad by phone and e-mail over the weekend were unsuccessful.
Aziz told the Associated Press that Berg had contacted him by e-mail sometime after attending a two-day conference in Virginia [near CIA headquarters?] on business opportunities in Iraq last December. Aziz agreed to give him some space in an office he had in Baghdad to form a partnership seeking communications work. [Two partners working for the CIA?]
Berg refers to Aziz in an e-mail to friends on Jan. 18. "I've found a fairly competent and reliable office manager," he wrote. "He's actually been living in Philadelphia the last 20 years and just came back [to Iraq] - so he's similarly out of his element." [Does Berg know about Aziz's problems with law enforcement in the US and their easy solution? Both men are from the same US locale. Do we assume Berg got Aziz' name at that Virginia conference?]
Berg's first efforts to win radio-tower repair work were unsuccessful, and he was robbed on the streets of Baghdad."I was always pressuring him to keep a low profile, but he ignored all my caution and advice," Aziz said. "Berg kept a high profile, wandering around late at night or took public transport. Sometimes he got upset, looked at me in such a way, or said, 'You're not my dad' or 'I'm an adult, I can make my own decision.' " [Is Berg a classic patsy in the making, way over his head, operating on some puerile and misguided fantasy that his handlers will protect him, that he is safe wherever he goes because "he's doing the right thing?"]
Aziz said that Berg left his equipment with him [in Iraq] during a short trip back to the U.S. When he came back, the two spent an hour climbing tall buildings at Abu Ghraib, site of the infamous prison. [!!!!!] Aziz said they re-recorded measurements that were in his stolen notebook. [So Berg was actually at the torture prison, where some people believe he was eventually murdered. In fact, he was there twice. After the first visit, his notebook was stolen.]
The next day, Aziz said, Berg called to say that he was going to the northern city of Mosul, where the brother of Berg's uncle lives. "He invited me to go with him, but I declined because it was dangerous," said Aziz.
It's not known whether Aziz ever told Berg of his controversial past. In 1993, about a decade after fleeing Saddam's Iraq for America, Aziz was in the electronics business when he was one of 25 people charged with distributing some 100 million crack vials on the East Coast.
Prosecutors said that Aziz, who lived in Northeast Philadelphia, was tied to a network run by a Soviet immigrant named Valery Sigal. Most in the ring were immigrants from Russia or the former Eastern Bloc. [Some reports state Russian was briefly spoken on the Berg beheading tape.]
Aziz claimed he didn't know the vials were going to drug dealers. but he pled guilty. He was sentenced to three years of probation, fined $3,000, and forced to forfeit $17,673 in profits. [Seems like Aziz caught quite a break from the prosecution.]
He was arrested again in May 2001, on charges that the chain of electronics stores he owns in Philadelphia was selling counterfeited compact discs. A judge dismissed that case for lack of evidence last March. [Another break.] The Inquirer also reported he received probation in a 1997 case for selling stolen computers to undercover cops. [And another break.] Current records show he owns a cell-phone firm called Page One Communications with a number of outlets in Philadelphia.
Aziz went by several names in Philadelphia. Sometimes called "Joe Aziz," he started calling himself Aziz al-Taee in the late 1990s, around the time he formed the Iraqi American Council. He said al-Taee was his tribal name and - in speaking out against Saddam - he was worried about relatives in Baghdad.The group has an address in Washington's Virginia suburbs [how close to CIA headquarters?] and a national board of directors, but there were differing claims of how many members or how much clout the group really had.
In December 2002, another key member of the Iraqi American Council - a California engineer named Bassam Ridha Al-Hulsaini - was reportedly one of 15 Iraqis flown to Washington by the State Department for two days of "media training" under a project known as Future of Iraq. A couple of months later, al-Hulsaini addressed a "pro-troops" rally in San Francisco, declaring that "The Iraq people are waiting for this liberation."It's not clear whether Aziz received "media training," but the handsome, nattily dressed ex-pat, now 40, probably didn't need it. He addressed similar rallies in Valley Forge, St. Louis and Washington, where he claimed Hussein's henchmen killed both his cousin and brother-in-law.
The rallies were launched by Clear Channel syndicated talk-radio host Glenn Beck, and the media giant sponsored many of them. [So Clear Channel works as a propaganda wing for the white House war.] A friend and fellow council member - Ahmad Kuba of Florida - said yesterday that Aziz left for Baghdad last summer, before any deportation proceedings began.
"There are no cell phones in Iraq," Aziz told a reporter in May 2003. "That's the way to the future."
Now, Aziz is now getting publicity for monitoring the final cell-phone calls of his slain partner. He said this weekend he understands Berg's phone was used as recently as April 19, and that three calls were made that day to Jordan, to the United Arab Emirates and to a local number. "He could still have been alive."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
end of Philly News article
My comment: All this must be some fabulous coincidence. Take three Law and Orders and don't call me in the morning.
JON RAPPOPORT www.nomorefakenews.com
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Please let us stay on topic and be civil.-Home Page- www.cia-drugs.org
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