Al-Zarqawi killed, Berg beheaded... 2004, 2006, ....?????

[Guest guest]

It's damnably decent of these terrorist types to die... even repeatedly... and

to send just the rightly worded tapes and letters just when our leaders need

them to... even taking the " credit " for grisly acts of beheading a reporter who

may have uncovered more info than our gov'ts. could allow to be known (like

nuclear deals with Pakistan, Afghanistan... poppies perhaps???)... It's damnably

decent of them, is all I can say! I can't even get my dog to perform on cue this

well.

----

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 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?

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/28/1085641717320.html

 

Iraq militants claim al-Zarqawi is dead Al Qaida-linked extremist suspected

of planning attacks Updated: 6:31 a.m. ET March 4, 2004

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BAGHDAD, Iraq - A Jordanian extremist suspected of bloody suicide attacks in

Iraq was killed some time ago in U.S. bombing and a letter outlining plans for

fomenting sectarian war is a forgery, a statement allegedly from an insurgent

group west of the capital said.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in the Sulaimaniyah mountains of northern Iraq

“during the American bombing there,” according to a statement circulated in

Fallujah this week and signed by the “Leadership of the Allahu Akbar

Mujahedeen.”

There was no way to verify the authenticity of the statement, one of many

leaflets put out by a variety of groups taking part in the anti-U.S. resistance.

The statement did not say when al-Zarqawi was supposedly killed, but U.S. jets

bombed strongholds of the extremist Ansar al-Islam in the north last April as

Saddam Hussein’s regime was collapsing.

It said al-Zarqawi was unable to escape the bombing because of his artificial

leg.

Before the Iraq conflict began last March, U.S. Secretary of State Colin

Powell said al-Zarqawi received hospital treatment in Baghdad after fleeing

Afghanistan. U.S. intelligence sources said he apparently was fitted with an

artificial leg.

The statement said the “fabricated al-Zarqawi memo” has been used by the

U.S.-run coalition “to back up their theory of a civil war” in Iraq.

In February, the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq made public an intercepted letter

it said was written by al-Zarqawi to al-Qaida leaders, detailing a strategy of

spectacular attacks to derail the planned June 30 handover of power to the

Iraqis. U.S. officials say al-Zarqawi may have been involved in some of the

series of suicide bombings this year in Iraq.

“The truth is, al-Qaida is not present in Iraq,” the Mujahedeen statement

said. Though many Arabs entered the country to fight U.S. troops, only a small

number remain, the group said.

A little over a year ago, Jordanian authorities named al-Zarqawi as the

mastermind behind the October 2002 murder of Laurence Foley, a 60-year-old

administrator of U.S. aid programs in Jordan.

In a German court last year, Shadi Abdellah, a Palestinian on trial for

allegedly plotting to attack Berlin’s Jewish Museum and a Jewish-owned disco,

testified he was working for al-Zarqawi. He said they met in Afghanistan.

German authorities have reportedly said they believe al-Zarqawi was appointed

by al-Qaida’s leadership to arrange attacks in Europe.

Moroccan government sources said a group blamed for bombings last May that

killed 45 people in Casablanca got its orders from al-Zarqawi. In Turkey,

officials said he was believed to have played a role in bombings that killed 63

at two synagogues, the British consulate and a British bank in Istanbul in

November.

© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be

published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4446084/

 

Leaflet Says Extremist Al-Zarqawi Killed

 

By LEE KEATH

The Associated Press

Thursday, March 4, 2004; 10:10 AM BAGHDAD, Iraq - A Jordanian extremist

suspected of bloody suicide attacks in Iraq was killed some time ago in U.S.

bombings and a letter outlining plans for fomenting sectarian war is a forgery,

a leaflet signed by a dozen alleged insurgent groups said. A senior U.S.

official denied that claim.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in the Sulaimaniyah mountains of northern Iraq

" during the American bombing there, " according to the eight-page leaflet

circulated this week in Fallujah, a city 30 miles west of Baghdad that is a

hotbed of anti-U.S. insurgency activity.

There was no way to verify the authenticity of the leaflet. It was signed by

12 groups, including several cited by U.S. officials in the past including the

Ansar al-Sunna Army and Muhammad's Army.

It said al-Zarqawi was unable to escape the bombing because of his artificial

leg.

The leaflet did not say when al-Zarqawi was supposedly killed, but U.S. jets

bombed strongholds of the extremist Ansar al-Islam in the north last April as

Saddam Hussein's regime was collapsing.

A senior U.S. official said the claim al-Zarqawi is dead was false and that

the United States had information showing the Jordanian militant was alive well

after the bombing campaign.

In al-Zarqawi's hometown in Jordan, an associate of his family told The

Associated Press that according to the family, al-Zarqawi had been in contact

with his mother until four months ago, when the communication ended after police

came to question the mother.

In a telephone call Thursday to the family home, a woman answered and said,

" He's not in contact with us. We don't know anything about him. Don't call

again. " She then hung up.

Before the Iraq conflict began last March, Secretary of State Colin Powell

said al-Zarqawi received hospital treatment in Baghdad after fleeing

Afghanistan.

U.S. intelligence sources said he apparently was fitted with an artificial

leg. He was believed to have taken refuge in northern Iraq before the U.S.-led

invasion, and then possibly moved on to Iran. It was widely believed that he

then was still coordinating closely with Ansar al-Islam in Kurdish areas.

In February, the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq made public an intercepted letter

it said was written by al-Zarqawi to al-Qaida leaders, detailing a strategy of

spectacular attacks to derail the planned June 30 handover of power to the

Iraqis. U.S. officials say al-Zarqawi may have been involved in some of the

series of suicide bombings this year in Iraq.

The leaflet in Fallujah said the " fabricated al-Zarqawi memo " has been used by

the U.S.-run coalition " to back up their theory of a civil war " in Iraq.

" The truth is, al-Qaida is not present in Iraq, " the leaflet said. Though many

Arabs entered the country to fight U.S. troops, only a small number remain, the

group said.

" We had to help hundreds of them leave for their own protection because they

were only a burden on the resistance. It was difficult to hide them " from Iraqi

informers cooperating with U.S. forces, it said.

Leaflets by " mujahedeen " groups allegedly involved in fighting the U.S.

occupation are distributed frequently in Fallujah and other cities of the " Sunni

Triangle, " the region north and west of Baghdad where guerrilla activity is

highest. U.S. officials have said Muhammad's Army may be an umbrella groups of

former Iraqi intelligence and security agents and that Ansar al-Sunna Army may

be an offshoot of Ansar al-Islam.

A little over a year ago, Jordanian authorities named al-Zarqawi as the

mastermind behind the 2002 murder of Laurence Foley, a 60-year-old administrator

of U.S. aid programs in Jordan.

Al-Zarqawi was born Ahmad Fadeel Nazzal al-Khalayleh in the Jordanian city of

Zarqa, an industrial city 17 miles northeast of Amman from which he took his nom

de guerre.

The owner of a car repair shop in Zarqa said he was told by al-Zarqawi's

nephew that al-Zarqawi had been in contact with his mother, Umm Sayel. In their

last communication four months ago, al-Zarqawi called his mother at a Jordanian

hospital where she was undergoing surgery, the garage owner told AP on condition

of anonymity.

The phone was tapped and police soon arrive to question Umm Sayel, and since

then al-Zarqawi has not restored contact, the man said he was told by the

nephew.

He would not give the nephew's name or disclose his whereabouts. The AP

repeatedly has tried to speak with al-Zarqawi's family.

Al-Zarqawi, believed to be in his 30s, left Jordan for Afghanistan in the late

1980s. He later returned and in 1992 was jailed 7 1/2 years for militant

activities in the kingdom. He left Jordan in August 1999 for Pakistan.

In a German court last year, Shadi Abdellah, a Palestinian on trial for

allegedly plotting to attack Berlin's Jewish Museum and a Jewish-owned disco,

testified he was working for al-Zarqawi. He said they met in Afghanistan.

German authorities have reportedly said they believe al-Zarqawi was appointed

by al-Qaida's leadership to arrange attacks in Europe.

Moroccan government sources said a group blamed for bombings in May that

killed 45 people in Casablanca got its orders from al-Zarqawi. In Turkey,

officials said he was believed to have played a role in bombings that killed 63

at two synagogues, the British consulate and a British bank in Istanbul in

November.

---

AP writer Jamal Halaby in Amman, Jordan, contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29777-2004Mar4.html

 

Berg beheading: No way, say medical experts

By Ritt Goldstein

May 22, 2004

 

American businessman Nicholas Berg's body was found on May 8 near a Baghdad

overpass; a video of his supposed decapitation death by knife appeared on an

alleged al-Qaeda-linked website (www.al-ansar.biz) on May 11. But according to

what both a leading surgical authority and a noted forensic death expert

separately told Asia Times Online, the video depicting the decapitation appears

to have been staged.

 

" I certainly would need to be convinced it [the decapitation video] was

authentic, " Dr John Simpson, executive director for surgical affairs at the

Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, said from New Zealand. Echoing Dr

Simpson's criticism, when this journalist asked forensic death expert Jon

Nordby, PhD and fellow of the American Board of Medicolegal Death Investigators,

whether he believed the Berg decapitation video had been " staged " , Nordby

replied: " Yes, I think that's the best explanation of it. "

 

Questions of when the video's footage was taken, and the time elapsed between

the shooting of the video's segments, were raised by both experts, reflecting a

portion of the broader and ongoing video controversy. Nordby, speaking to Asia

Times Online from Washington state, noted: " We don't know how much time wasn't

filmed, " adding that " there's no way of knowing whether ... footage is

contemporaneous with the footage that follows " .

 

While the circumstances surrounding both the video and Nick Berg's last days

have been the source of substantive speculation, both Simpson and Nordby

perceived it as highly probable that Berg had died some time prior to his

decapitation. A factor in this was an apparent lack of the " massive " arterial

bleeding such an act initiates.

 

" I would have thought that all the people in the vicinity would have been

covered in blood, in a matter of seconds ... if it was genuine, " said Simpson.

Notably, the act's perpetrators appeared far from so. And separately Nordby

observed: " I think that by the time they're ... on his head, he's already dead. "

 

Providing another basis for their findings, in the course of such an assault, an

individual's autonomic nervous system would react, typically doing so strongly,

with the body shaking and jerking accordingly. And while Nordby noted that " they

rotated and moved the head " , shifting vertebrae that should have initiated such

actions, Simpson said he " certainly didn't perceive any movements at all " in

response to such efforts.

 

During the period when Berg's captors filmed the decapitation sequence,

circumstances indicate that he had already been dead " a quite uncertain length

of time, but more than ... however long the beheading took " , Simpson stated.

Both Simpson and Nordby also noted the difficulty in providing analysis based on

the video, the inherent limitations presented by this. But both also felt that

Berg had seemed drugged.

 

A particularly significant point in the video sequence occurred as Berg's

captors attacked him, bringing the supposedly fatal knife to bear. " The way that

they pulled him over, they could have used a dummy at that point, " reflected

Simpson regarding what the video portrayed. Separately, Nordby said Berg does

not " appear to register any sort of surprise or any change in his facial

expression when he's grabbed and twisted over, and they start to bring this

weapon into use " .

 

Subsequently, Nordby said it was likely that the filming sequence was

manipulated at the point immediately preceding this, allowing Berg's corpse to

be used for the decapitation sequence. Nordby also emphasized that the video

" raises more questions than it answers " , with the most fundamental questions of

" who are you, and how did you die " , being impossible to answer from it. But

broad speculation exists regarding a number of factors surrounding both Berg's

death and the video, and its timing in regard to revelations of US prison

atrocities.

 

In a May 13 article, the Arabic newsgroup Aljazeera reported that a Dubai-based

Reuters journalist first broke the story, " but while Fox News, CNN and the BBC "

were able to secure the video from the " Arabic-only website " that hosted it,

Aljazeera was unable to locate it. And also on May 13, the Associated Press (AP)

reported that the US Central Intelligence Agency had determined that Abu Musab

al-Zarqawi was the individual who beheaded Berg.

 

Since Secretary of State Colin Powell's United Nations presentation of February

5, 2003, al-Zarqawi has been portrayed as the single most dangerous element

facing the Bush administration's " war on terror " . Powell's UN presentation has

since been widely accepted as empty; nevertheless, al-Zarqawi appears to have

surpassed even Osama bin Laden as the administration's No 1 terror target. And

on May 15, Brigadier-General Mark Kimmitt, the Coalition Provisional Authority's

chief Iraq military spokesman, declared that al-Zarqawi will be eventually

caught, though that may prove particularly difficult.

 

On March 4, Brigadier-General David Rodriguez of the Joint Chiefs of staff

revealed that the Pentagon didn't have " direct evidence of whether he's

[al-Zarqawi] alive or dead " , providing commentary on the nature of prior

" evidence " linking al-Zarqawi to attacks and bombings. But that same day, AP

reported that an Iraqi resistance group claimed al-Zarqawi had been killed the

April prior in the US bombing of northern Iraq.

 

Speaking off the record, intelligence community sources have previously said

they believe it " very likely " that al-Zarqawi is indeed long dead. Such a fact

makes al-Zarqawi's alleged killing of Berg difficult to reconcile, and there has

been broad speculation that blaming al-Zarqawi is an administration ploy.

Further anomalies surrounding Berg's death have fueled added speculation.

 

According to e-mails sent from a US consular officer in Baghdad, Beth Payne, to

the Berg family, Nick Berg was being held in Iraq " by the US military in Mosul " .

A May 13 AP report notes that a US State Department spokesperson subsequently

said this was untrue, an error, and that Berg was being held by Iraqi

authorities. But another May 13 AP report quoted " police chief Major-General

Mohammed Khair al-Barhawi " as claiming that reports of Iraqi police having held

Berg were " baseless " .

 

And Berg is seen on the beheading videotape in what appears to be US military

prison-issue clothing, sitting in what appears to be a US military-type white

chair, virtually identical to those photographed as used at Abu Ghraib prison.

However, the taking of hostages has occurred in the region, and beheadings are

not unheard of.

 

According to a February 2003 report by Human Rights Watch (HRW), on September

23, 2001, radical Islamists captured a group of 25 Kurdish fighters in the Iraqi

village of Kheli Hama. " Some prisoners' throats had been slit, while others had

been beheaded, " HRW reported, noting that the television station KurdSat had

broadcast pictures of the dead that September 26. The report also noted that a

videotape " apparently filmed " by those committing the atrocities had been found.

 

The strict Islamist community in Iraq denied that the acts were committed by

their people, stating that the incident was fabricated.

 

Additional reports of beheadings also exist, with the victims usually noted as

killed with a bullet before the beheading occurs. But HRW's report also raised

an issue that the Berg video's makers, and Berg's father, both raised: prisoner

exchange.

 

HRW noted that Iraq's radical Islamists did pursue exchanges of captives, and

the Berg video specifically noted that his captors claimed they were killing him

as their attempts to exchange Berg had been rebuffed by US authorities. Berg's

father, Michael, has pressed the administration of US President George W Bush as

regards what the facts of this allegation are, with the administration denying

any knowledge that such a trade was offered. And added questions still exist.

 

Because Iraq's radical Islamists speak in a particular manner, and live by a

closely proscribed code, apparent contradictions between these ways and the way

Berg's captors appeared has generated speculation. Some observers have

speculated on the possibility that the individuals weren't native Arabic

speakers. Conversely, it is reported that in Saudi Arabia, where Sharia law

allows for beheadings in cases of severe crimes, the condemned is heavily

drugged with tranquilizers prior to the execution, reportedly leaving them in a

state similar to that which Berg appeared in during parts of the video.

 

Again, Nordby emphasized that the video " raises more questions than it answers " .

 

Ritt Goldstein is an American investigative political journalist based in

Stockholm. His work has appeared in broadsheets such as Australia's Sydney

Morning Herald, Spain's El Mundo and Denmark's Politiken, as well as with the

Inter Press Service (IPS), a global news agency.

 

(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact

content for information on our sales and syndication policies.)

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FE22Ak03.html

 

The war of the snuff videos

May 13, 2004

 

Also in this series :

Bush against Bush (Apr 30, '04)

Kerry, the Yankee muchacho (May 7, '04)

You have the right to be misinformed (May 8, '04)

An American tragedy (May 11, '04)

In the heart of the Bushland (May 12, '04)

 

HOUSTON - It will get worse. A secrecy-obsessed Pentagon is in total disarray.

Republican Senator John McCain is in favor of releasing all of Abu Ghraib's S & M

stash right now, photos and videos.

 

Houston was under " tornado alert " this Tuesday. This was not merely a

meteorological metaphor. Conservative Texas is getting sick and tired of it all.

Some blame it on " the whole movement of our culture towards decadence " . Others,

like Randy Johnson, a gentleman from Houston, are more ... proactive: " Just take

the camera away from the troops and replace them with 9mm pistols. " Retired

generals are in panic, convinced that Iraq may become, simultaneously, an ally

of Iran and an al-Qaeda paradise.

 

The upcoming snuff videos from Abu Ghraib found their counterpart in the snuff

video on the Islamic website Muntada al-Ansar of five masked men beheading

civilian contractor Nick Berg from Philadelphia after warning George W Bush he

will regret the day he stepped into Iraq. This snuff video even comes with a

title: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi Shown Slaughtering an American. Al-Qaeda-linked

al-Zarqawi, with a US$10 million bounty on his head, may be the only real

al-Qaeda commander active in Iraq. The Pentagon had at least three clear chances

to nab him before the war. It did not - because he was one of the justifications

for the war.

 

The war of the snuff videos may have deadly repercussions. This hardcore jihad

propaganda stunt - if it's real - may encourage different sectors of the Iraqi

resistance to join, to the delight of Washington neo-cons who want an all-out

clash of civilizations-cum-total war. The majority of Americans don't seem to

have the stomach to go primal, but the impatience already expressed by many

people in Texas may eventually signal the go-ahead for total war without mercy.

 

One from the heart

The hyperactive US corporate media salivate at the prospect of figuring out what

Washington neo-cons are up to next. " Superb Job " Secretary on the Defensive

Donald Rumsfeld insists " the military, not the media, discovered these abuses " ,

trying to imply that the Pentagon was always on top of it. It was, but maybe not

the way he intended. Rumsfeld hates the fact that it was a journalist, Seymour

Hersh of the New Yorker, who broke the Abu Ghraib story. And Hersh is sure the

buck stops at Rumsfeld.

 

Serious questions have not been answered. Since his Pentagon " told the world " of

an investigation on Abu Ghraib last January, Rumsfeld never bothered to tell

Bush or the Armed Services Committee about the possibility of Americans

practicing torture. Rumsfeld never ordered one of his countless aides to read

the report by Major-General Antonio Taguba and come up with some solutions.

Rumsfeld himself sanctioned the use of private contractors who were involved in

the Abu Ghraib abuses, so he should know what they were up to.

 

Last year in the Sunni triangle, a number of sheikhs told this correspondent

they knew experts from Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's intelligence

apparatus were passing prison interrogation techniques to the Americans. These

consultants were used by the Pentagon exactly because they were not respecting

the Geneva Conventions or even Iraqi justice - since the country was occupied

anyway. So it was no-holds-barred territory, with US commanders and soldiers

totally shielded from any intrusion.

 

Sixty-four percent of Americans believe that Abu Ghraib was an isolated case -

subscribing to the official Pentagon spin. It would have to be a Pentagon

insider to provide the killer evidence capable of convincing Americans that

Rumsfeld and the Pentagon civilian leadership have been acting as if they were

one of the rogue regimes they despise - in total violation of international law.

 

Rumsfeld's departure as a pugnacious sacrificial lamb could be prevented by the

White House finding the ultimate tactic for the perfect public relations

strategy, an equation between cost-benefit and the polls. According to the

latest CNN-Gallup poll, 46 percent approve and 51 percent disapprove of Bush on

Iraq. Election-wise, Bush has 48 percent and Democratic rival John Kerry 47

percent. But CNN does not stress that among registered voters Kerry has jumped 6

points ahead of Bush.

 

Vice President Dick Cheney has all but ordered Congress to " get off his back "

(Rumsfeld's), a call to arms dutifully followed by the oil-oiled neo-con

propaganda machine. Rumsfeld also said everybody at the Pentagon is " heartsick " .

In a hilarious twist of fate, this happened the same day that Cheney's own heart

was proclaimed by his doctor to be " functioning properly " .

 

One, two, three, fire

The chattering classes are divided between the fire-Rumsfeld group and the

" loyal " opposition - Democrats and moderate Republicans who want to see the

neo-cons in the Bush administration back in the wilderness but who also want the

United States to restore at least a measure of its badly damaged credibility.

What we might call the Revolt of the Generals was expressed by the now-iconic

editorial of the Army Times: " This was not just a failure of leadership at the

local command level. This was a failure that ran straight to the top.

Accountability here is essential - even if that means relieving top leaders from

duty in a time of war. "

 

The war of the snuff videos will keep the Abu Ghraib S & M on media red alert,

with the networks hysterically falling over themselves to come up with any

damage-control euphemism, such as referring to the S & M as " inappropriate sexual

behavior " . The wall-to-wall cover is very bad news for Bush and potential good

news for the still-in-deep-slumber Kerry campaign.

 

No matter what happens next, 32 states have already decided how to vote next

November. Eighteen are swing states. People like former Democratic pollster Pat

Cadell are stressing that Kerry " has to take the high road " , has to tell

everyone in these 18 states what he's actually planning to do, considering that

roughly 50 percent of Americans in most polls are now saying the country is on

the wrong track. But compare it with another amazing statistic: no less than 49

percent of Democrats are still saying that Kerry straddles the issues. Cadell

insists that Kerry must tell voters: Bush was indeed a good leader after

September 11, 2001, but then he collapsed because of Iraq and his tax cuts for

the rich.

 

Bush keeping Rumsfeld in command, in terms of US credibility in Iraq, the Middle

East and the world of Islam, would be the 21st-century equivalent of the

medieval black plague. Two in three Americans may support Rumsfeld at the

moment, according to a University of Pennsylvania poll, but the support is bound

to drop dramatically after the war of the snuff videos.

 

And now for the sacrificial lamb

Republican Senator James Inhofe told the Senate Armed Services Committee, " These

prisoners, they're murderers, they're terrorists, they're insurgents, and many

of them probably have American blood on their hands, and here we're concerned

about the treatment of those individuals. " The Red Cross, in its February 2004

report, is adamant: Up to 90 percent of the prisoners in Iraq were arrested by

mistake.

 

General Taguba's comprehensive 53-page report on prison abuse in Abu Ghraib, " a

very good job " in the words of Senator McCain, stops the buck at the

brigade-commander level. Taguba in essence says this was an individual, not

institutional, failure. He does not mention that Major-General Geoffrey Miller,

former Guantanamo supremo, wanted to " Gitmoize " Abu Ghraib, employing hardcore

methods widely condemned by the Red Cross and Amnesty International since early

2002. Pentagon critics insist it goes all the way up to Lieutenant-General

Ricardo Sanchez, the top commander on the ground in Iraq, and the whole Pentagon

leadership. Even Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, daggers pointed, wants

(high) heads to roll.

 

But how to make the Iraq S & M story go away? The Bush administration would have

to ignore it. This is now absolutely impossible. Abu Ghraib is another round in

the classic case study of the Bush administration vs world public opinion (the

most famous previous round was certainly February 15, 2003, when more than 10

million people around the world demonstrated in the streets against the

preemptive war on Iraq). It was world opinion uproar over Abu Ghraib that forced

Bush to go public and in an extra-mild way denounce the Pentagon. Mainstream US

media were not willing to go all the way with such an embarrassing story in time

of war.

 

Bush going public meant the official go-ahead for the porno deluge. One more

historical irony: Bush couldn't care less for world opinion ( " focus groups " , in

his own words) and America's image in the world, but it is world opinion that

now has backed him into a very tight corner. The only strategy left - repeated

ad nauseam by White House, Pentagon and neo-con think-tanks ( " we should not

abandon the oppressed throughout the Middle East " , etc) is to proclaim one's

shock - and disgusted awe.

 

But it all comes back full circle: Who will be offered as the proverbial

sacrificial lamb (or wolf) so corporate media may declare this scandal

officially over? Until then, it's the war of the snuff videos.

 

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" Respect means listening until everyone has been heard and understood, only

then is there a possibility of " Balance and Harmony " the goal of Indian

Spirituality. " Dave Chief, Grandfather of Red Dog