leejo

There is a big difference between combat deaths and beheading a captive non-combatant like a goat. The Geneva conventions, our laws, and just about every other nations' laws make a clear distinction between the two.

I would agree that the proper response is to suck it up and continue with the grim work, neither angry nor frightened.

Zebra

I'm not trying to sound callous, but non-combatants routinely die in war zones, and dead is dead regardless of the method. The only differences here are the emotional impact and media exposure, both of which are far more important to the perpetrators than killing one American who posed absolutely no threat to them.

fr1j0l3

you hit the nail on the head cing.

other clues:

white sneakers on the guy on the right
white chair also seen in abu grhaib prison photos
why would someone cover their face, AND reveal their identity?

leejo

The issue is about the action, not the results. There is a huge moral difference between the intentional targeting and murder of non-combatants and the accidental deaths that do occur in modern urban battlefields. I would add that our enemy has chosen their urban battlefield precisely because it increases the number of civilian casualties.

Our soldiers die because we make a conscious decision to avoid killing innocent people if at all possible. For example, instead of levelling Falluja, we ordered platoons and companies to engage the enemy at close range and at great personal peril and even at the cost of their lives.

Our enemy uses civilians as cover and targets cleaning ladies and civilian contractors for death.

To ignore the moral gulf between the two sides' actions is absurd.

Zebra

Who's ignoring the moral gulf between the two sides?

leejo

That, and the gaping moral gulf.

Does a gulf gape? Lord, soon I'll be saying things like "slippery slope" and "it's all relative".

CingularDuality

Well, that's my point. I think most American's are being manipulated. I don't believe that we saw somebody die in that video. I don't believe those terrorists are who they say they are.

The scary part is that I don't know who would do such a thing. Actually, the really scary part is that I do, but I just have a hard time admitting it...

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Zebra

No, no. Nick Berg would be just as dead, and his murderers would still be murderers, if he'd been shot by a sniper, but you sure wouldn't known his name. I could probably say the same if he'd been killed in a roadside bombing or hit in a mortar attack.

You know what you know because the terrorists wanted you to know. They calculated their methods and used the media to have the effect they wanted to have on you. They got more mileage out of killing one American than we could get from winning ten battles and killing 1000 insurgents.

Zebra

What? A vast Zionist conspiracy?

leejo

Wait. Are you saying there's no difference between Nick Berg's death and the other people these terrorists have killed, or are you saying that a death is a death, period?

We would know Nick Berg's name because his headless body was picked up on the side of the highway last week. The print media was covering it before the film came out. However, I agree wholeheartedly that the press are being used as a tool by our enemy. The msm media chose to talk about Nick Berg (briefly) because the "mystery men" made themselves a snuff film. Like Fear Factor, but even more ghastly, who could resist during sweeps?

So we seem to be making several points here all at once. I wish we could all agree that the bad guys are in fact bad at least...

CingularDuality

I don't know if I would say that...

Edit: Oh, and the bad guys are definitely bad...

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Zebra

Yes, other than perception. But influencing our perceptions was the whole purpose.

Yes, exactly. Simple bombings and shootings aren't "news" any more, so we can look forward to increased savagery from the people who need to be on the news.

Zebra

Don't forget that the Saudis are spending millions on PR efforts for the religion of peace (and to make you forget who 17 of the 19 hijackers were and who was writing checks to some of them). There was a well-organized effort to spread conspiracy theories about 9/11 that turned out to be bogus, and the questions raised here are of a remarkably similar nature.

DudeMan

your last question is a good one but as for the sneakers or trainers for us brits ill post something from another thread

http://www.ryano.net/iraq/?807229

the boy is clearly wearing a real madrid football shirt, a spanish football team.

it is not un common for iraqis to have these items at their disposal.

Geisha

I repeat: the men in that video don't have to be Iraqi, Arabic, or even Islamic. Having American government agencies identify the speaker as al-Zarqawi against the odds kind of disturbs me though. I could understand terror groups wanting to take credit for successful action against Americans; I can only see an unpleasant motivation for our government to confirm a terrorist source that seems unlikely. I see a couple possibilities and I'm reserving judgement until I can work up the courage to watch this for myself:
1) It's the real murder of Nick Berg, but it's someone else responsible and trying to stir up coals, and Bush has every reason to want them stirred up
2) It's a snuff film taken out of context and dubbed for a really, really sick joke (think hackers and script kiddies)
3) It's a deliberate attempt by someone to recreate the actual beheading of Nick Berg by extremists for additional emotional impact

I've read several articles now, ranging from Fox News to antiwar.org, and wikipedia seems to summarize the available information...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Berg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Be...iracy_theories

Again, from my perspective most of the conspiracy "evidence" is circumstancial at best, and the dubious factor to me is actually the combination of two things - the somewhat unconvincing Muslims with the Fox News statement that the CIA claims the voice is identifiable as al-Zarqawi. I wouldn't question the film as a statement of some other group that hates us (regardless of whether the film death is real or staged, since he's ultimately dead anyway). I do question that the Republican party (Fox News) wants to believe it's really al-Zarqawi while others (CNN) are publicly skeptical...

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,119854,00.html
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/...erg/index.html

By the way, am I correct in thinking from my reading that the video was not "discovered" until after his body had been found and there was public admission that he had been decapitated? That actually leans me more to the "sick joke" explanation, horrible as the thought is. Finally, from a really convoluted and paranoid piece of thinking - is this a snuff film deliberately converted inexpertly for the sake of discrediting Americans more?