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Post by strat-0 on May 15, 2004 12:40:38 GMT -5
OK, what's your pleasure? CE from A-Z.
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Post by strat-0 on May 15, 2004 12:45:58 GMT -5
Anybody viewed the complete Berg video? I had a hard time finding it. Let me tell you - it's not for the fient of heart! It's very disturbing and gruesome. It's not something you can "un-view," so be advised.
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Post by RocDoc on May 15, 2004 14:05:00 GMT -5
I don't know if I even need to see that vid now...after my wife's description of seeing it over the shoulders of a couple of her co-workers at the hospital, after THEY found it on the net.
Nothing at ALL about quick mercifulness, the fuckers!
Goddamn cut the poor guy's head off like they were carving a turkey or slicing a ham....I got the entire gory scene imagined just fine in my head, already.
My god...
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Post by NdY on May 15, 2004 18:20:11 GMT -5
I've only seen a couple still frames of the beheading, which was enough in itself to make me queasy. Started to watch the video on consumptionjunction.com, but better judgement had me turn it off immediately. Just the mere thought of an act like that is so alien to me, something that I couldn't imagine happening in this day and age. *shakes head*
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Post by strat-0 on May 15, 2004 21:50:41 GMT -5
That's where I saw it, NdY. Every place else I tried was getting slammed so hard their ISPs had turned the links off. I had to see it for myself, just to see if I thought it was for real. I think it's for real. You can take my word for it.
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KayJay
Struggling Artist
Posts: 192
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Post by KayJay on May 16, 2004 2:53:05 GMT -5
It's simply unbelievable to me that in 2004 A.D. there are still people in this world that are so uncivilized as to be barbaric. The video is horrible. Truly horrible. I would advise anyone who hasn't seen it already to pass at the chance. The word "beheading" sounds much nicer than what really happened to that poor young man, Nic Berg.
It's pretty sad when a drive-by shooting sounds tame.
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Post by rockkid on May 16, 2004 10:30:46 GMT -5
I’m astounded (call me naïve) that it made the net though on a Malaysian porn sight, no surprise.
What about those two DJ’s who aired the audio then cracked wise.
I passed on it too. Heard enough graphics.
Some guy on the Bush site I go to was rambling about the guy being alive for upwards of 3 min’s after.
I called him on it & told him to brush up on his neurology.
*sigh*
Geeze some people.
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KayJay
Struggling Artist
Posts: 192
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Post by KayJay on May 16, 2004 11:14:50 GMT -5
I watched it in its entirety. It made me really stop and think about life, that's for sure. The images will never leave me... unless, of course, I will be "blessed" (being sarcastic here) with alzheimer's. My luck, though, alzheimer's would leave me suspended in that 5:37 of film.
(I hope they come up with a cure for alzheimer's. It's not a good thing...)
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Post by chrisfan on May 17, 2004 8:40:12 GMT -5
I have absolutely no desire to see the video. I don't need to. I know how bad it is without seeing it.
One of the radio shows I listen to played the audio of his being killed one day last week. I didn't even realize what it was until it was too late. It disturbed me so much just HEARING it that I covered my ears, because I knew I couldn't change the channel fast enough.
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Post by Ampage on May 17, 2004 9:09:51 GMT -5
No offense to anyone, but I am not sure why anyone would watch that video in the first place. Can’t imagine what one would get out of it.
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Post by chrisfan on May 17, 2004 9:53:44 GMT -5
No offense to anyone, but I am not sure why anyone would watch that video in the first place. Can’t imagine what one would get out of it. I agree ampster. It's certainly a "to each his own" sort of thing, but I do not understand what is gained by watching it, or why anyone would seek it out. |
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KayJay
Struggling Artist
Posts: 192
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Post by KayJay on May 17, 2004 10:00:11 GMT -5
I agree. I watched it because I'm a moron. If I had it to do over again, I definitely wouldn't have watched it. Too late for me now, though. *sigh* Yep... too late now. Now I've doomed myself to the visions for all eternity.  |
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JACkory
Struggling Artist
Posts: 167
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Post by JACkory on May 17, 2004 10:35:58 GMT -5
No offense to anyone, but I am not sure why anyone would watch that video in the first place. Can’t imagine what one would get out of it. I also concur...and with no intention of offending anyone who DID decide to view it.  But for me, it was horrible enough just seeing the guy in front of his assassins in that orange prison garb, knowing what was about to happen. That image alone will haunt me for the rest of my life, and I don't need or want to see the video in it's entirety. The impulse to log on to a website and check it out would be, to me, no better than seeking out a snuff film. But like I said, that's just me. I don't claim to understand anyone else's reason for wanting to see it. What about those two DJ’s who aired the audio then cracked wise. I read that story in the newspaper on Saturday and was outright APALLED. What in God's name were those two idiots thinking? How can anyone find anything even remotely humourous in Berg's plight? They got less than they deserved when they were just fired. You might have noticed that the station didn't release their REAL names to the press, only their on-air monikers. If they had I guarantee the backlash would have been so brutal that both of those DJs would be driven from the country, and hey, they deserve it (freedom of speech or not, I don't think it's even about that). I hope they never get top work in radio again. As for the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal that compelled Berg's captors to execute him in such a public manner...Well, you know, it goes to show that no matter who hardcore our troops might get in the way they treat their POWs, the enemy is gonna trump 'em. I mean, all those guys who had hoods on their heads at least still have heads for the hoods to be on. They're still breathing. A person can learn to cope with emotional scars caused by being humiliated, but there's no rehabilitation from decapitation. And no, I'm not condoning our troops treatment of their prisoners, but I AM saying that the media has turned it into a MUCH bigger deal than it is, fuelled by democrats who'll stop at nothing to discredit the Bush administration in an election year. Anyone who thinks that what happened to the Iraqi prisoners at the hands of American soldiers is an inexcusable outrage should maybe check that Berg video for some prespective. Maybe that will remind them that WAR IS HELL. Worse things than the prisoner abuse scandal have happened during wartime, I guarantee you. I think everyone understands that implicitly, but the media and the democratic party doesn't seem to want to acknowledge it, at least not when there's an election to be won. And I'd even venture to guess that the majority of Americans aren't as outraged by the "abuse photos" as our government seems to be. They understand that these people are the ENEMY, not patients at the Betty Ford Center. This kind of stuff happens EVERYWHERE and ALL THE TIME when nations are at war. Compared to some nations, what our soldiers did was kid's stuff. |
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Post by Ampage on May 17, 2004 10:49:16 GMT -5
I loved Tina Feys snark remark on Weekend Update this weekend. She said something to the affect that : “The Government has declared that the soldiers in the pictures were told what to do, and it was not their fault. But the drugged out, inbred, Peppermint Patty face was all Lindsey baby…………..” LMFAO!
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Post by RocDoc on May 17, 2004 11:05:09 GMT -5
Reprint...
Focus on What's at Stake in Iraq
By Jim Hoagland
Thursday, May 13, 2004; Page A29
What if Bush the Illegitimate promises to wear sackcloth and ashes to John Kerry's inaugural ball, prostrates himself for 40 days and nights before Jordan's king and Egypt's president-for-life, and stages an execution (real or mock, to be determined by an online poll managed by al-Jazeera TV) of Rumsfeld the Ogre? Would that do it for you?
Make no mistake: The military and congressional investigations into the Abu Ghraib prison scandal must be pursued. They offer the best opportunity to repair America's reputation and prevent future atrocities. But this episode should not be inflated for partisan gain at home, or manipulated by those abroad who oppose the exercise of U.S. power in their precincts. Those outcomes risk throwing the American baby out with the Bush bath water.
To leap to the conclusion that Arab dictators have suddenly gained moral superiority over the United States, which is no longer fit to pursue or speak about democratic change in the Middle East, is self-defeating. The goal must be justice for the guilty and the victims at Abu Ghraib, not the donning of a national hair shirt and an American retreat from world leadership.
President Bush's increasingly shaky management of the occupation of Iraq is a legitimate campaign issue. It is one of the factors that could bring regime change in Washington. After all, Bush's domestic agenda is a sorry mishmash of backward-looking causes, and his economic policies are short-termism at its most egregious. There are plenty of reasons for change if you think the other guy can do better.
But there is no reason to make the same mistake those grinning, lascivious goons posing as guards made at Abu Ghraib, which is to assume that the humiliation of a foe -- in this case Bush -- is synonymous with justice. Those who were silent about torture in Iraq during Saddam Hussein's time should be modest about cloaking established political agendas in the name of that cause now.
Abu Ghraib does not change the essential reality about Iraq, which I have flogged here for months: It is up to Iraqis to determine their political future, and it is up to the Americans and other Arabs to get out of their way -- yesterday. That has not been the Bush way. Proconsular absolutism has been abandoned in favor of yielding political power not to Iraqis but to the United Nations. This would presumably deprive Kerry of a campaign issue and placate Sunni Arab governments, which were silent about torture and mass murder when committed by Hussein's Sunni minority. Those regimes now prefer to see Iraq in chaos rather than ruled by Shiite Arabs.
"It is impossible for Iraq to be ruled by the Shiites," a political adviser to a ruling Arab monarch said recently in a not-for-attribution setting that encouraged unusual candor. "Sunnis make up 85 percent of the population of the Arab world. How could it be democratic" for a national Shiite majority to rule an Arab country? That is the key issue for King Abdullah of Jordan, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and other Sunni autocrats. Those damning photos and videos of abuses at Abu Ghraib, and others that may show similar incidents elsewhere in the overextended U.S.-British archipelago of war prisons, are useful clubs for them to wield against the Bush administration's most ambitious visions of democracy and gender equality in the region.
The actions of the guards and perhaps of U.S. intelligence agents at Abu Ghraib gravely complicate those goals. They force redefinition and adjustment of the U.S. mission in the Middle East. But that emphasizes the importance of keeping what is at stake clearly in view.
The United States should stay committed to working for democracy in Iraq, which means accepting the mathematical advantage that free elections would give the Shiite majority. No U.N. formula for a caretaker cabinet of "technocrats" rigged to Sunni interests can be allowed to finesse that. The alternative is a de facto partition of Iraq into armed ethnic camps.
U.S. military commanders are already cutting deals with local forces, whether Baathists in Fallujah or anti-Baathist militias in the south and in Kurdistan. The generals can feel the political wind shifting behind them in Washington. They will not waste lives in frontal assaults for political goals as uncertain and unclear as Bush's have become in Iraq, or if they think Kerry will declare defeat and go home when elected.
The U.S. commitment to Iraq is endangered less by the crimes of the lowly in rank than by the distraction and political egotism of the mighty. Giving democracy in Iraq a chance to survive the U.S. presidential campaign is now a leadership challenge, for both Bush and Kerry.
jimhoagland@washpost.com
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
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