In Al-Jazeera there are as might be expected many questions posed as to the authenticity of the Nick Berg murder footage. Most of the things mentioned are weak specultaion, but one caught my eye.
The paper says that little blood was lost during the execution, and when the head was lifted from Nick’s body no blood came out of the wound. I am too squeemish to view the murder myself, but since many dopers seem to have viewed the clip.
Is there an unusual lack of blood in the murder footage?
Would any medical knowlegeable dopers like to comment on the issue of how much blood would be expected if Nick was murdered by decapitation in the method used, and the alternative that he had allready been murdered, and his dead corpse is being seen getting decapitated?
As far as blood coming from Berg’s head - wasn’t the beheading done with a butcher knife sized blade? As I understand, it took a little while to sever Berg’s head from his body, was it four cuts? Anyway, with the time involved and the fact that Berg was in the prone position when his head was severed it could be that almost all of the blood in his head was gone before the beheading was completed and Berg’s head finally raised.
Most of the articles I’ve read about it (I’ve also no interest in seeing for myself) mention Berg screaming as the beheading starts. I’m a bit skeptical about a corpse’s ability to perform such a feat. :dubious: Or are they claiming the audio was also faked?
Well to spare people from watching the video… there did appear to be little blood… little for a beheading. I think it was probably flowing towards the body and out of sight. Also there seems to be a cut in the video… the guy was sawing away at Nick neck without managing to get his head off totally. I think they actually stopped the video in order to manage snapping the head off. (column is hard to break ?)
So when they finally lifted the head it had bleed off pretty much already. Dont venture there is much space for blood in a human head anyway. The video quality is very bad too. The fact is that there is a dead headless body in US custody… so discussing the video footage seems silly. Unless they think US troops faked the video in order to appear like a Iraqi barbaric act… doubt it… not enough arab speakers among US personell.
Although I didn’t notice it at the time I saw the video (and I’m not inclined to go back to check it out) several sources have mentioned that the time stamp on the video jumps eleven hours somewhere between the point where Mr. Berg is pushed down to the floor and the, er, hacking begins in earnest.
Depending on where exactly the jump cut occurs, perhaps, for one reason or another, considerable time elapsed between the cutting that killed him and the actual decapitation. As to why this might have happened, I have no idea.
Well that’s a gruesome theory. Hope it’s not true. I would have rather thought that Berg did something ‘unacceptable’ just before his beheading - like spit into the face of his murderer. You can’t have that in the video because it might portray Berg as braver than the five hooded ghouls. So, they then were forced to staged it. Sadly, I suspect your scenario seems much more likely.
I thought I read… that the time lapse was from the “speech” to the actual killing itself. I saw the video twice and there seems to be a “cut” or jump when the guy is having trouble taking off the head.
Not to be too gruesome... but a butcher could tell us how hard this is or not. I venture a spinal column doesn't come off without some actual hacking. In the video the guys slices a lot...
Let me put it this way. I’ve decapitated many a chicken in my life. Some spray blood everywhere. Some let out a few dribbles. I don’t know why some bleed out like crazy and others don’t but it doesn’t seem to me to be inevitable that a decapitation must be accompanied by a rush of blood.
Thanks, folks. Now I’m picturing four hooded ghouls standing around kibbitzing while a fifth…nah, I don’t want to think about that. Gaaaak!
Back to the OP, what was Al Jazeera’s point in questioning the amount of blood? That Berg’s headless body was found last Saturday is not in dispute so apparently SOMETHING happened to him. Were they suggesting the ghouls should’ve brought in a professional scimitar man from Saudi Arabia so the job could’ve been done right?
BTW, there was plenty of blood on the floor and nothing but gravity to drain it from Berg’s head once it was disconnected from his heart so it wouldn’t be spurting blood when they held it up.
(If you ask questions about an article on a website, it is supposed you give a link to it.)
In general there is a mixed reaction on this issue but I think it is only normal that some see it as a manipulation of the US to overshadow the scandal of the prisoner abuse.
I briefly mentioned this when talking to family and friends in Europe and heard there is the same sort of sceptiscism as I myself felt the minute I heard about it. Namely that it is so convenient for the USA to have such a sensational story available at this precise moment.
One of the scenarios could be that he was indeed captured and murdered inside Iraq by some militants, but without video coverage. Then left on a road where he was found dead by the US miliatry. Next the idea came to stage the whole video footage, which can be a reason why the faces were covered and why the Arabic spoken on it is not the Iraqi dialect, as some people who saw the video seem to report.
I can imagine that this is a scenario that many people can take for as possible as much as the scenario that is brought in the media as being the genuine report.
There is in my opinion also a good reason to question why someone who is and US citizen and Jewish (if that claim is true, of course) would go on his own into Iraq to “search for a job”.
It seems that there are quite a few loose ends on this story, yet that doesn’t mean that he was not murdered by some people searching for revenge, or by some people claiming to be AQ.
I see this as one of these stories that happen in a country at war and that can’t be verified on its whole truth and accuracy to this date.
Salaam. A
There’s an hour break between when they initially lean Mr. Berg over and when you get to see the knife doing its work.
The audio doesn’t seem to match up in a coupelle of spots.
The floor is already blood colored. Given the poor quality of the video, it’s hard to say how much blood is visible.
There’s some reason to believe that teh poor fella actually believed the propaganda about conditions in Iraq not really being all that bad.
here’s a
[quote from the CPA]
(OPIC is now DFC)
"Yet I see tremendous potential in the Iraqi economy, and opportunities in all sectors. Even omitting reconstruction efforts and its oil reserves, the opportunities for U.S. companies are huge - in agriculture, tourism, finance, home construction. "
“American companies interested in Iraq need to come to the country, meet the people, become familiar with the market, and identify Iraqis they can work with. I’ve met many Iraqi individuals who are terrific employers and would be excellent co-investors.”
Aparently, Mr. Berg visited a CPA convention to encourage investment in Iraq before deciding to seek work for his company.
Clearly, Al Jazeera (and presumably, its viewers) are much more knowledgable about how much blood to expect during a decapitation than I am.
I confess. I’ve also taken a look at the video.
I can’t really say much about the volume of blood. The video I saw was of such poor quality that I couldn’t see all that much, to be honest. In addition, the body was positioned in such a way in relation to the camera that the blood flow could have been hidden by the chest. At the very least, there was no arterial spurt.
I agree with those who also find Berg’s passivity rather puzzling. Granted, he was bound tight and held by several men, but as far as I could see, he didn’t even jerk or convulse. If someone were trying to cut my head off I would at the very least squirm a bit.
However, its possible that he was drugged prior to the execution and didn’t have any voluntary control over his body. If they had pumped him full of heroin prior to the act, for example, he might not even have fully understood what was happening to him.
I couldn’t hear him screaming over the shouts of “Allah Akbar,” but again, my connection was pretty fuzzy. He did seem to grimace, however.
I also wonder who, specifically, Al-Jazeera intends with the term “bloggers.” Certainly none of the bloggers I’ve read over the past couple of days have speculated on the authenticity of the video.
My thoughts go out to Nick Berg’s family at this dark time. I cannot imagine how it must feel to have a loved one executed in such a brutal, inhuman manner.
On the other hand, taken at face value this was a response to the very thing you claim the US was trying to distract people from.
But hey, maybe the guy who put the American flag on the statue of Saddam Hussein just before it came down was secretly in the pay of radical Islamists! It certainly was convenient for them to have such a sensational symbol at that precise moment.
Have you ever heard of Occam’s Razor? The idea is that the simplest explanation is to be preferred unless there is evidence to rule it out. The fact that faces are covered in the video (which I haven’t seen and won’t see) is completely consistent with commonly-seen pictures of radical Islamists in the West Bank/Gaza, also with faces covered. When Daniel Pearl was killed in a similar way, only the hands of the murderer were shown. Mullah Omar of the Taliban is never seen-- there’s something like one grainy picture of him in existence.
Similarly, the fact that they may not speak in the Iraqi dialect (which is apparently in doubt even to you) isn’t surprising if we think the murderers are “foreign fighters”. I’d assumed they weren’t Iraqi anyhow.
Next, how do you go back in time and film the victim alive and speaking? I assume you need to do that if you claim that the capture/murder wasn’t on tape.
The reports are that he was trying to help rebuild Iraq. He sounds like he was altruistic. Some Americans are, you know. Even some Jewish ones. :rolleyes: He’d hardly be the first person to think he could handle a situation and be wrong, whether through bad luck or poor judgement.
Fine. Do you think it was faked?
Alderbaran I didn’t link to the entire article, because I wanted to ask for expert opinion (from Doctors, or as someone ghoulishly mentioned butchers) as to whether the video clip shows a beheading consistent with beheading a live person, or an allready murdered person. The other things mentioned in the article may well deserver their own quite separate thread, suffice to say I fear for any news agency that relies on bloggers as primary source for their speculation.
This is not an OP about Al-Jazeera, but about a hopefully answerable question.
Were the people shown cutting Nick’s throat killing him on video, or was he allready dead at the time (and hense the actual murderer being an unknown person or persons, not necessarily those shown in the video).
I wonder if the infamous 11 hour gap has something to do with those observations?
Ok, I’ll mention this one too; y’all can decide for yourselves whether it’s relevant or not.
In 1988 I worked on an oil rig offshore Tunisia; while the rig was operated by a US contractor the drilling crews were hired locally. Prior to the start of drilling, a goat was sacrificed on the drill floor, and apparently to ensure the success of the operations following. This was done with the full permission of the US-based oil company company that had contracted the rig, basically as a gesture to the local personnel.
The sacrificing was done by slitting the goat’s throat. As I recall, the goat kicked weakly a few times, but stopped moving within a few seconds, although it peed all over the place as the cutting occurred. There was some blood, but it did not jet out, nor did it flow in gushes.
BTW, the well went two months over the planned 80-day drilling time, and thus well over budget. OTOH, the crews thus got two months’ extra pay, so I guess they felt the sacrifical ceremony benefited them.
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Since the gap occurs immediately after Mr. Berg is laid down, and before we see the knife on his neck, it’s possible that there was a great deal of blood and struggling in the time not shown.
I heard the guy gurgling with blood… so he seemed alive if passive. Did you guys want him shouting and swearing before ?
During the killing itself there are 4 people holding him down… hardly possible to see squirming. Daniel Pearl’s video was seen by a friend of mine who said it was nasty and real… so even if Nick Berg wasn’t killed in this video… other Americans have been beheaded.