The Tinfoil Hat Brigade now sez that it was a hoax, part of a deliberate disinfo campaign by The Powers That Be.
http://www.rense.com/general53/bergvideosaidfake.htm
http://www.breakfornews.com/iraqatrix.htm
And, yes, I’m “considering the source”, and yes, I know it’s Rense and Fintan Dunne.
Still, looking for the Straight Dope.
Anybody care to address this?
I have no comment on the technical or visual evidence said to suggest that the video was a fake.
I just think that, other considerations aside, it’s extremely unlikely to have been a fake because it is so damaging to the Administrations position.
True, in the short term it may have served to draw some of the political sting out of media coverage of the prisoner abuse issue, but in the medium and longer term it has the capacity to be extremely damaging. A few thoughts:
It’s part of a pattern of events, starting with the Fallujah lynchings, that creates the strong impression that the US authorities in Iraq are steadily losing control, and that the situation is progressively deteriorating. Sure, that impression would be there anyway, but it reinforces it.
It must be seriously damaging to attempts to encourage foreign investment in Iraq, which in turn will retard reconstruction, which in turn makes a stable outcome less and less likely.
Most other justifications for the war having evaporated (WMD) or been seriously damaged by the US itself (protection of human rights in Iraq), the administration is increasingly reliant on support for the war on the basis that it is part of an effort to protect Americans from terrorism. This was never a very convincing argument, to my mind, but a lot of Americans seem to have been willing to buy it. Incidents like this may tend to suggest to them that the war in Iraq is failing to achieve the objective which is said to justify it; if anything, it is exposing Americans to greater risks.
In short, the potential downside for the administration from the Berg murder seems vastly to exceed any potential upside. So why would they fake it?
It’s called misdirection. If you fill up the news day with your chosen stories, then you don’t have to worry about any real news being published. Imagine what might happen if it was a slow news day in Iraq and reporters actually had to go out looking for things to report on? Who knows what they might find.
UDS if you are right then maybe the administration put out this information that DDG used in the OP. By doing so they discredit the Berg murder and who would guess they were behind it? :rolleyes:
One can only hope…
If they were looking to “fake” something why not just fake some nuclear weapons? It wouldn’t be that hard for our blackops people to “retrofit” our weapons to give them an Iraqi signature. Then we could place them deep inside some remote, Iraqi stockpile only to be “discovered” by Sixty Minutes in a staged event. My pont is that if they are looking to “fake” something then there are far more rhetorically powerful news items that could be faked or manipulated to their benefit.
The fact that his body was found later makes it somewhat hard to say it is a sophisticated computer program.
if only it were that easy to re direct attention
if it were a fake on the part of the US government, they could have found something better.
And the kids still dead. Unless its all part of conspiracy
tin foil hat
Without wanting to get too complicated, but I don’t see why it has to be either “fake” or “not fake”, either “Zarq” or “US govt” who did it etc.
I agree with all those who’ve pointed out that something smells weird about this tape - the weirdest thing to me is lack of context - no media communication from the perpetrators (that I’m aware of) before the killing, no communication after, no info about the investigation making headlines, physical evidence etc
The problem here is that this opens the door to all kinds of speculation - the Baath did it to incriminate the muslim extremists, one group of extremists did it to incriminate another, coalition psyops, a combination of the previous, unknown party …
So far I’d have to say - strange business, but nowhere near enough info to determine what really happened.
Is anyone on ‘the other side’ claiming, implying or suggesting it is fake?
This is GQ, people. Does anyone have any factual information on whether the video shows signs of being fake or not? All political theorising about motivations aside?
Sorry to junior mod, but I’m interested in a GQ answer (as is DDG I assume) and most of you people are just getting in the way.
Apparently, some people on Al-Jazeera said that Nick Berg was probably dead before he was decapitated. Supposedly, there should have bee a lot more blood than was seen. (I haven’t seen the video myself.)
I was going to say something like that… but then I thought there might be some big scientifical reason as to why that would be and I’d just sound like a dumb ass 
There have been a bunch of threads on the subject here, mostly in GD. Several people have suggested he was dead before he was decaptitated, but most of them said that because they felt he didn’t move enough while the deed was being done. (This doesn’t account for the screams in the video.) Some did also ask about the blood. My opinion - and it’s not just mine - is that there’s lots of it, it’s just not always visible due to the position of his body and the camera (one doper added that the color of the floor could have obscured it as well). Whether it’s ‘enough’ blood I can’t say, but it didn’t seem like shockingly little.
If these people spoke to hundreds of medical and film experts, why do they only quote one doctor and confine their stated objections to trivial things like the color of the walls, a description of a store-bought chair, and - although this IS the most confusing item - whatever that is in the corner? I don’t see any signs of editing, and while I haven’t seen an explanation for the gap between the sound and the action, it’s a consitent delay, it doesn’t come and go or change. You’d think in a real CIA job, they’d eliminate it altogether.
Thank you, Princhester, yes, what I’m looking for more is along the lines of “are there technical reasons, glitches, inconsistencies, things that don’t look quite right in the footage, that would support the allegation that it’s a fake”. Such as, not enough blood? Or something like that.
I know from past experience that it’s completely useless to appeal to logic with the Tinfoil Hat Brigade, as in, “Why would they fake it?” The THB doesn’t deal in logic. It’s enough for them that it could have been faked, and for them it’s but a short jump from there to “it was faked”. They’re paranoid, truly, clinically, and trying to persuade them that the Administration “wouldn’t have faked it because it doesn’t serve their long-term purpose” just goes in one ear and out the other. You have to be able to show them actual proof that it’s real, and even then, it’s iffy–viz. the Apollo moon landing “hoax” believers. You can talk to them till you’re blue in the face about the difference between moon rocks and Earth rocks, and it won’t do any good, and as soon as you get into “Why would the Soviets keep their mouths shut about its being a fake?”, you’ve lost them totally. They don’t need reasons why The Powers That Be lie–they simply believe that they do.
So these are the same people.
I haven’t seen any good explanation why he was in a prison jumpsuit. The US army claims to have released him the day before, but they would not have released him wearing a jumpsuit. The whole point of the jumpsuit is that if you see one outside of a jail, you drag his ass back to jail.
So the al Qaeda folks stole a jumpsuit from the US prison and dressed him up again? why? Some say to make a statement about the treatment of the other prisoners, but none of them have been shown being mistreated while wearing the jumpsuit. Seems like a lot of trouble to go to for a statement that is weak to begin with.
But if he was never release, and the video is a fake, how stupid do those fakers have to be.
Something smells rotten, I just can’t figure out what’s really going on.
Oh, and there’s the whole fake leg argument.
Well, there are one or two of the things that haven’t been adressed in this thread yet. I’ll bring thim up, but I don’t have the answer.
The little nitpick one is supposedly there is a gold ring flashing on one hand, which is forbidden in certain religions. I don’t see that even if it was, that that would make a big deal.
The second, and the one I’ve not been able to find more than one or two references about, is that one of the guys speaks russian towards the end, and that the executioners dialect was wrong?
As far as I can tell, so far the things that really could use a bit of explaining (the tape/speech/time inconsistancies) and the dialect thing are being overshadowed by what are probably hundreds of pieces of odd evidence (chair, jumpsuit, white running shoes or whatever you’ve heard)
While the tape may have more to it than it seems, Mr. Berg is still dead and headless, so the probability of it being entirely fake are pretty slim.
Regards,
MeatBeast
[quoteSo the al Qaeda folks stole a jumpsuit from the US prison and dressed him up again? why?[/quote]
Is it that hard to find an orange jumpsuit?
This execution is nothing new, it just happened to make it into the news at an opportune time. Read this column about arab terrorist beheadings etc.
A snippet:
The use of videos of attacks and murders of captives is considered a recruiting tool and good propaganda. The videos are rarely shown on English language web sites, as they are intended for the hard core terrorist audience. Al Qaeda knows that such videos will turn off many in the West, but has found that it does wonders for al Qaeda recruiting and contributions. Al Qaeda has been unable to win any meaningful victories, so they invent success by declaring the slaughter of people via suicide bombings, or beheadings, to be a victory over the enemy.
Good point, but -
I still can’t see why so many dopers feel there’s any reason to take this video at face value. Whoever put it together, it’s obviously a propaganda piece, and not simply a document of fact.
Somebody (s) chose how to spin this, what to put on the sound track, to add the titles, to release it via the net rather than to TV, who to attribute it to, when to release it etc.
I believe this video should be met with the normal skepticism you would show any media content, and then some !