Berg beheading: No way, say more medical experts

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FE22Ak03.html
IMHO Asia Times Online is a very reputable and reliable news source
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By Ritt Goldstein

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 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."

more ...

www.al-ansar.biz

I've watch the video many time and have come to the conclusion it was stagged.

I haven't heard any comments from the CIA folks that usually tell us what they think. Has anyone else?

You might check at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Berg if there still is a working link to mirrors.

?

http://www.aztlan.net/berg_abu_ghraib_video.htm

It shows frame-by-frame evidence.

It's one of the bests analysis I have seen to date.

Be warned...the link from the gregghenson site goes to a porn site of some kind called conjunction junction (or something like that) but you can download the video there (it takes forever with a dial up connection) I downloaded the thing and watched it last night from that site. The video is no doubt vile...but IMO there isn't enough blood. I agree with the Dr's.

The very fact that none of this has been discussed by the talking heads means that it could be a HUGE scandal if proved to be true. The fact that they aren't talking about it raises the probability of the various analyses of the video may be on to something.

Just announced on AirAmerica
No details yet, they said they will have more to say at the top of the hour.
Could someone post what they have to say as I have to go to my volunteer job.

Correct me if I'm wrong. But I saw both the video and the pictures. And I saw no faces in either. Can someone explain how the US knew who the suspects were? I'm baffled!

I was talking with a Republican after the John Kerry rally
and he said that the CIA knew it was that Al Zwari guy because
they did a voice analysis.
I told him that was a crock, how can they tell by voice, they sure
cant tell by face, because of the masks.

A check of the BBC archives (http://news.bbc.co.uk) earlier this week showed 46 stories re al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian by birth.

Curiously, the earliest story in Jan. 2002, was that Al-Z, an al-Qaida member, was in Iraq, ana his presence there was strong "evidence" that there was a connection between Saddam and al-Qaida. This info was provided by US sources, and the BBC found no independent confirmation of the story. An alternative viewpoint was that al-Z had a badly injured foot and he was in Iraq and/or Iran for treatement.

Strangely, most of the 46 BBC stories are from this year, 2004. For instance, DU had several threads earlier this year on al-Z's supposed presence in Pakistan. There were "news" stories that al-Z and his men was surrounded by Pakistani soldiers, that al-Z and his people drove a vehicle through the line of Pakistani troops and escaped in a blaze of gunfire. A few days later, another "news" story said that al-Z had never been surrounded or even there.

Now the Asia Times story above at least calls into question the nature of the Nick Berg beheading.

It's very doubtful tha al-Qaida people carry around orange jumpsuits for their captives to wear. Obviously, Berg had been in the custody of the US and/or US-backed Iraqi police. Somehow, it would seem that he was directly given to his killers, whoever they were.

Note: To use the BBC search engine, enter al-Zarqawi into the search box at the top-right corner of the main BBC news page.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/21/berg/index.html

They shifted the blame to now being 4 Fedayeen led by Yasser al-Sabawi.

Funny that they 'clearly identified' Al Zarqawi earlier, this is making it look more and more like a staged murder for a distraction.

The question is who was under the masks and behind the camera.

I'm sure someone did an autopsy of the body? Didn't they?

Because of where the decapitation occurred, I don't think any US jurisdiction would require one. From what I've read, the family didn't have one done. The lack of blood in the video and the lack of response of Berg's body has always been curious. I think it's safe to say the video was staged.

curious to hear hi/her response

I am still collecting a list of curiosities and bookmarking each thread on this matter.

My initial reaction has pure horror simply because the beheading of a human being is horrible. But, after viewing the video a couple of times, and keeping in mind that the poor guy is dead in addition to my desire to figure out why and who,....I was able to create a list of 25 "oddities" about the videotaping.

The site I posted above, adds to that list.

<reposting site here http://www.aztlan.net/berg_abu_ghraib_video.htm

two nurses on DU, and one DUer whose wife is a neurologist. I was a paramedic; ALL of us agreed that the man in the video appeared to be already dead when his head was cut off.

There were a bunch of DUers that disagreed with us...I hope they are reading this article, and paying attention to what Dr.'s that are being questioned by the press IN OTHER COUNTRIES are saying about this one-

Stephanie

It seems like they have taken a film of Berg and transposed it over another person so that it would seem like Berg was alive and sitting in the chair.

I think the chumps who filmed this are not technologically capable enough to pull off such a thing.

and I'm a pathologist, spent 10 years in forensic path to be exact. And the first thing I though when I saw the video was where's the blood. If Berg was alive, i.e. heart still pumping, at the time of the beheading, arterial blood should have spurting all over the place.
I have thought this was bogus from the get-go and the video confirmed it for me so it's quite interesting to follow these threads.

Also, Saudis are the beheading crowd. Per Craig Unger's House of Bush, House of Saud, there is a square in Riyadh referred to as Chop-Chop Square because it has been the site of so many REAL beheadings.
So it's interesting that 15/19 9/11 hijackers are Saudis, Osama is Saudi (I don't give a rip what they say concerning the revocation of his citizenship), the Saudi theocratic monarchy funds terrorism, the Saudis are masters at beheading BUT they are untouchable friends of America ... (at least according to the Bush crowd), so we pick on Iraq ...

I did beheadings as a college student....on lab animals, so I was skeptical of the video as well. That guy's head should have been dripping with blood once it was removed. Bet ol' Dubya thought it was the real thing...

sounds reliable and respectable to me.

At least you never let us down!! :hi:

To say nothing of the Cheney/Halliburton deals with Saddam.

It's a valuable, respectable and sober source.

Dismissing Asia Times out of hand on account of a link to learn how to do business with North Korea seems bizarre and parochial.

Turn off the Fox News and get a clue.

... but not bigger than "western" newspapers (or DU). It gives *very* interesting background information and shows things from a different angle. A very worthwile read!

On edit: Some spelling.

no blood..there would have been blood everywhere-you can`t be that dumb not to know that. i wonder who was screaming?

Iraqi prisoners or an American that is not going along with the "plan".

http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?disc=149495;article=55458;title=APFN

There are ALOT of people who are examining and analyzing this case.

This man is not going to let the matter rest - after what he and
his family must have been through, he's still in there fighting for
his son.

"George Bush never looked into my son's eyes. George Bush doesn't
know my son, and he's the worse for it. George Bush, though a
father himself, cannot feel my pain, or that of my family, or of the
world that grieves for Nick, because he is a policymaker, and he
doesn't have to bear the consequences of his acts. George Bush can
see neither the heart of Nick nor that of the American people, let
alone that of the Iraqi people his policies are killing daily.

"Donald Rumsfeld said that he took responsibility for the sexual
abuse of Iraqi prisoners. How could he take that responsibility
when there was no consequence? Nick took the consequences."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1221644,00.html

Why isn't Michael Berg running for Congress?

to determine the cause of death.

It takes time for these things to be complete. Further, who's to say what one does when they are grieving. He probably took the story at face value.

Not many people are ready to read and research their childs murder *immediately* after it happens.

He's already buried his son. I suspect I would be as outraged as he is if my son had been murdered. Given the video, I would have wanted to know the actual cause of death and had any evidence such as bullets or fragments recovered. Unless they exhume the body, it's not going to happen. Exhumations are not pleasant for a family. I can't imagine them making a decision to put the autopsy off until later.

order an autopsy at some point. I just don't think he doubts the official story ... yet.

arrest in Iraq. That with his subsequent death would have me demanding an autopsy especially if I believed the government was some how involved in the death.

We also don't know what we would do in a moment of intense grief.

and I certainly know what I would do. I would be as outraged as Berg, but I'd want answers about my son's death.

1. Blame the victims
2. Assume

:hi:

How?

He also talks. I don't think anyone is suggesting that was a Weekend at Bernie's outtake.

But there are edits in the video. The point of this article is that when he is beheaded, he was already dead. Not that he was dead at the beginning of the video.

The thought of him being beheaded on video is somehow more unbearable, because of the time it took to kill him, than him being shot.

Besides publishing deeply reported work by correspondents around the world, Asia Times seems to be more critical and less easily gulled than the American press. For instance, it certainly hasn't swallowed the WMD whoppers from Chalabi that the NY Times did (or fallen for the lesser stunts of a Jason Blair).

So much about this is preposterous.

Ritt Goldstein's credentials seen VERY legitimate. Thanks for providing this link.