These are stills from the video of the beheading of 26-year-old American Nicholas Berg in Iraq last month. Get your head out of the sand and deal with it, because
This is what the 'war on terror' looks like
I'm getting shit for recently having posted pictures of a severed head (specifically, Paul M. Johnson Jr.'s head on Friday).
How dare I make my fellow Americans uncomfortable, when being comfortable is what it's all about in the United States?
I find it interesting that those U.S. government officials who are responsible for the carnage since the unprovoked March 2003 invasion of Iraq are getting off pretty fucking scot-free, but anyone who should dare to actually show what the Bush regime's "war on terror" looks like should be savaged by his peers.
Scapegoating, anyone?
Some horrific shit is going on right now. Yeah, we'd prefer to shut our eyes and cover our ears, get back to our "reality" television and pretend that it isn't happening. But it is.
Someone please e-mail me and tell me exactly what is to be gained by our turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to everything that is going on right now, because the benefits of intentional ignorance completely elude me. You can e-mail me by clicking here:  (Rules for e-mailing me are here.)
For those of you who are still trying to recover from the fact that I have shown graphic images of Nicholas Berg's murder: I have made my feelings on Nick Berg's murder clear.
We owe it to Nick Berg to look at what they did to him. We do him a grave disservice when we look away because we don't want to be disturbed or made uncomfortable (gasp!). We need to be disturbed so that we are motivated to prevent this horror show from continuing.
Nick Berg and the thousands of other human beings who have died for nothing since the United States' unprovoked March 2003 invasion of Iraq will have died for nothing if we just close our eyes, cover our ears and go right back to the way we were before all of this began.
(NOTE: You will notice that the time stamps on the video stills are different. My guess is that two different video cameras were used, each showing a different time. Conspiracy theories about Berg's death abound. One is that he was already dead and then was beheaded. If that is the case, then what sounds, in the video, like him making noises while he is being beheaded must have been faked/edited in. What is not in dispute, however, is that Berg was beheaded. His body was recovered in Iraq and he was buried in the United States. To my knowledge, his head was never recovered.)
Update (Thursday, July 1, 2004):
"This is not a game that people in Washington get to play," Michael Berg, father of slain American Nick Berg, said recently of the bloodshed in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. "It affects people the way it has affected me and my family and the families of Paul Johnson, Kim Sun-il and the thousands of Iraqis." (Reuters photo)
At least one person -- neocon wannabe Shane -- has criticized me for posting the stills from the Berg beheading video above. What if Berg's family were to see such photos (assuming that they already haven't)? Shane asked me in an e-mail.
I felt vindicated when I read this Reuters article, titled "Father of Executed American Blasts Bush, Media," the other day. Here it is, in full:
LONDON (Reuters) -- The father of an American civilian beheaded in Iraq accused President Bush and the U.S. media Tuesday of ignoring the "horrible face of war."
"People like George Bush and (U.S. Defense Secretary) Donald Rumsfeld don't see the pain that people have to bear -- they don't know what it feels like to have your guts ripped out," Michael Berg told a news conference.
The decapitated body of Berg's son Nick was found by a roadside in Baghdad and a grisly video of his beheading was posted on an Islamist Web site in May.
"What I'm trying to do is show to the American people and the British people...that war has a wretchedly horrible face," said Berg's father.
The elder Berg was in London to speak at a demonstration against the foreign troop presence in Iraq Wednesday, which had been scheduled to coincide with the planned U.S. transfer of power to the Iraqi people.
Nick Berg, 26, traveled to Iraq several times looking for work in the reconstruction effort before going missing on April 9.
"He thought he was supporting the Iraqi people and the Bush administration by going over there, not with a gun but with his engineering tools," Michael Berg said.
Bush and the American media have ignored the "true horrors," added Berg senior, who has blamed Bush and Rumsfeld for his son's death in previous interviews. He said he believed anti-war sentiment was now very strong in the United States.
"There are 11,000 plus Iraqi citizens that are dead and each one's family is as affected as I was, but the American media doesn't cover these people. It doesn't cover the people who are suffering the most."
Nick Berg was one of dozens of foreigners kidnapped in early April as U.S. forces launched an offensive on the restive city of Falluja, west of Baghdad.
He was believed to have been beheaded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an al Qaeda supporter.
Since his death, militants have also beheaded U.S. hostage Paul Johnson in Saudi Arabia and South Korean Kim Sun-il in Iraq. All three men were videotaped wearing orange jump suits similar to those worn by prisoners in U.S. detention facilities like Guantanamo Bay.
"This is not a game that people in Washington get to play," Michael Berg said. "It affects people the way it has affected me and my family and the families of Paul Johnson, Kim Sun-il and the thousands of Iraqis."
"Observing someone's pain just makes you think just how can they (Bush and Blair) possibly do this. There isn't enough money in the world that could ever make this worthwhile."
I'm not going to protect the Bush regime war machine by not showing unpleasant images of the consequences of the Bush regime's insatiable, demonic lust for oil, power and money. I take it from the Reuters article that Michael Berg would agree.
9:49:52 PM 
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