Beheaded American was arrested as a spy 'because of his Jewish name'

[riverwalker]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/05/13/wtort113.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/05/13/ixnewstop.html
<snip> "Nicolas Berg, the American who was filmed being beheaded, had been previously arrested by Iraqi police and held on suspicion of being a spy because he had a Jewish name and an Israeli stamp in his passport, it emerged yesterday."
Hugo Infante, 31, a Chilean photographer who stayed at the Al Fanar, said he had met Mr Berg around April 6 when the American returned to Baghdad two weeks after saying he was going to Mosul on business for two days.

<snip>"He said, 'They arrested me because I had a Jewish last name and an Israeli stamp in my passport.' Then the Iraqi police put him with the US military because they thought he was a spy. Nick told me all this. He wasn't mad. It was just an adventure for him. He said, 'This shit happens. It was bad luck'."

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

1. Consider the source..The Telegraph

Even if it WERE true...it simply makes the US look a bit more complicit in his death and a great deal more incompetent in dealing with the cultural issues surrounding this war.

Berg is dead because we are there.

[aquart]

2. Nick Berg was a Republican.

Republicans have problems with cause and effect reasoning.

[cliss]

3. Since when is Berg a Jewish name?

Berg is a scandinavian surname. It means = mountain in Swedish.

[Must_B_Free]

4. it is

berg, stein, green, love, diamond, silver, fried ... classicly Jewish surnames or parts of surnames.

[daleo]

5. I imagine it goes both ways, depending on where you live

My local phone book, from a "burg" of about 700,000 shows approximately 170 Berg entries, and another 350 names that start with Berg. That is out of 375,000 listings, about 1.36 listing per thousand. I knew a number of people growing up with names like Bergstra, who weren't Jewish to my knowledge, but I imagine a fair number of those names are Jewish as well.

[IndianaGreen]

6. Denver radio talk show host Alan Berg was Jewish

Berg was murdered in 1984 by a rightwing group, The Order, because he was a liberal and a Jew.

Oliver Stone made a movie, Talk Radio, whose main character is loosely based on Alan Berg.

[mallard]

8. That stamp in his passport...

...would have been a known liability for him to be bearing - whether or not HE knew how much trouble such evidence could get him into. That stamp - more than his name - became the classic hallmark of suspicion - as it IS from Denpasar to Kinshasa, whenEVER it's time to fork over the only ID which ANY cop or customs clerk along the way wants to check out.

So, the State Department SHOULD HAVE MADE SURE all these civilians had safe, clean passports before going in. Israeli immigration stamps are a VERY WELL KNOWN LIABILITY in the Arab world!

But seeing as how these Zeocons WANT these kind of spectacular media events to fuel the fire of their war engine, they probably had all the contractors go through Tel Aviv en route to Baghdad - for 'results'.

The neocons DO have friends in Israel, in case there's any doubt. Their friends HAVE told them about how people traveling to the Jewish state ARE discriminated against.

I'll bet Berg wasn't too keen on having that Holy Land visitor's receipt - complete with 'star'- attatched (or affixed) to his name, either.

I still wonder why and WHEN he visited Israel.

[vajraroshana]

9. The awesomely great composers

Arnold Schoenberg and one of his star pupils, Alban Berg were Jewish; and if memory serves me correctly, they were both vilified for their "degenerate" avante-garde music under the Nazis. Schoenberg escaped; don't know about Alban Berg's fate.

[PaDUer]

7. Our local 11PM news tonite

said that he worked on some towers for station WPGM radio in the surrounding communities. They had an interview w/ a friend of his who said that he believes he was targeted because he wore a star of David around his neck that they would know he was Jewish.--FWIW