Has anyone actually seen the Nick Berg video?

[11 Bravo]

I understand the video can be seen on Hannity's site and that Drudge has still shots. I won't visit either site for a variety of reasons; but it seems doubly obscene for them to make a buck on images of a man being murdered. I have no desire to see such a thing. I only wish that Hannity and Drudge were capable of feeling shame.

[Az]

1. Yes, and I do not recommend seeing it

It is horrible whether it is faked or real. It is something you will wish was not in your memory.

[fryguy]

7. worse than the daniel pearle video?

on edit: corrected name

[ACK]

9. Considering I heard that they saw the poor fucks head off

I would say yes.

[Az]

12. By far

Not that I would want to get into a contest over which murder was worse. Shooting a man has less impact than sawing a mans head off. This was not a romantisized notion of decapitation with a sharp sword and a quick strike. It was a dagger and it was brutal.

[fryguy]

15. right

I fogot that pearle was shot before they cut his head off....

And I agree with you 100%, this is a topic way to disturbing to think about, let alone try to have a discussion about which is a worse way to be killed....

[Warpy]

29. I've carefully questioned multiple folks about blood loss

...and their reports are not consistent with the decapitation of a live human being.

Likely he had been strangled before they started.

[Xithras]

42. Who? Berg?

Sorry, but based on his frantic screaming and thrashing, I'd say that Berg was very much ALIVE when they began sawing on his neck.

[Az]

44. If

If their intent was to fake a live execution that could have been faked. In fact the odd editing and sound discrepancies support this notion.

[w13rd0]

14. Richard Pearle?

I think you mean Daniel Pearl...

[fryguy]

16. mea culpa

mind was otherwise pre-occupied when typing....

thanks for the correction

[rinsd]

17. Yes....

EXTREME WARNING





They saw the guy's head off. Not cleaved, sawed. Then it is held up to the camera. The worst part is there is audio and the kid is just screaming. It may be the worst thing I have ever seen.

[still_one]

23. I hope the fucks that did this suffer a horrible demise

[leftofthedial]

32. it seems to me that screaming

would be impossible very early in the process of having one's head sawn off.

The moment the windpipe is cut, screaming would be impossible.

I've heard that the audio sounds (poorly) dubbed.

Utterly horrific in any case.

What have people become?

[fryguy]

33. depends where they began

if at the front of the neck you're probobly right, but they could have started someplace else. more telling would be how many people were necessary to hold him down. i'd venture to guess that, when faced with the prospect of being be-headed one would develop a siginificant amount of strength and there would be quite a struggle. so if there's just one guy leaning over and cutting (I've not seen the video), chances are he was already dead or at least unconcious at the time.

[leftofthedial]

34. If they started at the side, same difference

cut the carotid and screaming stops real quick too.

Now if they started from the back, that would take some serious work by the carver.

[Donkeyboy75]

48. Even if the carotid was cut, he wouldn't die instantly.

He die of blood loss/asphyxiation, which would take some time.

[leftofthedial]

51. he'd be choking, not screaming

I can't believe I'm engaged in this grisly conversation.

I haven't watched the video. From the descriptions, it sounds like a B-horror movie version of decapitation rather than a real decapitation. The screaming, gurgling soundtrack is part of that.

[Donkeyboy75]

52. It is a grisly conversation,

so even though I don't agree, I won't carry it further. I'm not going to watch it, either, so I can't give an informed opinion on how real it looks anyway. None of us know if it's staged or not, or who even carried this out. I agree with the other poster that getting into arguments about it is rather pointless, considering neither side has concrete evidence.

[rinsd]

35. It's early....

I can't watch it again...once was enough. It's difficult to see how long they hold the knife to his throat. There are about 3(maybe 2) guys holding him face down. They pick up his head. Lots of screaming in the background(shrieking really), then a sickening grugling sound then silence.

[TexasMexican]

39. Alot of the screaming in the tape

are all of the bastards jabbering "allah ackbar" like a bunch of turkeys gobbling, but then you can hear Berg scream for a little bit before they start cutting into him.

[Goldmund]

2. I guess that...

...as long as a person isn't in a flag-draped coffin, their "families' concerns" don't matter.

[Wright Patman]

3. Isn't it interesting

that the wingnuts can't make up their mind whether we should see images of American death or not?

Nightline merely broadcasting their names with photos of them while still alive was "offensive" but this is okay.

To quote an old Temptations song, "Ball of confusion. That's what the world is today."

[davekriss]

8. Very good point

Is Sinclair Broadcasting planning on censoring any newscast that intends to read off Berg's name?

[Egnever]

4. for all your horrifying image needs

http://www.ogrish.com/index2.htm

[davekriss]

5. There was a thread here last night ...

... with posters posting up their comments after viewing the video after it first appeared on a site named www homelandsecurity com. It was as harrowing a read as some of the real-time 9-11 threads I from 2001. Just devastating. This is sad, truly sad. Not only for the tragedy wielded upon Berg and his family, but for how this event will be exploited by the political right to advance the Imperium (the PNAC agenda).


"Cease to do evil; try to do good!"

[hippiegranny]

6. i have no desire to see it

the written descriptions are graphic enough, and at this point i cannot even read any more of those. it is amazing that the torture videos are being withheld from the public, but this is out there for all to see. the question that begs to be asked is who benefits and who loses from the viewing of each video. the answer is so easy.

[davekriss]

10. Yes, who benefits

We live in a very f*cked up world... < sigh >

[fryguy]

11. if AQ or others had the torture videos they'd release it...

as it is, our military has possession of them and they will only be released by someone deciding to violate orders and do so......

[Lothar]

22. thememoryhole has it

Watched it so that I could tell the freeper types that, even after watching it, I can separate "War on Terror" from "War on Iraq". If I can keep my views intact after watching something gruesome as that where they would assume the opposite, then it's my way of spitting in their eye.

[spotbird]

57. What is interesting is that we are in Iraq because we are

more civilized than Saddam, but when we act just like him the wingnuts say it is justified. They see no inconsistency in those two positions. It looks like they have officially given up on the USA as the good guys.

The tape does not show an execution, just the mutilation of a body. That is certainly true since the blood didn't spurt. Knowing that makes it easier to watch, but only once.

Welcome to DU Lothar.

[Xithras]

13. Saw it, which I hadn't

It's truly a sickening piece of video. The sounds of the guys screams as he struggles for life will stick with me for a while.

[spotbird]

58. The sounds weren't him.

Really, what you saw was the mutilation of human remains.

[PragMantisT]

18. Yes

It's pretty graphic, but it exists and denying that serves no purpose. It is tragic. All death is. Watch it if you must, but it is not required viewing to understand the depths to which humanity has sunk. That is evident everywhere.

Sorry Mr. Berg and your family.

[liberal72]

19. Where is it on Hannity's site?

n/t

[mourningdove92]

24. go into the forums area

nt

[Mountainman]

20. Yesterday Savage was saying every American should be forced to see the

video and that he had pictures on his web site.

John and Ken on the Los Angles station were playing the audio of Burgs death over and over.


They all do the same thing so much there has to be some communication sent to them.

[Lothar]

28. Hey Savage, I saw the video

and I'm still against the war in Iraq. Who's the Weiner now, huh?!

[evil_orange_cat]

21. saw it... didn't bother me that much...

I already knew Al Qaeda was evil. The brutality didn't shock me. I've got a pretty strong stomach. I think people should watch it to remind them what kind of evil we are up against.

[RetroLounge]

25. what kind of evil we are up against?

meaning the bush* admin, I hope...

RL

[evil_orange_cat]

I was referring to Al Qaeda...

;)

Bush isn't quite that evil... ;)

[spotbird]

59. Are you sure?

What wouldn't he do that they have done? Kill thousands for political ends? Justify his acts in the name of God? Bush's evil is just sanitized by the press, they are the moral equivalent.

[still_one]

26. Those are the pieces of shit we should have been going after!

[evil_orange_cat]

38. absolutely... Iraq distracted from fight against Al Qaeda

and on top of that... the war in IRaq has allowed Al Qaeda to set up camp in Iraq. AQ wasn't in IRaq before the war... but now they are.

[lancdem]

27. Someone just posted on another thread

that a translator said the executioners never mentioned al-Qaida. I have no idea what the truth is, frankly.

[mzmolly]

41. I won't watch, but am reminded that Bush has the blood of one more human

being on his hands, when I *hear* about the horror of this poor mans death.

Enjoy your war.

[lagniappe]

30. Watched most of it. Haven't felt that angry since 9/11.

The screams will make you sick.

It is a vivid reminder of how evil those Al Qaeda bastards really are (and yes, I believe this was Al Qaeda's work). It is also a reminder of how George Bush totally f*cked up the war on terror. Instead of dedicating our full resources to fighting Al Qaeda, we are bogged down fighting the Shiites.

[Redleg]

31. I have not seen it and hope to never see it.

I can't deal with that stuff. It makes me sick to think of it. How's that for a former rough and tough Army officer?

[Unperson 309]

50. I'm With You on that...

Yay! my fiftieth post!

Anyway, yes, I agree with you. The *problem* with fighting people who are utterly ruthless is that, unless we are willing to be JUST as ruthless, we're doomed to lose...

But once we've used their tactics, what is the difference between us and them?

Been there, done that, left forever.

309

[Redleg]

54. You hit the nail on the head. That is the dilemma of guerilla warfare.

I can't think of any occupying nation that has "won" such a war- at least not without immense costs on both sides.

[spotbird]

61. Nonsense.

Anyway, yes, I agree with you. The *problem* with fighting people who are utterly ruthless is that, unless we are willing to be JUST as ruthless, we're doomed to lose...

All in kind retribution does is reduce us to their level. We should be more human than our worst and our best enemies. We didn't defeat Hitler or Stalin by acting like them, we defeated them with power and morality!

That we should have to craw into the slime with the vermin who perpetrate such evil is a myth created by the right wing to substitute violence for reason. It must be that the morality of this nation is now so morally perverted that the public has come to believe that if we become as evil as our enemies to defeat them then the victory alone is justification. Never mind that we didn’t have to sell our collective soul to end up in the same place. It is a horrific new low.

[ibegurpard]

36. Nope

I can't even wash the imagined images out of my mind.

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[datasuspect]

40. saw the video

very brutal way to die . . . makes you wonder what the hell someone is thinking about when a sharp object pierces their neck or throat . . . you'd have to feel that. that gurgling sound and the screams . . . no sane person could NOT be affected by that

still, not as gruesome as some chechen rebel videos out there (the ones where they decapitate russian soldiers in a similar manner). talk about sickening.

[TrogL]

43. Does it need posting somewhere?

I've got it, but I'm not sure I can afford the bandwidth, plus I wouldn't be able to post it until tonight (off a different server).

[Commendatori]

45. Yes, I saw it, but to be honest

the Pearl video bothered me more. I knew Pearl. Not well, but I knew him.

[sampsonblk]

46. Downloaded it but couldn't watch it

My girlfriend claimed watching it was no big deal, so she watched while I turned my head. It ruined her day. Now she turns off the TV every time its mentioned on the news.

[slutticus]

47. After reading these posts...

...I definitely won't watch it now. Fuck.

I heard on CNN this morning that even Al-Jazeera isn't showing the whole video.

Al-Jazeera plays gruesome shit all the time, but they edited this one.

Could have been for political reasons I guess....

[scrotim]

49. nice screen name, slutticus. i think you outdid me.

:)

[imax2268]

53. I saw it...

and believe me it's not for the faint hearted...

[lucky777]

55. Just Saw it . . . I feel sick

I am not afraid of blood or gore, but this made me sick especially after reading about this young man and his family, knowing how much was lost.

Took a while to load even on pretty fast dsl.

http://www.ogrish.com/index2.htm

[complain jane]

56. Ugh

I watched it and I wish I hadn't. I had seen the longer version of it, where the guy in the middle reads his rant and then changed my mind. UNFORTUNATELY this clip at this link starts off with the poor man already on his side. Oh my God I'm so sorry I saw this.

It's not even bloody or gory, the video is too blurred. You just know what's taking place and then the unnatural angle of the head all of a sudden. And to think he was alive.

This is the worst thing I've ever seen.

[Taverner]

60. Ogrish.com has it

Very disturbing site...but they do have it.

[doni_georgia]

62. I watched it - don't recommend doing the same

I'm pretty good a detaching and being able to look at gruesome things clinically. I'm one of these people that can watch open heart surgery while eating pizza. It disturbed me, and I am not easily disturbed.

[Jim Warren]

63. No, but i read the book

It's called "The Prince"

[mainer]

64. I've seen my share of autopsies and surgery. Won't see this one.

I have sons, and the thought of a kid that age dying that way -- I just won't watch it. And I have watched people bleed to death on the table.

[Amaya]

65. I just watched it

I've seen some posts saying this was fake. Anyway, I wanted to check it out for myself. This was NOT fake. Very disturbing and sad. I can't even begin to imagine what his family is going through. God almighty, this world is sick!