[Marxism] RE: WSWS on Nick Berg

["Tony Abdo" <gojack10@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

It is to the WSWS discredit that it jumps into the rumor mongering based
without sufficient evidence to do so head first, too, alongside many of the
Left blogs.Just to take argument a bit with the WSWS reasoning some now ...

<<The terrible death of Nick Berg in Iraq?beheaded in front of a video
camera?has taken place in such strange and suspicious circumstances that it
raises deeply troubling questions. Among them is whether American agencies
had a direct or indirect hand in the young man?s murder.>>

There is little doubt that the US had at least an indirect hand in the fate
of Nick Berg.  But there is no evidence that this guy had any smarts to him
at all, or that he was connected to the US government.  He appears to just
have been freelancing on his own in an adventuresome spot of the world,
which was an extremely stupid thing for him to have been doing at the time.
Maybe he just got burnt?

<<Questions immediately arise from the timing and political consequences of
his killing. At the height of a massive scandal engulfing the Bush
administration, Berg?s death has been exploited by the American government
and the US media to launch a counter-offensive against the revelations of
systematic US torture in Abu Ghraib and other Iraqi prisons. A wholesale
attempt is being made to shift American and international public opinion
away from the outrage over the criminal character of the US occupation of
Iraq and behind the self-serving argument that American forces are needed in
Iraq to prevent the country descending into barbarism and chaos.>>

It was an unfortunate timing and bad political consequences for the
mutliation of the 4 contractors in Fallujah, also.  Is there ever a time
when beheading some one will not provoke outrage amongst most people?  Many
an action against Israel has occurred in a much similar manner and timing as
the beheading did. So? That is the nature of such a brutal war, and no
'questions immediately arise' or should automatically immediately arise when
events take place in such a manner as the beheading did.

The administration needed no such bizarre thing to do as to kill Nick Berg
directly. It would be an extremely dangerous type of thing to do, and if
caught at such, would be the downfall of any government in the world.  The
administration already has many thuggish imperialist arguments without such
plots.  The basic defenese has been, and will continue to be, simply that
yes we did engage in some 'abuse', but we are sorry and after all look at
what beasts they are in comparison to the relatively minor stuff our troops
did.  A beheading by the 'other guys' helps this argument some, but in no
way is so much a total necessity. The effort to turn Arabs into racial
villians started long before the invasion even.


<<Yesterday, he (the father of Nick) told Philadelphia radio: ?My son died
for the sins of George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. This administration did
this.? He has also demanded to know whether ?it is true that al-Qaeda
offered to trade my son?s life for another person,? as is alleged in the
video-tape statement of Nick Berg?s killers.>>

Andf so far, that is as far as the dad has gone with his comments.  Why
should WSWS and other assorted Leftists go flying off further without any
real data to do so with?  Is it not bad enough that the US didn't tell the
dad about the negotiationns going on for his son's life?  That's pretty damn
criminal!

<<The issues being raised by Michael Berg point to the fact, that at best,
the US authorities created the conditions in which his son could be
kidnapped by extremists and killed.>>

Yes, that is why Michael Berg stops here, since logic backs him up only to
this point, at this time.  But the WSWS wants to score additional pointsit
seems...

<<The more disturbing possibility that arises from all the evidence that is
known is that Berg?s disappearance and subsequent killing was the work of US
agencies or pro-US Iraqi factions. One month after he disappeared, Berg was
murdered at the most opportune moment for the US government.>>

Where is any evidence of this?  It is pure speculation so far. The evidence
only points to an abduction probably based only on Iraqis being totally
aware of Berg's whereabouts.  The US military endangerred the life of this
adventurer, there is no doubt about that.  And he paid for that with his
life.  But there is really no evidence to go further with all this
specualtion that the US government had Berg directly killed just as photo
op.  It is just much more likely that he was seized based only on info from
Iraqi spies within the US made Iraqi puppet police force.  And the US
government held back on filling the family in on the negotiations for a
prisoner releaser in exchange for Nick Berg's life.  That's because they
didn't negotiate, they just led Nick get it.

All this poorly constructed speculation of the probabliltiy of direct US
government murder of US citizens to help sway international opinion that
Arabs are brutes is not in any way necessary for the Left to be doing. The
US government has much more known and readily data backed crimes, and
exposing them is plenty  enough work as it is, without seeking what seem to
be nothing more than imagined, paranoia-fed, non-substantiated accusations
of crimes not actually really yet being committed at this time.

The wilder Left specualtion, without enough data to support the speculation
with gets, the more unreal it will seem to others with more conservative
opinions.  It will make the Left seen as the tendency always shouting
'Wolf!, Wolf!  Wolf!'.  Let the evidence come in before leaping so quckly to
accuse the government with yet worst material.  Michael Berg is doing this
quite well, but the WSWS is having its problems with this.

What is known that the US government actually did is bad enough as it is.
They will pay a price for this since it seems sure that Michael Berg will
hound them for their crime here, for the rest of his life. Nick Berg will
become the not so easily erased evidence of just how calloused the US
government actually is, when it says it is fighting to defend Americans'
lives.

Tony Abdo

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