rowyn | Resolution

I was thinking, earlier today, about Nick Berg's death. As the news of his murder was first circulating, some of my LJ friends were pointing at things in the video, or in the events leading up to his death, that appeared inconsistent with the story presented in the video: that he'd been kidnapped and executed by Muslim terrorists while the videotape was rolling.

And I was wondering: did anything more ever come of that? Was a hypothesis advanced that explained the apparent inconsistencies? Were the concerns of armchair bloggers refuted by mainstream sources or official channels? Does anyone here know?

[Edit: Here's an example of the inconsistencies that were being discussed at the time.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

level-head.livejournal.com

When the prison scandal was first reported, everyone said how it must have only been a few people - and residents from the towns the guilty people came from still refuse to beleive they did anything wrong.

Perhaps it was orders from the very top all the way down that caused this group of perpetrators to pull their stunts between 2 and 4 am when no one else was around, and then get turned in by their fellow soldiers and prosecuted by their own commanders, and then have their defense attorney in that prosecution contacted his old buddy Seymour Hersch to stage a news release to distract attention from them and focus instead on the command chain, which the media was pleased to do.

If it hadn't been for the clever defense attorney, these people might have been jailed for their acts and no one would know that they were really acting under orders from Geroge W. Bush to be ignorant abusive perverts in the middle of the night. Wouldn't THAT have been terrible! The world would not have realized that these several "ignorant abusive perverts in the middle of the night" were really carrying out American policy from the very top, and the other quarter million soldiers in theater didn't count.

===|==============/ Level Head

From:

garyamort.livejournal.com

Perhaps it was orders from the very top all the way down

Perhaps it was, perhaps it wasn't.

But at the end of the day, whether they were ordered or not is irrelevant. They still did the crimes.

And you can still find people from their hometowns who deny they did anything wrong.

It's always "someone else" who does the bad stuff. Not "someone like me".

From:

rowyn

With all due respect, sir, I think you rather missed Gary's original point, which is merely: "Even with considerable evidence pointing to X, Y, and Z, those who knew X, Y, and Z insisted 'It can't be true!'" :)

From:

level-head.livejournal.com

I understood that -- but his statement "it must have been only a few people" has turned out to be apparently true, contrary to his clear assertion. It was an inappropriate case to put apposite the Berg conspiracy claims, I thought.

The second part -- that "residents from the towns the guilty people came from still refuse to believe they did anything wrong" may be true in some cases. From the articles in the local papers, it doesn't seem to be a majority opinion, but I certainly don't know.

Ah -- I see that some of these perps were considered not-quite-goodguys before going:

Specialist Charles A. Graner Jr. is a guard at one of Pennsylvania's most heavily secured death row prisons, accused by his former wife of violent behavior. Pfc. Lynndie R. England was married and divorced before she was 21, worked at a chicken-processing plant in West Virginia and wanted to attend college to become a storm-chasing meteorologist.
. . .
Specialist Graner was involved in a bitter divorce. In court papers, his wife, Staci, accused him of beating her, threatening her with guns, stalking her after they separated in 1997 and breaking into her home. Since 1997, local judges have issued at least three orders of protection against him, records show.

And indeed, as GaryAmort suggested, there is at least one family who -- while not denying what happened -- still didn't think the attack on their family member was fair:

Goin and Klinestiver said the family is furious with the comments of President Bush, who said he was "disgusted" by the photographs. "He doesn't know what these guys are going through," Klinestiver said. Referring to Bush's limited National Guard service during the Vietnam War, he added, "How can you make decisions for our military unless you've served yourself?"

Some of these people simply confessed. Others attempted to blame their conditions, as their attorney suggested. The "orders from their commanders" did not originate until the news media got involved. Of course: how could the defense attorney (himself a civilian) make THAT point when addressing the very people that these "orders" were to have come from? It wouldn't fly.

I think that GaryAmort's point was valid -- but I didn't think that the Abu Ghraib example was a good one to use for it.

===|==============/ Level Head

From:

garyamort.livejournal.com

I understood that -- but his statement "it must have been only a few people" has turned out to be apparently true, contrary to his clear assertion.

Well, first of all, declaring this the day the story aired in the news was still simple denial and jumping to conclusions. Even if it 'turned out to be true' it still wasn't a valid assumption to make on the day the story aired.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day(unless it is digital - in which case it might display nothing, or only be right once a day, or even something odder)

Since I was discussing examples of how people in general immediately dismiss that a crime could be committed by someone 'like them', I think all the comparisons were valid. Actually, I passed on making the comparison that immediately came to mind because I can't find the link to the cartoon that expressed it best. Ahh, found it, http://archive.gamespy.com/comics/dorktower/archive.asp?nextform=viewcomic&id=661

Gamers who declared the sniper was 'not like them' before he was caught, despite media reports of similiarities.

And of course Angry White Men, http://archive.gamespy.com/comics/dorktower/archive.asp?nextform=viewcomic&id=662

Just because they were right, does it make their conclusion before the facts where known the correct one to make?

As for it being only a few people involved in the prison scandal, or there being orders from higher up, I'm not sure. I don't think any real conclusion of who all was responsible and to what extent will be able to drawn for years. What we(and by we I mean the United States) can do is take steps to make sure it doesn't happen again.

From:

level-head.livejournal.com

Even a broken clock is right twice a day(unless it is digital - in which case it might display nothing, or only be right once a day, or even something odder)

*chuckle* What kind of a clock are ye handin me? ];-)

Well, first of all, declaring this the day the story aired in the news was still simple denial and jumping to conclusions.

Not quite true, I think. The notion that hat it was a larger, endemic situation would be unlikely on its face, particularly to those familiar with military code -- and that represents quite a few citizens. And I recall that the timestamps -- the "wee hours" times on the photos -- were discussed very early on.

At least as interesting are the other half of the country, who instantly assumed that it was a top-down order to torture those prisoners and is to this day reluctant to admit otherwise.

And then we had the third element -- the person who broke the story, but knew that it was not at all as he portrayed it as he was doing so. Unlike either category we're discussing of people jumping to conclusions, he started from the conclusion, then led his readers astray. Or so the evidence that I've seen indicates.

I do agree that the supervisory problem there needed to be addressed -- and certainly was in the process of being so. It's hard to plan on your own people being such creeps, but necessary.

===|==============/ Level Head

From:

garyamort.livejournal.com

At least as interesting are the other half of the country, who instantly assumed that it was a top-down order to torture those prisoners and is to this day reluctant to admit otherwise.

Interesting, but not germane to my point. I was pointing out examples of people who try to either dismiss crimes commited by members of their 'group' as either not being performed by some other group or denial of the crime. Primarily the latter, but I opened the door to the former because it is the other option peolpe tend to take and couldn't find a way to not mention it and remain balanced in my mind.

As such, the response of many Americans to assume a massive conspiracy wasn't relevant to my point, which just to re-iterate since this has gone on so long was:

A major leg of the Nick Berg conspiracy is the men in the video did not portray the mannerisms of middle eastern people as claimed by middle eastern people.

I dismiss this claim as not being a compelling claim, because it is human nature to rationalize away crimes by claiming the people doing them are not part of your group.