Here's a conspiracy theory for you...

[widebody911]

This should be good!

http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?disc=149495;article=54893;title=APF N

[island911]

Nice pop-up and pop-backs.

I was too busy hitting alt-F4 to get the article.

[techweenie]

Really interesting stuff.

Some allegations can be explained away easily as differences in time zones, and the clock? Well, I doubt Al Quaeda have a nice shiny, big headquarters building that they furnished, so it could have been shot anywhere.

I imagine the CIA could have done something like this, but I strongly doubt it. Yet you have to agree that the timing makes it great fodder for people who only believe what they see.

Last week, I met someone who thought the U.S. government took down the WTC. It takes all kinds.

[araine901]

I wonder how this will play out now that it is out that he and the "20th highjacker" were using the same e-mail account or somthing like that. Makes his fathers comments about the victim being his killers "best friend" somewhat chilling

[techweenie]

I just heard that this afternoon. What are the odds?

This story will get more complicated, I think.

[araine901]

Yeah, that is putting it mildy.

[dd74]

Two things I heard was Berg was questioned twice by the FBI when they linked his laptop to Moussaoui (sp?). And when he was put in U.S. military custody in Iraq, he was offered a plane flight out, but refused.

The 20th hijacker meeting in Oklahoma where the terrorists trained to fly planes is just bizarre. I really don't get it; if there's anything to get.

I still contend Berg was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

One tidbit about being arrested by Iraqi police comes from a Chilean photog who said Berg told him he was detained because his last name was thought to be Jewish.

[dd74]

Originally posted by araine901
I wonder how this will play out now that it is out that he and the "20th highjacker" were using the same e-mail account or somthing like that. Makes his fathers comments about the victim being his killers "best friend" somewhat chilling

Berg went to Oklahoma State U. Evidentially, he was on a bus with Moussaui. Moussaui saw Berg open up his laptop and asked Berg if he could "borrow" the laptop. Berg said sure, and in turn gave Moussaui his name and password.

Strange because the FBI traced Berg's Internet I.D. Now how can someone access the internet on a bus unless the have a satellite set up or something. So that tells me that Berg might have hung out a bit with Moussaui; at least hung around long enough for Moussaui to reach a dial up or LAN line.

Hmmm...he helps one al Queda member and is beheaded by another? I wonder if al-Zargawi is saying to himself "...ah *****! We truly did kill 'a friend.'"

[techweenie]

dd74: "Berg went to Oklahoma State U. Evidentially, he was on a bus with Moussaui. Moussaui saw Berg open up his laptop and asked Berg if he could "borrow" the laptop. Berg said sure, and in turn gave Moussaui his name and password."

I heard that, too, but I heard Berg was there in '99 and Moussawi in '01 -- that the Iraqi he befriended in '99 was yet another Al Quaeda guy...

If I understand correctly, Berg's brother in law is an Iraqi? (heard it on a local talk radio station which is notorious for spreading disinformation)

The only consistent thing I'm hearing is that Berg was a very decent guy...

[dd74]

I've heard the same thing: very decent guy. But what is decent? Can "decent" be gullible? Can it also be impressionable?

Part of al Queda's M.O. is to recruit impressionable young men. Berg was a humanitarian - hence a potential easy propaganda target.

He also wanted to "help out" the people of Iraq, and helping out does not necessarily infer that he is against the war. A majority of the U.S. believe the war is helping out the Iraqis.

I'm wondering if al Queda simply got their lines crossed. Man, if this could be proved - that they effed up and killed a semi-sympathetic American supporter of the cause to help the Islamic world, it'd be a huge slap against al Queda.

The question is would al Queda care?

[araine901]

My two cents

I am wondring if there is more to the chance meeting of Berg and 20th. I read the above but it just seems too wierd. I would bet that he had a little more contact than just the meeting on the bus, not much but enough to know that he didnt want to hang out with them.(at least at that time) I am guessing that he may have been disienchanted after being detained by the Iraqi and or US while in Iraq and went to meet some of his old aquantiances (not friends or cohorts just people he had casualy met or known for help or guidance). I am still trying to understand why he would refuse a free trip home. It is just stunning to think of the chances that he would end up in Iraq after an investigation with 20th. I am totaly pulling the above out of my butt, but it is the path my mind keeps taking me. I will spare you the oppertunity to make the jokes about the proxcimity of my butt and head. I have been accused many times of having my head up my a$$ and this may just be another one.

Am I on track for the tin foil club???

[350HP930]

I heard the berg moussaui e-mail interchange occured on a campus lab computer, not on a bus. Perhaps he met moussaui on a bus and later allowed him to use his account in a lab and all these stories are just getting jumbled up.

Any way you slice it though, there is either something strange afoot or this is just one of those stories of strange coincidences

[techweenie]

Backing up part of Nick Berg's distraught father's story is this translation from part of the beheading tape:

""For the mothers and wives of American soldiers, we tell you that we offered the US administration to exchange this hostage with some of the detainees in Abu Ghraib and they refused."

Not sure what to think about this... but the obvious thing is that some of the Abu Ghraib detainees are among our worst enemies.

[techweenie]

Read some of the discussion. It's amazing what a lot a conspiracy theorists will see.

1. Lack of blood (a jugular sprays like crazy)

2. Missing 14 seconds

3. Change in hood color of 'executioner'?

I'd have to watch the tape to confirm this stuff, but I'm not ready. Heck, the Zapruder film still disturbs me.

[techweenie]

Well, on an ultra-right-wing site today, I found more conspiracy stuff, still, and this'll really confuse you because the story almost makes it seem as if Al Quaeda is working with Bush:

http://www.sianews.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1718

[araine901]

Ok I admit I am kind of dence but you are going to have to connect the dots on this for me beucase I read it and did not get that at all. The insinuation that he may have been intercepting military e-mails does not point back to bush.

[dd74]

I don't get that al Queda's working for Bush, I get that

1) Berg was playing both sides and got caught.

2) When first arrested, he didn't understand the jig was up and that he should leave Baghdad.

3) At worse, he might have been "watched" by someone who passed a little tip to some al Queda thugs who in turn did the dirty work.

The Russian-speaking "hoodies" is weird, though. And the email angle I know nothing about.

To me it sounds like Berg just didn't know what he was getting into, "best friend" or not.

[techweenie]

Well, folks, 'almost makes it seem like' is not a smoking gun.

The writer of the article, in the last two paragraphs, asserts 1. Berg *might* have had a way to intercept U.S. military e-mail, and 2. that Berf *might* have been in on the prison torture scandals.

Both of these assertions put Berg at odds with the U.S. administration. Having Berg disposed of could be seen as serving the double purpose of getting rid of an annoyance to the U.S. cause, and to have it done on video was the perfect trump card against released and upcoming stills and videos from Abu Ghraib.

Hey, nothing from a right wing wacko web site is likely to convince me, I just said it was weird stuff.

[araine901]

Techweenie:

How do you sleep with that tin foil helmet on? LOL

[dd74]

Originally posted by techweenie
Having Berg disposed of could be seen as serving the double purpose of getting rid of an annoyance to the U.S. cause, and to have it done on video was the perfect trump card against released and upcoming stills and videos from Abu Ghraib.

Yes, but if that's intended, it backfired. Seeing the man beheaded didn't seem to give new public calls for increased efforts in the war - well, except with some in Congress.

The sarin shell, on the other hand, seemed to cause a bigger stir.