Ok, so some of my friends are claiming that the beheading was false. Well…not false but that he wasn't alive when they did it. They are claiming that he was killed first and then beheaded. They claim, in their infinite wisdom, that a living body would have squirted blood all over the place. But if you watch the video you'll see LOTS of blood pooling out all over and him screaming and writhing.
They claim that it was doctored up by our own people as propaganda. My two friends say "haven't you seen a movie?" as if this statement justifies their argument. I just have to say this really ticks me off. To claim that the system is so broken and that all the media is so blind not to see it is so ludicrous. If they really think checks and balances has failed they better stop talking and take action. I think they are just so into their hip ideas of global conspiracy and that ONLY THEY know about it. That or they are so desperate not to think about such a horrific death happening. Ugh… they really tick me off sometimes with all their anarchic talk.
PS> part of their problem too is they are so freaking set on the government out to get us that they turn any kind of news into a conspiracy theory. I should know better than to get upset over their rantings... *sigh*
[ May 21, 2004, 04:47 PM: Message edited by: Telperion the Silver ]
Posted by Damien (Member # 5611) on :
The CIA shut him up. He WAS alive. They killed him by beheading him. [tinfoil cap]
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
I am amazed that they think movies with all the spam-in-a-can modern special effects have any actual bearing to what happens in real life!
AJ
Posted by Telperion the Silver (Member # 6074) on :
They were trying to say that they used similar special effects to make us think that they killed him by cutting his head off....when they probably shot him first and then cut his head off.
Posted by Damien (Member # 5611) on :
Beheading is hard work, I could understand if they didnt want him struggling... I haven't seen it, though. *shrugs*
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
yeah but the blood or lack of is pretty much irrelevant. From the people I've known who work in the ER, though not necessarily witness to any decapitations, wounds that you would expect to bleed often don't and vice versa!
AJ
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
I have to admit that SOME of the whole "beheading was faked" arguments seem compelling to me. Other arguments, of course, are just silly. I think it's quite likely that there are aspects to this situation that we're not intended to know.
Posted by beatnix19 (Member # 5836) on :
quote: I haven't seen it, though
don't real or not it was a very disturbing video. Darn my curiousity. Got a real bad night of sleep after that.
Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
The first I read about this was on the Al-Jazeera website last week. It's actually a pretty decent article, without a lot of conspiracy accusations. But it does say there's an awful lot that's weird about the beheading as shown, the way it was disseminated, and some weirdnesses involving contradicting stories about Berg being in custody before his abduction.
quote:However, the circumstances of the video release are also strange. A Reuters journalist in Dubai first named the Muntada al-Ansar al-Islami website as the source for the video – at www.al-ansar.biz.
Although the site has now been shut down, Aljazeera.net looked at the site within 90 minutes of the story breaking – and could find no such video footage.
But Fox News, CNN and the BBC were all able to download the footage from the Arabic-only website and report the story within the hour.
Days before death
Other questions presented by bloggers are Berg's peculiar circumstances in the weeks before his death. Why would a private Jewish American citizen choose to wander around Iraq by himself?
Additionally, some have pointed out that his last email on 6 April to his family stated he wished to return home as soon as possible – yet the FBI claims he refused an offer of help to get home.
Personally, I'm not inclined toward a conspiracy theory. But there's more than enough material in the story of Berg's final days for those who are so inclined.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
quote:Aljazeera.net looked at the site within 90 minutes of the story breaking – and could find no such video footage.
But Fox News, CNN and the BBC were all able to download the footage from the Arabic-only website and report the story within the hour.
This is the type of shoddy reasoning that leads to these types of theories. First, even if we accept what they say as completely true, you'll notice that the American news corporations got it "within the hour" and Aljazeera.net was "within 90 minutes". Not only that, it was "90 minutes within the story breaking". When did the story officialy break? We don't know, but it could mean "90 minutes within CNN airing the story", and even if it doesn't, 30 minutes makes a significant difference.
Also, I have a very, very hard time believing that the media will lie for the president, and I think anyone actually watches these channels would too.
Hobbes Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
quote:Also, I have a very, very hard time believing that the media will lie for the president, and I think anyone actually watches these channels would too.
Hobbes - I'm not an advocate of conspiracy theories in general or this one in particular.
But they're not really suggesting the media is lying on behalf of the administration. What they've highlighted is that - if they're being accurate - the word was sent out very quickly to Western media and Al-Jazeera wasn't in the loop on this.
At most, there is a suggestion of manipulation of Western media.
Posted by Richard Berg (Member # 133) on :
There are some potential discrepancies in the story we've been told (US prison jumpsuit, similar chairs/room, gold ring on a Muslim, skin looks overexposed, bad edit before the beheading, timestamp jumps from 12hr to 24hr...). The lack of Kill Bill effects isn't one of them.
Posted by Black Fox (Member # 1986) on :
I'll say this special effects give real life no credit. Its a lot different when you see it up close.
Posted by The Silverblue Sun (Member # 1630) on :
What I thought was weird was the claim that one of the terrorists claimed to me Abdul Jackbar SandPerson, or who ever, some Al Queada, jerk.
...but if this guy wanted us to KNOW it was him beheading the guy, why on EARTH was he wearing a freaking hood???
<T>
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Here's my take on it:
Any news organization that could prove the video is fake would win a major scoop over the others.
There's enough to be gained for any network that someone is spending the time analyzing the video to see if there's any contention that can be made that it's faked.
Dagonee
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
Occam's razor has to come into play here. Which is more likely — a brilliantly faked video and a massive conspiracy within a democratic government and its news media ... or a group of angry zealots brutally murdering a guy on camera? I dunno, I personally don't find the latter to be so ridiculously unlikely that the former even begins to sound credible.
The conspiracy theorists here are just looking for ways to make the fanatics we're fighting look good while making the American government look bad. Personally, I think it's possible to disagree with the American government and think it's making poor choices without necessarily whitewashing the opposition. Even if you think we're totally awful, at least recognize that many of the people we're fighting are totally awful, TOO.
Don't worry — recognizing that they're awful doesn't automatically legitimize everything we might do in response, so stop wasting time trying to justify or explain away this stuff. The man got beheaded with a hacksaw. A lot of people have also been beheaded by large-caliber gunfire over the past couple of years, on both sides. Horrible stuff happens sometimes in the real world. It's not that unbelievable.
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