[BigVrunga]

From:
CNN.com - Beheaded man's father: Revenge breeds revenge - Jun 8, 2006

Beheaded man's father: Revenge breeds revenge
Michael Berg talks about the death of his son and al-Zarqawi

Thursday, June 8, 2006; Posted: 2:41 p.m. EDT (18:41 GMT)

A terror-linked Web site showed Nicholas Berg being beheaded, likely by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

A gruesome video was posted on Islamic Web sites in May, 2004, depicting a man believed to be al-Zarqawi beheading Nicholas Berg, an American businessman who was working in Iraq.

CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien talks to Nicholas Berg's father, Michael Berg, by phone from Wilmington, Delaware, for his reaction to the news.

O'BRIEN: Mr. Berg, thank you for talking with us again. It's nice to have an opportunity to talk to you. Of course, I'm curious to know your reaction, as it is now confirmed that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the man who is widely credited and blamed for killing your son, Nicholas, is dead.

MICHAEL BERG: Well, my reaction is I'm sorry whenever any human being dies. Zarqawi is a human being. He has a family who are reacting just as my family reacted when Nick was killed, and I feel bad for that. (Watch video of the two bombs falling on al-Zarqawi -- 2:00)

I feel doubly bad, though, because Zarqawi is also a political figure, and his death will re-ignite yet another wave of revenge, and revenge is something that I do not follow, that I do want ask for, that I do not wish for against anybody. And it can't end the cycle. As long as people use violence to combat violence, we will always have violence.

O'BRIEN: I have to say, sir, I'm surprised. I know how devastated you and your family were, frankly, when Nick was killed in such a horrible, and brutal and public way.

BERG: Well, you shouldn't be surprised, because I have never indicated anything but forgiveness and peace in any interview on the air.

O'BRIEN: No, no. And we have spoken before, and I'm well aware of that. But at some point, one would think, is there a moment when you say, 'I'm glad he's dead, the man who killed my son'?

BERG: No. How can a human being be glad that another human being is dead?

O'BRIEN: There have been family members who have weighed in, victims, who've said that they don't think he's a martyr in heaven, that they think, frankly, he went straight to hell ...

You know, you talked about the fact that he's become a political figure. Are you concerned that he becomes a martyr and a hero and, in fact, invigorates the insurgency in Iraq?

BERG: Of course. When Nick was killed, I felt that I had nothing left to lose. I'm a pacifist, so I wasn't going out murdering people. But I am -- was not a risk-taking person, and yet now I've done things that have endangered me tremendously.

I've been shot at. I've been showed horrible pictures. I've been called all kinds of names and threatened by all kinds of people, and yet I feel that I have nothing left to lose, so I do those things.

Now, take someone who in 1991, who maybe had their family killed by an American bomb, their support system whisked away from them, someone who, instead of being 59, as I was when Nick died, was 5-years-old or 10-years-old. And then if I were that person, might I not learn how to fly a plane into a building or strap a bag of bombs to my back?

That's what is happening every time we kill an Iraqi, every time we kill anyone, we are creating a large number of people who are going to want vengeance. And, you know, when are we ever going to learn that that doesn't work?

O'BRIEN: There's an alternate reading, which would say at some point, Iraqis will say the insurgency is not OK -- that they'll be inspired by the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the sense of he was turned in, for example, we believe by his own No. 2, No. 3 leadership in his ranks.

And, that's actually them saying we do not want this kind of violence in our country. Experts whom we've spoken to this morning have said this is a critical moment where Iraqis need to figure out which direction the country is going to go. That would be an alternate reading to the scenario you're pointing to. (Watch how Iraqi leaders cheered after learning about al-Zarqawi's death -- 4:31)

BERG: Yes, well, I don't believe that scenario, because every time news of new atrocities committed by Americans in Iraq becomes public, more and more of the everyday Iraqi people who tried to hold out, who tried to be peaceful people lose it and join -- what we call the insurgency, and what I call the resistance, against the occupation of one sovereign nation.

O'BRIEN: There's a theory that a struggle for democracy, you know...

BERG: Democracy? Come on, you can't really believe that that's a democracy there when the people who are running the elections are holding guns. That's not democracy.

O'BRIEN: There's a theory that as they try to form some kind of government, that it's going to be brutal, it's going to be bloody, there's going to be loss, and that's the history of many countries -- and that's just what a lot of people pay for what they believe will be better than what they had under Saddam Hussein.

BERG: Well, you know, I'm not saying Saddam Hussein was a good man, but he's no worse than George Bush. Saddam Hussein didn't pull the trigger, didn't commit the rapes. Neither did George Bush. But both men are responsible for them under their reigns of terror.

I don't buy that. Iraq did not have al Qaeda in it. Al Qaeda supposedly killed my son.

Under Saddam Hussein, no al Qaeda. Under George Bush, al Qaeda.

Under Saddam Hussein, relative stability. Under George Bush, instability.

Under Saddam Hussein, about 30,000 deaths a year. Under George Bush, about 60,000 deaths a year. I don't get it. Why is it better to have George Bush the king of Iraq rather than Saddam Hussein?

O'BRIEN: Michael Berg is the father of Nicholas Berg, the young man, the young businessman who was beheaded so brutally in Iraq back in May of 2004.

[BioHazzard]

What an idiot! He actually believes that Iraq would be better off under Saddam. He probably believes that Hitler, Stalin, Tojo, Amin were all good benevolent rulers.

Glad he is running on the Green Party's ticket.

[BigVrunga]

I just thought it was an interesting reaction, considering what happened to his son. Ive never been the same after seeing that video, and I didnt even know the guy.

If it were my kid, I probably would have dropped everything I was doing, went back to college for physics for a few years,built my own hydrogen bomb and incenerated that whole region of the globe.

Still though, I can understand his viewpoint. Violence begets violence. There has to be a reason why so many people in the world despise our country...its not because they're all ignorant or uneducated...I find it hard to believe that the son of a father killed by a US bomb would be able to tell himself "Oh, that's OK, they're doing it for the good of my country". Even if that's part of the reason for it. (politcal stability in the world's most oil-rich reigon being the other part)

What an idiot! He actually believes that Iraq would be better off under Saddam. He probably believes that Hitler, Stalin, Tojo, Amin were all good benevolent rulers.

Still though, Saddam being a ruthless dictator isnt really the reason why the US went to war in Iraq. There are plenty of other countries that have no political or economic value to us , run by manical murderous bastards, but our government could give two ****s about them.

BV

[EEmain]

It`s called compassion...

Compassion is the keen awareness of the interdependence of all things. --Thomas Merton

[Mason]

Originally Posted by BioHazzard

What an idiot! He actually believes that Iraq would be better off under Saddam. He probably believes that Hitler, Stalin, Tojo, Amin were all good benevolent rulers.

Glad he is running on the Green Party's ticket.

Joseph Stalin was a good leader. Hitler was very intelligent, but should not have killed millions of jews.

[BioHazzard]

Originally Posted by EEmain

It`s called compassion...

Compassion is the keen awareness of the interdependence of all things. --Thomas Merton

It is called naivety.

Some people are simply unfit for survival. THey are miserable creatures who would otherwise have perished long ago, but are only kept safe and free, by the exertion and sacrifice of brave souls.

[BioHazzard]

Originally Posted by Mason

Joseph Stalin was a good leader. Hitler was very intelligent, but should not have killed millions of jews.

I doubt the 20 million Russians who perished under Uncle Joe's 'good' leadership would agree......

I doubt how intelligent Hitler was when he constantly fcuking up his generals' plans.......

[BioHazzard]

Originally Posted by BigVrunga

I just thought it was an interesting reaction, considering what happened to his son. Ive never been the same after seeing that video, and I didnt even know the guy.

If it were my kid, I probably would have dropped everything I was doing, went back to college for physics for a few years,built my own hydrogen bomb and incenerated that whole region of the globe.

Still though, I can understand his viewpoint. Violence begets violence. There has to be a reason why so many people in the world despise our country...its not because they're all ignorant or uneducated...I find it hard to believe that the son of a father killed by a US bomb would be able to tell himself "Oh, that's OK, they're doing it for the good of my country". Even if that's part of the reason for it. (politcal stability in the world's most oil-rich reigon being the other part)



Still though, Saddam being a ruthless dictator isnt really the reason why the US went to war in Iraq. There are plenty of other countries that have no political or economic value to us , run by manical murderous bastards, but our government could give two ****s about them.

BV

Suckers like him, is the reason that the enemies are emboldened to attack America. They see people like him as suckers and weaklings. They despise people like him. And they think America is weak in its resolve, because Americans are suckers like him.

We need to get out of out cocoon and go live among the foreigners. We need to feel how they feel, and sense what they sense. In many parts of the worlds, you have people with a very primitive sense of what is right and wrong. They understand power. They respect power. They don't give a phucker about compassion. They will prey on you if they see as weak. Sad, but that is the way the world is. We can pretend otherwise, but that is not changing the reality a bit.

[DazzlinJack]

All that peaceful stuff may have an ounce of reason behind it. "When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall - think of it, always." Mahatma Gandhi

[BUCKNUTS]

Now, take someone who in 1991, who maybe had their family killed by an American bomb, their support system whisked away from them, someone who, instead of being 59, as I was when Nick died, was 5-years-old or 10-years-old. And then if I were that person, might I not learn how to fly a plane into a building or strap a bag of bombs to my back?

WOW! what an unbelievable bunch of liberal bullsh!t I have never been in favor of the war in Iraq but this kind of justification for using planes to murder thousands of innocent people is so completely idiotic as to defy belief. what a moron

[yeahright]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to BigVrunga again.

[CDB]

Originally Posted by BUCKNUTS

WOW! what an unbelievable bunch of liberal bullsh!t I have never been in favor of the war in Iraq but this kind of justification for using planes to murder thousands of innocent people is so completely idiotic as to defy belief. what a moron

It's no different than the reasoning some people who I know who lost family in 9/11 used to justify their desire to nuke the entire middle east, and a few who I know well would have gladly done so at the time and still would. One of my best friends quit her job at a reinsurance company in the towers a few months before and damn near the whole company was lost, 200 plus people I believe. She wasn't too happy about it to say the least and is still a bit ****ed up over it. She lost a lot of friends that she had worked with a long time. There are at least 30,000 dead Iraqis as the result of this war, civilian casualties, and I guarantee you each one of them had at least one person who loved them dearly and was hurt enough by their death to at least consider flying a plane into a building. Not acknowledging that is bull****. Critical in the war on terror if it is to be fought well is to make as few new enemies as possible and give as few new recruits as possible to the enemy. Iraq as a democracy may accomplish that in the long term.

I don't know what kind of government the Iraqis want or will end up with, how they feel on the whole about America, their religion, our religion, their dead and ours, but they bleed just like everyone else. It would be wise for you to consider, support for the war or not, what your reaction would be if an Iraqi bomb, where ever it was aimed and for whatever purpose, vaporized the person or persons who you love most in this world. However different they may be from us in their mindset and ideology, customs and history, they are human. Whether Americans like it or not, the hatred some in the middle east feel towards is very real and very justified, even if how they act on that hatred is not justified. The wrong acts of others don't excuse or justify your own, and that goes for us and them. And we cannot ignore the human cost on both sides of the war. Their country is substantially smaller than ours in area and population and yet their dead in this conflict outnumber ours by almost 15 to 1. On a mere practical level that's a ratio that has every chance of coming back and biting us in the ass, to say nothing about its moral or ethical implications.

[JonesersRX7]

Originally Posted by yeahright

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to BigVrunga again.

I got him for ya.

[BioHazzard]

Originally Posted by EEmain

Common fallacies of logic and rhetoric
Ad hominem - attacking the arguer and not the argument.
Argument from "authority".
Argument from adverse consequences (putting pressure on the decision maker by pointing out dire consequences of an "unfavorable" decision).
Appeal to ignorance (absence of evidence is not evidence of absence).
Special pleading (typically referring to god's will).
Begging the question (assuming an answer in the way the question is phrased).
Observational selection (counting the hits and forgetting the misses).
Statistics of small numbers (such as drawing conclusions from inadequate sample sizes).
Misunderstanding the nature of statistics (President Eisenhower expressing astonishment and alarm on discovering that fully half of all Americans have below average intelligence!)
Inconsistency (e.g. military expenditures based on worst case scenarios but scientific projections on environmental dangers thriftily ignored because they are not "proved").
Non sequitur - "it does not follow" - the logic falls down.
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc - "it happened after so it was caused by" - confusion of cause and effect.
Meaningless question ("what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?).
Excluded middle - considering only the two extremes in a range of possibilities (making the "other side" look worse than it really is).
Short-term vs.. long-term - a subset of excluded middle ("why pursue fundamental science when we have so huge a budget deficit?").
Slippery slope - a subset of excluded middle - unwarranted extrapolation of the effects (give an inch and they will take a mile).
Confusion of correlation and causation.
Straw man - caricaturing (or stereotyping) a position to make it easier to attack..
Suppressed evidence or half-truths.
Weasel words - for example, use of euphemisms for war such as "police action" to get around limitations on Presidential powers. "An important art of politicians is to find new names for institutions, which under old names have become odious to the public"

The more befitting title would be "An Orgy of Mental Masturbation: It allows you to pretend that you are smart."

[EEmain]

Originally Posted by BioHazzard

The more befitting title would be "An Orgy of Mental Masturbation: It allows you to pretend that you are smart."

After posting I decided you didn`t deserve a response... now I know.

[BioHazzard]

Well, you should know by now, I am not one of those who routinely participate in the Orgy of Mental Masturbation.

That's because I don't need to pretend that I am smart.