Just for clarity I want to point out that according to the news reports coming out now the guy was not actually working for any civilian contractors. He had gone to Iraq twice "looking for work" but had not found any, just before he disappeared he had been detained by the
U.S. military and his family had to sue to get him released. I feel terrible what happened but I am somewhat annoyed by the "spin" being put on it by the talking heads about how he was there to "rebuild Iraq" etc., I don't think it's entirely clear exactly what this guy was doing in Iraq except getting himself into trouble. That said it's still a tragedy.
Just to add one other observation that may not be obvious to everyone, it seems from his last name that not only was he an American but he was also Jewish, (this obvious fact will never be pointed out on our liberal PC networks.) To most of us here his religion might seem irrelevant but to the terrorist this means everything. If they can execute an American who also happens to be a Jew for them it's a Double Victory (ie. Daniel Perl), now assuming he was indeed an American Jew wandering around unescorted in Iraq trying to set up a business to the Iraqi's this is like a black person walking down the street in rural Alabama in the 1930's holding hands with a white women, he might as well have painted a bullseye on his back. In that same vein I think it's a mistake to imply that all Arabs are inherently evil because of what these barbarians did to that poor kid, if you really feel that way you are no better then our enemy because that's how they feel about us. Would you look at photos of lynching's in the south and say that all people from the south are Evil? It is a mistake to paint any group of people with such a broad brush, yes most of them look the other way on this butchery just like most people in the south looked the other way at the KKK and the lynch mobs and the German's looked the other way at the concentration camps. All human beings are capable of Evil, let's try and remember that.
Okay i stand corrected, it looks like right after I posted this the mainstream media finally picked up on this aspect of the story
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationw...,3549421.story?coll=ny-nationalnews-headlines
WEST CHESTER, Pa. - "I would be glad to label him as my own son," one neighbor said yesterday of Nick Berg, who was beheaded in Iraq by a group affiliated with al-Qaida.
Ever since he graduated from high school, Berg, 26, had lived a life of adventure.
He took college classes at Cornell, Drexel, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Oklahoma. He helped set up electronics equipment at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia in 2000. He even made several trips to Third World countries - at one point teaching villagers in Ghana how to make bricks.
His trip to Iraq was his latest adventure.
Berg's father said his son was Jewish and had a fringed religious cloth with him, but he did not think Berg wore the clothing in public. Still, "there's a better chance than not that they knew he was Jewish," Michael Berg said. "If there was any doubt that they were going to kill him, that probably clinched it, I'm guessing."
Friends and family members described Berg as smart, funny and enormously generous.
His father said Berg returned from his trip to Ghana emaciated because he gave away most of his food, and the only possessions he had were the clothes on his back.
"That's the kind of passion we're dealing with here," Michael Berg said.
Berg, who was unmarried, owned a small business that worked with communication equipment such as radio towers, and had traveled to Third World countries to help spread technology, his family said.
He saw his trip to Iraq, his father said, as an adventure, but one that fit into his ideology. He was a war supporter and backed the Bush administration.
Later in the day, the family withdrew into their gray two-story house and a spokesman, Bruce Hauser, a neighbor for 23 years, asked reporters to leave and give the family some privacy.
"He was one of the greatest kids you'd ever want to meet," said Hauser, a retired chemist. "I would be glad to label him as my own son."
Hauser said Berg was "a typical little kid. He loved to play ball, was very inquisitive, always wanted to help and sometimes offered better ways to do things" such as cutting down tree branches.
Reading a statement from the family, Hauser said the Bergs "wish to extend their sympathies to the other families who have also suffered. They are asking the Army to expedite the release of Nick's body so that the family can make arrangements and put this behind them."
Several neighbors on the heavily wooded block have dropped off items in the Bergs' mailbox and flowers by the garage. In early evening, a member of the local police force dropped off flowers that people had left at the station house for the family.
Later in the evening, neighbors gathered in a front yard across the street and a few doors down for a 20-minute candlelight vigil. At least 75 people recited the Lord's Prayer and sang "God Bless America."
Susan Mattern, 32, who grew up in the neighborhood and still lives there, said the vigil "shows we are going to support the Berg family. They need the support of their entire community, of the entire nation."
She said the neighbors telephoned one another. They weren't sure a candlelight vigil last night was appropriate, she said, but they felt they needed to do something.
His friends at the local YMCA said Berg worked out and swam several times a week, that he was interested in power lifting and that he was always quick with a joke.
"I would say he was a free spirit, very intelligent," said Nick Fillioe, a sports director at the West Chester Area YMCA, where Berg worked out. "He was a real smart guy. He knew a little bit about everything."
This story was supplemented with news service reports.
