Nick Berg
"My name is Nick Berg, my father's name is Michael, my mother's name is Suzanne," he said on the video before being beheaded by Al Qaeda terrorists allied with Saddam's holdouts in Iraq. "I have a brother and sister, David and Sara. I live in...Philadelphia."
Each American loss in Iraq is terrible, but the gruesome, savage nature of the murder of Nick Berg — and the fact that he was reportedly a 26-year-old Jew from West Chester, Pa., who was killed in a manner reminiscent of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl — made it resonate with New Yorkers and with television audiences across America yesterday.
A Fox News reporter described the video as showing hooded men slicing at Berg's neck five times, while he screamed, until it snapped. Then they sliced at it twice more, and held up the severed head for the camera. The terrorists described the killing as a revenge for American abuses of prisoners in Iraq. But the terrorists were killing Americans — including Pearl — before the prison abuses occurred, so it's hard to credit that explanation. Unlike the American prison guards, these terrorists weren't engaged in some kind of rogue operation that their leaders are going to investigate and punish them for. These were the terrorist leaders, and they no doubt consider it a success. No effort to suppress video here; instead, the terrorists proudly display it.
The Associated Press reported that Michael Berg said his son supported the war. "He looked at it as bringing democracy to a country that didn't have it," the wire quoted Michael Berg as saying.
"If anybody wants to know what we're fighting and why we're fighting this war on terror, this is a very good example of it," Senator Santorum of Pennsylvania said yesterday. Indeed, it's hard to imagine negotiating with the crowd that hacked away at Berg's neck. They need to be defeated. The murder of Berg isn't evidence that America is losing in Iraq — it's evidence of the need to win the war that the terrorists started and that President Bush has vowed to finish.
