It's The War, Stupid

SPIEGEL ONLINE's Marc Pitzke has identified the major culprit for the murder of Nick Berg: It's the war, stupid.

The American Nick Berg went to Iraq of his own volition to assist in the reconstruction. He has now paid for it in the most gruesome way with his life - thus becoming the symbol of the escalating inhumanity of this war.(emphasis added)

"...the escalating inhumanity of this war" - another way of saying "cycle of violence". It's tit-for-tat, it's revenge, it's cause and effect. Guess, who's the cause...

You don't have to search long and hard. SPIEGEL ONLINE found his man: it's ... (surprise, surprise) ... George W. Bush and his administration. After all, the article's author is Marc "Mother-of-all-Bush-haters" Pitzke - no article is complete without some subtle (and not so subtle) reference to the evil master of the neocons.

Around midnight Hauser was still on the street outside, acting as the unofficial press spokesman of the family. He reported that the parents, in their grief, held the US government partly responsible for the death of their son. If Nick had not be held without reason for so long by coalition troops he would possibly have been able to leave Iraq before the violence started escalating. "They killed him like an animal", said Berg's friend Don Lagrotteria that afternoon. "I hope that President Bush takes that into account. I hope he sleeps well tonight."

No doubt, Pitzke will have a good nights rest. He did his daily hatchet job routine on Bush.

Pitzke's employer, SPIEGEL ONLINE, had quickly moved news of the murder of Nick Berg to second spot. Important other news has arrived:

ABUSE IN IRAQ

Vatican says torture affair worse than 9/11

The Vatican has criticized the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US troops by drastically comparing...

It didn't take SPIEGEL ONLINE long to switch back to standard anti-American operational mode. Not that I had expected anything else...

(Posting - including SPIEGEL ONLINE quotes - translated by William)

BTW: Kim, in a comment to another posting of this blog, has this to say about the Vatican article of SPIEGEL ONLINE:

What the Vatican really said was that the Abu Ghraib problems were a "bigger blow" for America than 9/11. I disagree with that as well, but it's nowhere near as harsh as Spiegel's stunningly dishonest version of it.

Of all the horrible things I've seen at Spiegel, for me this is absolutely the worst.

It makes me sick to my stomach.

It is the fondest fantasy of Spiegel's America haters to finally feel they've found an approach to morally neutralize 9/11. I have also started to come to the conclusion that the whole America hatred is at its
base a way to shake off remnant German guilt from WWII. What had America been besides the epitome of moral reproaches to Germany in WWII? How better to wash the German conscience clean than by pulling America down into the sewer that Germany had wallowed in for so long.

Spiegel has become an evil propaganda organ. And despite my pleasant memories of living & studying in the BRD, I now doubt that I will ever return.

Comments

[Joe]

All Americans share the loss of Nick Berger. Our hearts go out to his family.

It would appear that the demo's are trying to use this inhuman act to their advantage as his father holds President Bush personally responsible for his son's death. Well Mr Berger probably does not realize that President Bush was in the US at the time of his son's beheading.

(In france, beheading is considered a crime not an act of terror.)

Also it is not the responsibilty of the US military to baby sit.

The air waves are filled with other American voices coming down hard on the Berger family. All the hosts of these programs are not defending the comments but the family saying that this was a real shock to them and it as much as an expression of their grief. And at this point people should not come down on them but give them time to recover.

Should they keep this up, Nick Berger will be a poster child not for Kerry but for Bush. He will represent the evil we are fighting.

This too is going to cost Kerry a few thousand more votes in the heartland.

[Joe]

Here is Klink's Big Media in action. For those of you who might know this, the BG is Kerry's hometown newspaper. They were just trying to help their guy out.

"The Boston Globe newspaper apologised for running a photograph of graphic images purported to show US soldiers raping Iraqi women."

Full story of Big Media backing and filling at this link

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1506&u=/afp/20040513/ts_alt_afp/us_media_iraq_photos_040513182715&printer=1

[Joe]

Actually this is worse than it appears Marc Pitzke could have easily taken the copy from the link I posted yesterday "Opinion: Exploiting Inhumanity" by Peter Philipp.

Link http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,7549_A_1200745_1_A,00.html

I would hope any first year journalism student could take what is in the link and write what Pitzke did. There is not much talent to this.

Of course, if you are euro and do not have to worry yourself with things like facts, it should be a lay-up.

[Joe]

For those of you who might have checked out the link. I would like to add this is a comment a reader posted once having read this opinion.

"To stop the spiraling violence, people on both sides of this imaginary "front" must finally recognize that they themselves suffer most when they obey the demagogues. They must recognize they have the most to gain if they recall the basic rules of humanity, avenge and punish crimes, and, thus, put a stop to both the torturers and the cold-blooded killers."

I really wonder whether this guy believes this. On the one hand, its hard to believe that anyone could be this incredibly naive, blind and stupid. On the other hand, he does write for Deutsche Welle . .

============================================
Joe's comment:

I realize that American do not hold the morale monopoly that the Germans do, but comrades you opinions do not really play well here.

This is a comment from the heartland not from the Adminstration.

[kid charlemagne]

Malte Lehming in the Tagesspiegel also turned the Berg murder into yet another opportunity for Bush-bashing. I didn't read it because I didn't want to get upset; it was clear from the headline and byline where he was going.

By the way, shouldn't we be referring to Berg's killers as "murderers" rather than terrorists?

[Joe]

Ch,

No murderes puts it more in the context of a crime. Kind of like shop lifting or a traffic offense.

This was terror. These people should be hunted down and captured or killed.

This is war. It is not a crime wave.

Euroland has chosen not to look at this way. I hope they are right and I hope they feel safe with this attitude.