I’m begining to get the feeling — I suspect like a lot of people — that Nick Berg may have had some similarities to such folks as Rachel Corrie or Lori Berenson .
The connection to Zacarias Moussaoui, the 20th hijacker, is too coincidental. They went to the University of Oklahoma together and the FBI had investigated Berg because Moussaoui had used his email account. Berg carried around anti-Semitic pamphlets. Berg was apparently something of a leftwing peacenik and his parents apparently belong to ANSWER. Travelling around Iraq alone the way he did is just odd. See the Philly Inquirer’s story for more.
Then there’s Berg’s dad who’s anger is understandable, but whose anger at America is getting more than a bit odd. The soundbite I find most troubling is the one where he says how al Qaeda was dumb for killing him because he was their, and Iraq’s, best friend.
Obviously, I have no idea what really happened out there, but I’m getting this sneaking suspicion that Berg was suffering from a taste of radical chic in his desire to go to Iraq, travel to all the hotspots alone and help out over there. I doubt he was a would-be terrorist or anything like that. But it wouldn’t surprise me if his murderers had first taken him in not as a hostage but as a dupe of some kind. I hope I’m wrong. But even if I’m not, in a way this makes his murder all the more gruesome. Murdering a do-gooder because he’s easier to catch is even more repugnant.
UPDATE: I misspoke here, as numerous readers have pointed out (and as I did in post above). Berg’s parents were apparently peaceniks, there’s no evidence I’ve seen that Nick Berg was. I apologize for misstatement.