This might be in poo…

This might be in poor taste and insensitive, but I can’t see letting this go. Nick Berg did indeed die a horrible death at the hands of some horrible people, and his family has a right to be left alone to grieve. But Michael Berg, Nick’s father, has decided go public in a news conference and come out against Bush and the war with some preposterous charges. I find this fair game for a fisking; if he’s going on the record, I don’t see it as insensitive if I do too.

“People like George Bush and (US Defence Secretary) Donald Rumsfeld don’t see the pain that people have to bear – they don’t know what it feels like to have your guts ripped out,” Michael Berg told a news conference.

While I don’t think that Bush and Rumsfeld are entirely unaware of the personal consequences of war, I’ll certainly give Mr. Berg the point about not knowing what it’s like for him. Very, very few of us have had the experience he and his family have had in knowing the manner their son died, and having that death posted on the Internet for millions to see worldwide. This had to be gut-wrenching, absolutely no doubt about it.

But nothing Mr. Berg goes on to say follows from that. People who didn’t agree with the war in Iraq don’t know what it feels like to have your guts ripped out either, but that doesn’t mean they’re correct any more than it means that Bush and Rumsfeld are wrong. Having endured bitter anguish isn’t a prerequisite for going to war.

“What I’m trying to do is show to the American people and the British people … that war has a wretchedly horrible face,” said Berg’s father.

The implication is that, were it not for this news conference, we’d all be thinking that war has a 100% happy, beautiful face attached to it, which, of course, is patently false. From video of the missile strikes, to pictures of blown-up buildings, to pictures of burnt bodies in Fallujah, to “Abu Graib, Abu Graib, Abu Graib”, the news media has been extremely helpful in showing us all the horrible face of war. The reality is that it’s the liberation of a people, the opening of schools and hospitals, the public utilities that are at better-than-pre-war levels, all all the other good news that comes from the horrors of war that the media has given particularly short shrift to. Letters of good news from GI’s get relegated to the blogosphere, and letters from Iraqi supporters thanking the US for their liberation must pay to get their thanks across to the American people. I’m sorry, Mr. Berg, but we do know that war is ugly and horrible. What you have experienced is particularly so, and thus you understand the cost of war better than most. But understand that we who believe that the removal of Saddam Hussein was a good thing do understand the costs in our own lesser ways.

Nick Berg, 26, travelled to Iraq several times looking for work in the reconstruction effort before going missing on April 9.

“He thought he was supporting the Iraqi people and the Bush administration by going over there, not with a gun but with his engineering tools,” Michael Berg said.

And he was right, Mr. Berg. That’s is the best description of what he was doing. Just like the Halliburton folks and other contractors trying to rebuild Iraq after a dictator, a war, and terrorists. And his death was incredibly honorable because he died in the service of people he had never met and would, in all likelihood, never see or deal with again. Yet he gave of himself. He died while serving the people of Iraq, and any thanks the Iraqis have for their liberation must be shared with him. Again, that was a good thing he was doing. His support of the aims of the Bush administration–liberation, rebuilding, securing–was not a mistake.

Bush and the American media have ignored the “true horrors” added Berg senior, who has blamed Bush and Rumsfeld for his son’s death in previous interviews. He said he believed anti-war sentiment was now very strong in the United States.

“There are 11,000 plus Iraqi citizens that are dead and each one’s family is as affected as I was, but the American media doesn’t cover these people. It doesn’t cover the people who are suffering the most.”

Bush and Rumsfeld didn’t send him to Iraq, sir. And why do you not have as much to say against those who actually killed him as you do against Bush and Rumsfeld, whom Iraqis are thanking for their actions?

And as I mentioned, the mainstream media has profusely covered the suffering.

“This is not a game that people in Washington get to play,” Michael Berg said. “It affects people the way it’s affected me and my family and the families of Paul Johnson, Kim Sun-il and the thousands of Iraqis.”

“Observing someone’s pain just makes you think just how can they (Bush and Blair) possibly do this. There isn’t enough money in the world that could ever make this worthwhile.”

Was the American War of Independence worthwhile? Far, far more people and families were affected. Do you wonder how the Founding Fathers could possibly have done that? You are correct that there isn’t enough money to make it worthwhile, but freedom is priceless, and it is worth it.

You son, Mr. Berg, died in the cause of setting the Iraqi people free. Please don’t diminish his death by diminishing the cause that he went there for. Honor him, as we do, even those of us who do understand that war, as horrible as it can be, is sometimes necessary.

Filed under: Uncategorized

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!