- My son, Nick, was my teacher and my hero. He was the
kindest, gentlest man I know; no, the kindest, gentlest human being I have
ever known. He quit the Boy Scouts of America because they wanted to teach
him to fire a handgun. Nick, too, poured into me the strength I needed,
and still need, to tell the world about him.
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- People ask me why I focus on putting the blame for my
son's tragic and atrocious end on the Bush administration. They ask: "Don't
you blame the five men who killed him?" I have answered that I blame
them no more or less than the Bush administration, but I am wrong: I am
sure, knowing my son, that somewhere during their association with him
these men became aware of what an extraordinary man my son was. I take
comfort that when they did the awful thing they did, they weren't quite
as in to it as they might have been. I am sure that they came to admire
him.
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- I am sure that the one who wielded the knife felt Nick's
breath on his hand and knew that he had a real human being there. I am
sure that the others looked into my son's eyes and got at least a glimmer
of what the rest of the world sees. And I am sure that these murderers,
for just a brief moment, did not like what they were doing.
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- George Bush never looked into my son's eyes. George Bush
doesn't know my son, and he is the worse for it. George Bush, though a
father himself, cannot feel my pain, or that of my family, or of the world
that grieves for Nick, because he is a policymaker, and he doesn't have
to bear the consequences of his acts. George Bush can see neither the heart
of Nick nor that of the American people, let alone that of the Iraqi people
his policies are killing daily.
-
- Donald Rumsfeld said that he took responsibility for
the sexual abuse of Iraqi prisoners. How could he take that responsibility
when there was no consequence? Nick took the consequences.
-
- Even more than those murderers who took my son's life,
I can't stand those who sit and make policies to end lives and break the
lives of the still living.
-
- Nick was not in the military, but he had the discipline
and dedication of a soldier. Nick Berg was in Iraq to help the people without
any expectation of personal gain. He was only one man, but through his
death he has become many. The truly unselfish spirit of giving your all
to do what you know in your own heart is right even when you know it may
be dangerous; this spirit has spread among the people who knew Nick, and
that group has spread and is spreading all over the world.
-
- So what were we to do when we in America were attacked
on September 11, that infamous day? I say we should have done then what
we never did before: stop speaking to the people we labelled our enemies
and start listening to them. Stop giving preconditions to our peaceful
coexistence on this small planet, and start honouring and respecting every
human's need to live free and autonomously, to truly respect the sovereignty
of every state. To stop making up rules by which others must live and then
separate rules for ourselves.
-
- George Bush's ineffective leadership is a weapon of mass
destruction, and it has allowed a chain reaction of events that led to
the unlawful detention of my son which immersed him in a world of escalated
violence. Were it not for Nick's detention, I would have had him in my
arms again. That detention held him in Iraq not only until the atrocities
that led to the siege of Fallujah, but also the revelation of the atrocities
committed in the jails in Iraq, in retaliation for which my son's wonderful
life was put to an end.
-
- My son's work still goes on. Where there was one peacemaker
before, I now see and have heard from thousands of peacemakers. Nick was
a man who acted on his beliefs. We, the people of this world, now need
to act on our beliefs. We need to let the evildoers on both sides of the
Atlantic know that we are fed up with war. We are fed up with the killing
and bombing and maiming of innocent people. We are fed up with the lies.
Yes, we are fed up with the suicide bombers, and with the failure of the
Israelis and Palestinians to find a way to stop killing each other. We
are fed up with negotiations and peace conferences that are entered into
on both sides with preset conditions that preclude the outcome of peace.
We want world peace now.
-
- Many have offered to pray for Nick and my family. I appreciate
their thoughts, but I ask them to include in their prayers a prayer for
peace. And I ask them to do more than pray. I ask them to demand peace
now.
-
- - Michael Berg is the father of Nick Berg, the US contractor
beheaded on video in Iraq this month by a group believed to be linked to
al-Qaida. This is an extract from his message of support for the Stop The
War Coalition's demonstration, End the Torture - Bring the Troops Home
Now, which will be held at 11am tomorrow at the Embankment in London
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- stopwar.org.uk
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004
- http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1221644,00.html
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