Just not right

There's something that stinks about the Nicholas Berg case. Berg is the poor bugger who was beheaded by Al-Zarqawi, an al-Qaeda leader who is directing attacks against US and coalition forces. But some things don't add up.

First, check this out from an AP article:

Berg's body was found Saturday in Baghdad. Two e-mails he sent to his family and friends show he traveled widely and unguarded throughout Iraq, an unsafe practice rarely done by Westerners.

Shortly before Berg's disappearance, he was warned by the FBI that Iraq was too volatile a place for unprotected American civilians and that he could be harmed, a senior FBI official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Wednesday.

On April 10, four days after Berg was released from an Iraqi prison, an American diplomat offered to put him on a flight to Jordan, State Department spokeswoman Kelly Shannon said.

But Berg told the diplomat he "planned to travel overland to Kuwait and would call (his) family from there," Shannon said.

Now, this statement from Berg's father in the same article:

Berg's father, Michael Berg, said that although his son wanted to leave Iraq, he refused the flight offer because he thought the travel to the airport would be too dangerous. Attacks had taken place in the areas his son would need to drive through, Michael Berg said.

Now add that up: Berg traveled all over Iraq -- a dangerous thing for anyone to do -- but would not accept a ride to the airport to get out.

Plus, there's this:

Nicholas Berg, the American businessman executed by Islamic extremists in Iraq, may have had contact with accused Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui.

Now that story continues to say that the FBI believes that the Moussaoui-Berg connection is coincidental, but that does not smell right either. Coincidences of Moussaoui connected with Berg in Norman, Oklahoma (using the same email address) and Berg wandering Iraq just do not add up properly.

Add to that the unrelenting misinformation campaign that Berg's parents have run in the press and their screechy blame of Pres. Bush and Rumsfeld and the whole situation stinks.

Berg is currently a tragic figure and I hope that is all there is to his story. But there are too many hints of something nefarious behind the whole situation and that is extremely disturbing.