{"id":716,"date":"2004-05-28T12:45:24","date_gmt":"2004-05-28T19:45:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/2004\/05\/cooking_out_with_conspiracy_th\/"},"modified":"2004-05-28T12:45:24","modified_gmt":"2004-05-28T19:45:24","slug":"cooking_out_with_conspiracy_th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2004\/05\/cooking_out_with_conspiracy_th.html","title":{"rendered":"COOKING OUT WITH CONSPIRACY THEORIES"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Memorial Day weekend is upon us. It’s time to take a break. We leave for ours with a
\ncouple of reminders. <\/P>
\n

One is entertaining: Jon Stewart’s commencement
\naddress<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A> a couple of weeks ago at his alma mater, The College of
\nWilliam & Mary, where “roughly 13,000 people<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A>
\npacked into William and Mary Hall” to hear him. His advice to newly minted graduates was, as he
\nmight say on “The Daily Show,” not unenlightening. “Thank you Mr. President,” he began,
\nafter receiving an honorary doctorate. “I had forgotten how crushingly dull
\nthese ceremonies are.” <\/P>
\n

The other reminder is frightening: See fellow ArtsJournal blogger Kyle Gann’s item from
\nyesterday, “Have We Been
\nHoaxed?,”<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A> about the Nick Berg decapitation video. <\/P>
\n

There IS something fishy going on, no question in my mind. But what? The main conspiracy
\ntheory going around is that the CIA (and other intelligence operatives?) made the video as
\ndisinformation propaganda either to blame terrorists for Nick Berg’s death, which the CIA (and\/or
\nthe U.S. military) was itself responsible for — thus pulling off a horrific cover-up — or to take
\nattention away from the Abu Ghraib torture photos that were coming out at the time by showing
\nthat the enemy was committing even more unspeakable acts against an American.<\/P>
\n

I don’t think “changing the subject” by itself would be a strong enough motive. But to the
\nextent that changing the subject and covering up a crime are not mutually exclusive (indeed would
\nreinforce each other), I wouldn’t put it past the CIA and\/or other intelligence operatives to
\nactivate such a diabolical scenario. (The CIA has come up with crazier, more nefarious schemes
\nbefore.)<\/P>
\n

Like millions of others, I let myself in for the misfortune of downloading the video. It was so
\nbarbaric I failed to notice many of the discrepancies the conspiracy theorists, and some
\nprofessional observers with real expertise, have been pointing out. Two, however, struck
\nme at the time: 1) The beheading itself, so shameful to watch, looked somehow unreal (no rivers
\nof blood, etc.). 2) The time sequence, as noted on the video recording, was discontinuous. Later,
\nafter reading various profiles of Nick Berg, I was also struck that the gaunt hostage with the
\nLincolnesque beard in the video looked not at all like the round-faced, beardless Nick Berg I saw
\nin earlier photos of him. <\/P>
\n

But now that they’ve been pointed out to me, I don’t put much credence in the conpiracy
\nclaims for these discrepancies: the terrorists looked too well-fed to be rough-and-ready
\nterrorists on the run; their hands looked too lily white; one of them is wearing American running
\nshoes (supposedly a no-no) and another is wearing a gold ring (devout Moslems wouldn’t do
\nthat); you can’t see the prosthetic leg which the chief terrorist, Musab Al-Zarqawi, reportedly
\nwears; Zarqawi was reported dead in 2003; Berg’s blood-curdling scream was “probably” a
\nwoman’s voice dubbed onto the video’s out-of-sync soundtrack; the entire soundtrack was dubbed
\n(so what?); the orange prison outfit Nick Berg was wearing and the white plastic patio chair he
\nwas sitting in for part of the video match up with the outfit and chairs seen in the Abu Ghraib
\ntorture photos (this does give pause).<\/P>
\n

The notion being touted by some that Berg was actually dead before he was beheaded
\nis not inconceivable. (Thus the lack of blood.) But that doesn’t mean the CIA killed him and faked
\nthe video. The terrorists could have done that themselves. The notion that the hostage in the
\nvideo was not Berg seems hard to believe. You would think his family or his friends would have
\nnoticed and said so. The notion that Berg might still be alive somewhere in captivity is also not
\ncredible. Trouble is, I don’t know what to believe.<\/P>
\n

Postscript:<\/B> How does this fit into the conspiracy theories? A Johnny-on-the-Spot
\nassociate of Michael Moore interviewed Nick
\nBerg<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A> for “Fahrenheit 9\/11,” but the footage never made it into
\nthe film.<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Memorial Day weekend is upon us. It’s time to take a break. We leave for ours with a couple of reminders. One is entertaining: Jon Stewart’s commencement address a couple of weeks ago at his alma mater, The College of William & Mary, where “roughly 13,000 people packed into William and Mary Hall” to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-716","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-by","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}