The Other Shoe

Last week, Nick Berg's dad, Michael Berg, told reporters that his son had "died for the sins of George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld", and that he "supposed" that the people who had actually killed his son were as bad as our president and defense secretary.

I thought that was nonsense, of course, but wrote it off as a product of the near-unbearable grief the Berg family must be suffering. Today, the Guardian has published a piece written by Mr. Berg in which he writes the following:

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.

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.

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.

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.

Amazing. There is so much wrong with this line of...it can't really be called "reasoning", can it?...well, words just fail me. Non-insulting words do, anyway, and I cannot bring myself to hammer on a man who just lost his son in the horrific manner that Michael Berg has. So I won't.

You can read the rest here.

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