What Motivates These Monsters?

I am a person who sees horrible things like what happened on 9/11 or what happened to Nick Berg (I made the mistake of watching the video) and feel that those people responsible deserve to be eliminated from the population.  I do not feel like they need to be tortured or made to endure a painful death.  Quick and painless is fine as long as they are no longer around to take out innocent lives.

I just don't understand how these people derive satisfaction out of causing pain and suffering.  My lack of understanding applies to the Americans involved in POW mistreatment so please don't think this has anything to do with nationality.  I just don't have it in me to fathom someone being able to slowly hack someone's head off with a knife.

Having said that, I am sure that if someone did something horrific to someone I love, I would probably want to see them suffer.  That suffering doesn't have to be physical though.  I could deal with having everything they care about taken from them and being reminded of what they did every day of their life.

Does anyone understand how anyone could do such horrific things?

6,614 views 46 replies
Reply #1 Top
you answered it aready. They al likely have seen their family suffer in some way...that makes them want revenge. It's another case of American's not understanding the culture of where they are. Tribal cultures have a big thing for the need for revenge. And I applaud them for it. If anyone tried to touch my boys, I'd fucking hack them to pieces BEFORE breakfast, then shit on their mutilated faces then let them cook out in the sun.
Reply #2 Top

I didn't answer anything and you just added yourself to the list of people I don't understand.  If you saw the Nick Berg video and can applaud that behavior, I am glad we are only associating online. 

Reply #3 Top
I, too, made the mistake of watching this video. It almost made me physically ill. I can't understand why or how someone can do that to another human being. I am one of those people who think we need to be over there in the middle east (because of people like Al-Zarquawi). I know it goes against everything that I taught while growing up but I think that I could do that right back to all of those who were involved with Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl (Ok....and the rest of the Americans that have been killed). But being in the military has made me feel a really strong connection to those serving abroad in places such as Iraq, Afganistan, Korea, etc..and when an American dies as the way they have overseas, I feel it. So, to make a long story short Jill, I agree and their behavior makes me sick.
Reply #4 Top
I don't get it either. I didn't let myself watch the video because my mental pictures are more than enough to keep me up at night. Hearing the news was enough to make me cry. I wish I had words for this.
Reply #5 Top
I don't think anyone will be able to understand what those people are thinking. Maybe not to Nick Berg, because there are fairly credible hints to his killing being a conspiracy. Like mikimouse said, there is a gap in understanding between cultures, but miki, I think you were WAY off in your assumptions. And most certainly you're applause.

Either way, it's all very confusing to me.
Reply #6 Top
you answered it aready. They al likely have seen their family suffer in some way...that makes them want revenge. It's another case of American's not understanding the culture of where they are. Tribal cultures have a big thing for the need for revenge. And I applaud them for it. If anyone tried to touch my boys, I'd fucking hack them to pieces BEFORE breakfast, then shit on their mutilated faces then let them cook out in the sun.


If Nick Berg was one of the individuals who caused their families to suffer, then I wouldn't condemn his beheading, much like how I wouldn't condemn U.S. soldiers torturing Iraqis directly responsible for the suffering of innocent people. However, I have yet to see Nick Berg or the majority of Iraqi POWs being responsible for the suffering of innocents, and therefore can only consider these people to be monsters. I don't understand how the revenge can be just if it's unleashed upon somebody who has nothing to do with the act that needs vindicating.
Reply #7 Top
Pure evil is one of the most difficult things for most people to understand. That is what motivates people to torture others. I never could understand bullies either.
Reply #8 Top
Jill: Interesting article. I can't help answer the questions, however; personally I would prefer these people be brought to justice in a way that we can learn from them in the future. While removing them from the population is good in the here and now, that, in my mind, falls into the category of revenge not justice. I would rather see a way in which our military, policy officials, intelligence agents can learn from past terrorist so as to prevent future ones (I'm not set on the method: trial, interrogation, ?). I feel the same way about Saddam and bin Laden--I don't want them dead, I want them brought to earthly justice--for I have no guarantee that justice will be served in any afterlife.
Reply #9 Top
All good points (that is the ones given after miki's comment).  I am relieved in a way that noone can explain the motivation.  I think Sherye has the only explaination I can surmise.
Reply #10 Top
Are you amazed, shock, bewildered? Why? You just read a new's column, you only saw a bad resolution video. How could you feel it if YOU WERE THERE. if the happening were witnessed at real time by your soul & your senses. What I will tell you is deeper that you expected. The motivation that lies under the worst of human behavior is a complex one; yet, one thing is clear: we can not excuse it... However, judging by your own words you, somehow, share in you the same motivations than the monsters... Am I joking? Let's see with cold eye what you said & put it in a monster's context:

" I am a person who sees horrible things LIKE WHAT HAPPENED ON VIETNAM & BEIRUT or what is HAPPENING IS PALESTINE (I made the mistake of LIVE IN GAZA'S stripe for a while) and feel that those people responsible (Americans) deserve to be eliminated from the population.... Quick & painless is fine as long as they are not longer around..."
Forgive me, but your words sound perfect ia a terrorist context. Nevertheless, you, candorously, still stated: "I just don't have it in me to fathom someone being able to slowly hack someone's head off with a knife..." YES, YOU DO.
Your final words have betrayed you: "if someone did something horrific to someone I love, I would probably WANT TO SEE THEM SUFFER..."
& then you add ( in appereance by merciful reasons) "That suffering doesn't have to be physical though..."
& your conclusion (to leave someone responsible of an atrocity alive just with the goal of make its live a long & continuos & indescriptible hell) is the perfect definition of a terrorist or torturer's mind...
You wonder about the source of horrific things?
How you justified all the horrific thing that you WOULD do in a similar contex? Because, somebody did harm you first... It this right? So, according to you revenge is always permisible. If you are right, avenger of all kinds are right: terrorist, cheif of state, pows...
"Does anyone understand how anyone could do such horrific things?"
You wonder. Yet don't feel so bad (if you do); it is not my purpose to review you personal thoughts & feelings. This example can be apply to all of us. Old morals sometimes speak truth: how easy to find the fault in the others & conceal the error in ourselves. We reject what we really don't know. IGNORANCE can be the mother of horrible acts. & we, Americans, are more ignorant that we really think... (this case is just an exmple).
& the moral of the story is as follows:
Dont' be ashamed of a monster when you are a monster youself...
Reply #11 Top

"I am a person who sees horrible things LIKE WHAT HAPPENED ON VIETNAM & BEIRUT or what is HAPPENING IS PALESTINE (I made the mistake of LIVE IN GAZA'S stripe for a while) and feel that those people responsible (Americans) deserve to be eliminated from the population.... Quick & painless is fine as long as they are not longer around..."
Forgive me, but your words sound perfect ia a terrorist context. Nevertheless, you, candorously, still stated: "I just don't have it in me to fathom someone being able to slowly hack someone's head off with a knife..." YES, YOU DO.
Your final words have betrayed you: "if someone did something horrific to someone I love, I would probably WANT TO SEE THEM SUFFER..."


The difference is that she isn't saying all Iraqis deserve to be eliminated from the populace. She's saying those responsible do. There's a big difference between killing murderers and killing innocent people just like there's a difference between kidnapping a child and locking up a murderer.

Reply #12 Top
"What Motivates These Monsters?"

Their own pain.
Reply #13 Top
I don' t understand it either. I think torturing people is disgusting. I know I would never be able to fight in a war because I would never be able to hurt another human person.

you answered it aready. They al likely have seen their family suffer in some way...that makes them want revenge. It's another case of American's not understanding the culture of where they are. Tribal cultures have a big thing for the need for revenge. And I applaud them for it. If anyone tried to touch my boys, I'd fucking hack them to pieces BEFORE breakfast, then shit on their mutilated faces then let them cook out in the sun.


You applaud them for wanting revenge????? In social studies class I heard a true story about a family from Europe who traveled to the Middle East. They were driving through a very remote part of land, probably near or in the desert, where a certain tribe lived. When driving, they accidentally hit a child from the tribe, killing him. They stopped and got out of the car and tried to apologize. They were shocked and practically traumatized. Then some of the members of the tribe opened up the doors to the back seat of the car, pulled out one of the kids, and killed him. That was their revenge. After that, the situation was fine to the people in the tribe. But imagine how the family from Europe felt, accidentally killng a child and then watching one of their own killed.

In addition, wanting revenge through honor killings is one of the things that keeps the problems in the Middle East alive, especially with the Israelis and the Palestinian Arabs.

And you applaud people for this? That's disgusting.

~Molly
Reply #14 Top
Poor Jill, she asks an innocent question and is called a monster! Unbelievable! It just shows that there is an impenetrable dark side to "humanity." Whether it's a horrendous act of beheading, flying into buildings or kinapping and murdering children, the horror, the horror is shock and awe beyond comprhension.
Reply #15 Top
It is certainly sad and offensive, but to be fair, I have to wonder and imagine what is happening on the inside of the people in the arab countries. How much do you have to believe in something to willing to explode yourself to kill your oppressors. How much would I have to throw it all away. The terrible things we are seeing on t.v., newspapers and media are presented as if this had a cause and effect. In a sense it does, but I suspect that it has a great deal to do with ongoing historical wrongs done in the name of this or that. I think it's horrible that the contractor/businessman was executed in such a fashion, but I wonder what it looks like to have 50 caliber slugs exploding through wall, homes and bodies. I imagine it's equally horrific.

v.
Reply #16 Top
I've been hearing for decades about Arab "anger". It's been one long 30 year tantrum by the hapless Arabs who, alone in the world, cannot seem to get their act together despite having plenty of resources.

They are fortunate that their propaganda isn't correct - that there aren't many American monsters. That is why I find the whole thing so hard to understand. The monstrous acts of the Islamists (or whatever you want to call them) only slowly make the American public less sympathetic to them.
Reply #17 Top
its all truly sad. no administration since 1948 has been even-handed when dealing the palestinians. iraq has endured one horror show after another since it was cobbled together by the british. during the 20s; the brits used iraq as testing ground for nascent air war strategies, then wandered off and allowed military strongmen to pillage the place, stepping in again only to prevent an iraqi-nazi alliance (their efforts in that regard led to the creation of kuwait and formed the basis for husseins justification for retaking what had been iraqi territory). theres ample evidence that cocaine cowboy congressman wilson poured billions of dollars in weapons and cash into afghanistan to bleed the soviet union to death. while his efforts produced the only unqualified cia success since its founding--its far more likely that afghanistan rather than reagan's posturing brought down the soviet union--we walked away once it was done and left the afghans to deal with the ensuing chaos. miki, molly, johnny and ignorant (who seems to be saying hes lived in the occupied gaza strip) provide a cultural context that is alien to us but not unrealistic. tribal peoples dont put a dollar value on life. the next time someone says something about an eye for an eye, consider what that really means.

im not at all condoning any violence on either side. im just trying to answer the question of motivation.

folks there are no monsters except late at night when the moon casts shadows and when its light again they disappear.. nothing men do is outside the scope of humanity. the title of the movie about aileen wuornos is a dramatic merchandising device. john wayne gacey and dahmer are much more deserving of the designation but even they are just sick men who committed horrible crimes.

the real question here is: which is worse? a couple thousand innocent people killed in a matter of hours or a hundred thousand innocent people killed over a period of 30 years? the answer is, of course, neither is any less awful. there may be something worse than both. exploiting, permitting, encouraging or perpetuating a climate in which those deaths are the inevitable result...especially when the innocent victims are valued less than material wealth or power.
Reply #18 Top
Kingbee,

That was one of the most effective replies I've read in a long time
Reply #19 Top
FIrst of all that video is NOT what it purports to be. THe victim, Berg, was dead when his head was cut off and any 1st year pre-med student would know this by the striking lack of spurting blood. There was no blood to be seem when in fact there should've been blood on all the assailants, on the floor and all over Berg. But nothing.
Also, the dubbing of the audio was an odd touch. Did you hear the perfert English voice after the head came off saying "thy will be done?" Or did you notice the hands of the alleged Arabs? Lily white. The lead assassin by the way was wearing a large gold ring on his hand...this is a major no-no to fundamentalist Muslims.
Then we get to the troubling issue of what the hell Berg was doing there in the first place. A Jewish male travelling alone through war-torn Iraq? If nothing else he must have been mentally disturbed. The other logical answer is that he was working for Mossad and was captured and killed like any common spy. That is IF he was killed by the people we're supposed to believe killed him.
Berg's dad was ardently opposed to Bush's war and was even featured on a FreeRepublic.com hitlist.
Was he a convienent victim who was murdered to get the heat off the administration for the Iraqi prisoner mistreatment/torture?
This story isn't finished. THere is a lot we don't know.
Reply #20 Top
I am writing to you with utmost urgency. I find this Video of Nick Bergs Killing by alledged Arab terrorist groups most disconcerting for many untold facts and observations.

1) The Time set on the Video is indicative to 24 hourtime and most Videos have a 2 stage setting one in regular standard time, ie: am-pm and one for 24 hr. time or MILITARYTIME!

My Question: Why would Terrorists find it relevant to set their time to Military Time? Would it be more likely that a US intel or military person or officer would have their video camera set to Military Time out of reflex of training? My answer is YES!

2) Why is the man on the far left standing at Parade Rest??

This seems further evidence the raises suspicions that these men were NOT Arab faction Terrorists! Parade Rest is also - and would be a REFLEX action - that is TRAINED into Military personnel and becomes a HABIT!

I find this Video Very, Very argumentive and points a STRONG finger at the US Intelligence communties complicitcy in the berg death.
Reply #21 Top
It is a sad thing, deeply deeply sad, for a young man to have his head cut off for the sake of someone else's politics. Anyone who could look at these pictures and videos without feeling profound revulsion must have a few cards missing from their deck.

So it takes a certain amount of fortitude to take a really good look at these nasty images to get to the many anomalies in the first place, but that is the task of a detective isn't it? Unfortunately, in today's news environment, every one of us who wish to be responsible citizens must also become a detective.

Because of the prevailing culture of lies, deceit and treachery, everyone of us with an active mind must continually examine and question everything put before us by the mass media. Still, the strain is difficult for a sensitive mind to bear. To every parent, every child, every person who has lost a son, a brother, a daughter a mom or a dad, a grandparent, on any side in the terror wars of the past few years, my heart goes out to you.

It would be nice if we could just point to one person and say "hey, he did it all." But we can't. Yes there are certain persons who have done much to bring about this situation. The international bankers for instance, are greatly to blame. So are their puppets in Washington and Tel Aviv. But the bankers only have money because you and I continue to pay our mortgages and rents every month.

Because we shop at the super stores where they buy and sell, because we own stock in the system.
It would be nice if we could just find the right scapegoat to blame for all this mayhem wouldn't it? If we could pin a list of crimes onto the neck of some hapless village idiot from Texas who has a hard time getting the lid off his beer bottle, and who has been known to choke on a pretzel. And he is greatly at fault for thinking he can tell the players without a program. But in the long run, he is just a patsy too, another dummy with someone pulling his strings, who has never had to do a days honest work in his life, and wouldn't know one if it bit him on the ass.

How many gallons of gas did you put in your car or truck this week my friend? All are guilty. Some more, some less, but the way the war works is that hundreds of thousands of young men and women join up with the army, and then they practice shooting deadly weapons, and they abandon their own better judgments, and then they go and murder people on orders because they have lost all their self possession. And they have all those weapons because some other folks went to college for years to learn how to invent them. And yet more folks worked for decades in arms factories building these infernal machines, even though laws in every state of the union forbid the making of infernal machines. But if some nebulous bunch of criminals get together and call themselves the US Govt. then all of a sudden what is criminal behavior for you or me, is high virtue with holy water on it for them.

This is the same Govt. that holds an indefinite prison term over your heads if you fail to pay into their protection racket kitty. Hello? Yes, they steal the portion of your pay that the landlords (agents, along with the real-estate racketeers, of the Banks.) don't take. If a robber comes up to you and takes your pay from your pocket at gunpoint on the street, you can call a cop. If your landlord decides he wants a new Mercedes, and bumps your rent up again this month, and you live in a town with 0 to 1% vacancies, just you try to call a cop. Hell, when the cops do show up it will just be to evict you. That is part and parcel of what I mean by the evil being spread around fairly everywhere.
So why is everyone so surprised that the Berg beheading tape is so obviously flawed? Joe six-pack, that famous American cartoon character who none the less makes up almost half the electorate, will swallow it whole without even giving it the usual catfish mouthing first. So it works for him you see.

He is going to be enjoying watching this video. It is must see TV, for him it is just an extension of what passes for reality. Jill six-pack right there by his side, voted for Bush in 2000, and loves Jesus and looks forward to the second coming again tonight if you follow me. So for them, what we see as defects, are just the stamp of honest amateurs at work blowing off a little more steam. They don't care who did it, any more than the good citizens of the prairie cared who the Indians were they shot and raped and butchered at the Little Washita back in the late 19th century.

But you and I have a different view of things, because we are more humane in our hopes, and more aware in our fears.

* We see the orange jumpsuit

* We see the yellow Abu Graib prison walls

* We see the government issue white plastic chair

* We see the miss-match between the face and the build of the man in the video and Bergs family's snap shots of their missing son.

* We see the men in black, fat and lazy, well-fed and insolent,

* We see the one on the far left standing at military parade rest.

* We see that this is a tape made with at least two cameras, one on standard time, one on the 24 hour clock.

* We see the light tone of the skin of the hands of some of the men.

* We see the wedding ring on the left hand, the sinister hand, the hand that Islam reserves for toilet functions.
* We notice the voices in the background not sounding like Arabs.

* We have read of the death last year of the man being blamed for doing this foul deed.

Yes, my friends, we are not so foolish as to swallow these lies whole.

* We are aware that once you have someone's voiceprint, you can digitize it, and run it through a voice generating software program, and put any words into their mouths you want.

* We have heard native speakers of Arabic tell us that the voice on the tape does not have the accent they would expect from the man who is being blamed.

* We have read of the weird association of Mr. Berg with those the Govt. has named as being part of the 911 hijack plot. Hijack plot? Hello? Well ,you and I both know that is a whole other can of worms there, isn't it now?

But no one seems to have caught on that all these discrepancies - and more - that are in this video are there for a reason. They want you to know who did it. They, yes that THEY, the same old THEM as always. Bob Dylan said it long ago, "...the executioners face is always well hidden..." But THEY are more than willing to tip their hand to us today, because they don't care if we know, and they want us to know that they don't care. They are as much as telling everyone with a brain in their head, "Hey you with a brain in your head, watch this!" They are really saying "Get out the way you summer patriots, we can do you as easy as we can do this Berg dude!"

Feeling a little chilly around here? Still got the guts to join me in my protests? They can only keep thumbing their noses at ya if you let 'em.

Hitler had a crew like this, he called them Die Raben. They were SS officers. After the war, WWII the CIA hired most of them to work in South America. Looks like their bastard sons are still alive. Tell me again, how many brave American men lost their lives to give Hitler an invitation to blow his own brains out? And who else do we know who lives in a bunker? What do you think its going to take to turn this thing around?

So, if you were disgusted by the this video like I was, but still had the integrity to look into the details of it, then you ought to be bright enough to get the subtext of the intent of those loose ends. Add this to what you now know about the 911 cover-up, and get a glimpse of the MO of our enemy. Now, who could have done a thing like that, and why? Not much of a mystery, really, is it?
Reply #22 Top
"Berg's body arrived Wednesday at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.
His parents had requested permission to be at the base when the
coffin arrived, but that request was denied. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-
Pennsylvania, said Thursday that refusal came from the Department of
Defense."

And Nick Berg was not even a member of the military. He was a
civilian. His burial will take place on "civilian soil," as will the
memorial service.

Maybe they needed a little time at Dover to make sure the condition
of the body fit the cover story.

JON RAPPOPORT www.nomorefakenews.com
Reply #23 Top
Berg's dad was ardently opposed to Bush's war and was even featured on a FreeRepublic.com hitlist.
Was he a convienent victim who was murdered to get the heat off the administration for the Iraqi prisoner mistreatment/torture?
This story isn't finished. THere is a lot we don't know.


You see there! More proof that the illumanati are out to control the world...... Jeesh
Reply #24 Top
I find this Video Very, Very argumentive and points a STRONG finger at the US Intelligence communties complicitcy in the berg death.


Wow, I go on vacation to Disney World for a week and return to see that fantasy land is alive and well everywhere!
Reply #25 Top
Interesting link if anyone cares --- --- --->http://home.att.net/~professorboris/SPECTRE/Nick_berg.htm