underscored and highlighted by the press. Whenever hostages appear in these videos wearing the jumpsuit, even when images from the videos are being shown to viewers, reporters make a point of drawing attention to that detail, and sometimes they go further, linking the detail to its origins. After a South Korean businessman was beheaded, CBS's Elizabeth Palmer noted, "Kim Sun-Il's execution video, broadcast on the Arabic TV station Al-Jazeera, looks chillingly familiar. The captive, in an orange jumpsuit like the ones worn by Guantanamo prisoners and Iraqi detainees." (sic)[1] When Berg himself was killed, the New York Times reported that, "Mr. Berg appeared to be wearing an orange jump suit similar to those issued to Iraqis in American-run prisoners here. (sic)"[2] In point of fact, the claimed rationale was most likely false.
But most experts said they doubted Berg's videotaped death was a result only of those abuses. Several, noting that Berg apparently had been kidnapped nearly a month ago before he was killed, suggested that the prison scandal merely provided the terrorists with an opportunity to make a point.
"In the journalistic world, the prison photos provided the terrorists with a 'hook,'" said Matthew Felling, an analyst at the Center for Media and Public Affairs in Washington, DC.
The terrorists' real motives, the experts said, probably were more wide-ranging and more subtle than simple revenge.
One motive, said Juan Cole, a professor of Middle East history at the University of Michigan, is to frighten Americans, especially the nongovernmental groups and the population of some 25,000 civilian contractors—mainly security personnel—working in Iraq who provide a sizable armed "auxiliary" to the U.S. military and the Coalition Provisional Authority.
74
- ↑ Elizabeth Palmer, "S. Korean Hostage is Killed by Iraqi Militants," CBS Evening News, June 22, 2004, available from Lexis-Nexis Academic, accessed June 24, 2007.
- ↑ Dexter Filkins, "Iraq Tape Shows Decapitation of American," New York Times, May 12, 2004, p. A-1, available from Lexis-Nexis Academic, web.lexis-nexis.com.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/universe/document?_m=0da114b31a377521c8debf8d3b0a3a8e&_docnum=2&wchp=dGLbVtb-zSkVA&_md5=62d7af944b12f7b39b6313cbfdf3fd5b.
