Norway has been hit today by terrorist attacks — one or more massive, Oklahoma City-style bomb blasts that ripped open buildings in downtown Oslo, followed by an apparently related gun attack on a Labour Party youth camp on the island of Utoya — and at least 7 16 87 people are dead. BBC has live coverage. So does CNN.
It’s not yet clear whether the attacks were carried out by domestic or foreign terrorists. On the one hand, an Islamist group has claimed responsibility (but such claims are sometimes shown to be spurious). On the other hand, The Telegraph reports that the Utoya shooter “apparently infiltrated the party gathering on the pretense that he had been sent by police as a security measure in the wake of the Oslo explosion. As such, it is likely he was ethnically Norwegian.” Other reports corroborate this. “This could indicate the involvement of a far-right group rather than an Islamist group, though it is also the case that the Labour Party would be a favourable target for Islamist groups due to its role in authorising Norwegian military deployments in Afghanistan.”
Regardless, this is obviously a shocking calamity in Norway, home of the Nobel Peace Prize. My heart goes out to the whole country, and to everyone personally affected by this vile atrocity. Also, may the subhuman bastards responsible for it, whoever they are, rot in hell.
P.S. Unconfirmed reports indicate up to 30 people may have died in the Utoya shooting rampage. Ugh. Pray that isn’t true. But if it is, this could rapidly approach “Norway’s 9/11” territory, in terms of population ratios. If the toll reaches 50 dead in this country of ~5,000,000, that would be roughly equivalent, percentage-wise, to 9/11’s death toll of almost 3,000 in a country of almost 300,000,000.
UPDATE: At least 80 dead in the Utoya shooting?!? Jesus Christ.
I just read that up to 80 people, mostly children, are thought to be dead at the children’s youth camp that this worthless cocksucker attacked.
I can’t help but find significance in the fact that Anders Behring Breivik, the loathsome scum who perpetrated this deed, was a Christian conservative. And that his targets were the liberal government and a camp funded by the Labor Party. And I can’t help but draw parallels between him and the right wing in this country, which would let everything burn if they don’t get their way.
Did you seriously just go there?
You sir, are an ass.
You’re right, Casey, the Oslo bombing and children-shooting is right out of the Republican-conservative playbook. The one written by Buckley, Hayek, and Reagan. It’s right there on page 143: “Kill anyone known to be liberal or socialist, including their progeny.” Because, you know, this is no doubt the most effective way to advance the cause.
Ugh, somehow that last comment posted as Bea; in fact, it was me. She usually signs into Facebook on Safari, while I stick to Firefox, but apparently she signed in on Firefox and I wasn’t paying attention.
The second paragraph of Casey’s comment is so grotesquely inappropriate that I’m tempted to delete it, but I think I’ll let it stand as a monument to its own wrong-headedness. In any event, as much as I loathe the dishonest demagoguery presently on display from the extreme right wing in this country, I obviously disagree with and condemn Casey’s comment. In no way, shape or form should any “parallels” be drawn between the political malfeasance of this country’s right wing, on the one hand, and the acts of a violent, evil, deranged subhuman piece of filth who murdered 80 children today, on the other. I mean, really.
Whatever. Breivik is Norway’s Timothy McVeigh. He took right wing rhetoric about the illegitimacy of liberal governments to its logical conclusion. He’s not just a lone nut. He’s a member of a radical anti-government movement that exists here just as it does in Norway.
Brendan, you are right to suggest that the implications of our “politics” are not in proportion to Breivik’s individual crimes. They are far greater. US government policy affects more individuals than any single person ever could. And disrupting payments to the elderly and infirm (among other parties) for the purposes of a needless default would likely cause more deaths than Breivik’s actions. To immunize such choices from criticism under the cloak of “political malfeasance” is to deny that reality.
Because the radical left _never_ calls out for governments to be overthrown, Casey. Why, you’d almost think those people publicly calling for the assassination of George Bush were right-wing radicals. Oh, wait, no–they just didn’t provide you with an opportunity to try and score cheap political points over children’s dead bodies. You know, sort of how people tried to do with Giffords…until it came out that Loughner was a soup sandwich whose few coherent political thoughts seemed to exhibit a leftist philosophy. Whoops, nevermind!
Whatever. Breivik is Norway’s Timothy McVeigh.
I see little problem with this statement; this is indeed Norway’s (Europe’s?) Oklahoma City.
He took right wing rhetoric about the illegitimacy of liberal governments to its logical conclusion. He’s not just a lone nut. He’s a member of a radical anti-government movement that exists here just as it does in Norway.
Um, sure. And if we take left-wing rhetoric “to its logical conclusion”, you have Stalin and Mao. Do you want to start counting bodies and rank whose “logical conclusion” is worse?
In any case, the entire premise of what you think the right-wing rhetoric was in response to is flawed. In the European context, “liberal” properly used is classical liberalism; the Norwegian government (and most European governments) are properly defined as democratic-socialist, not liberal. Conservative or right-wing is also different in the European context than in the American one. Laissez faire is not part of European right-wing tradition whatsoever, nor is anti-statism typical of European conservatism. The only element that is truly similar across the Atlantic is ultra-nationalism (and thus the xenophobic / racist infusion), but from the political and economic viewpoints, those are expressed in two entirely different ways depending on which continent you are talking about.
The latest reports surfacing are saying that this guy was not on the police’s radar whatsoever, had pretty much no criminal history, and very weak ties to extremist groups. The evidence so far is that this guy was much more lone-nuttish than was Timothy McVeigh.
The fact is, the right-wing extremist groups in Europe are not typically also radical anti-government, just typically anti-Jew, anti-Muslim, and ultra-nationalist, so your entire argument is completely off-base.
And disrupting payments to the elderly and infirm (among other parties) for the purposes of a needless default would likely cause more deaths than Breivik’s actions.
If Social Security payments are disrupted, it’d be purely due to a cynically tactical move on the part of the administration, not because they have to — and even Geithner has admitted that.
In any case, the totality of your perspective is quite despicable, skewed, and entirely unhealthy.
You know what? I’ll go ahead and withdraw from this one. Brendan, if you want to delete all/part of the previous comments, you can go ahead.
It is a somewhat interesting discussion to have, and I’m sure it will come up elsewhere, but it’s still certainly tasteless. Chalk it up to a large dose of Benadryl taken to deal with summer allergies. At any rate, I don’t want to upset anyone who just wants to share his/her justified disgust over the act.
Actually, it’s not an interesting discussion whatsoever. I’m quite positive that everyone on this blog is not an extremist, and that above all we value peace and safety and the rule of law. We all fear and oppose terrorism, no matter who commits it. Sure, the right may provoke the left and say they are insufficiently attentive to the threat of Islamic terrorism, and point to specific examples to support their thesis. Similarly, the left is wont to hype the danger of neo-nazi and right-wing extremism and accuse the right of pretending there’s not a real problem.
But what should go without questioning is that neither side has malevolent motives: leftists may go soft on terrorism, and even apologize for their motives on occasion (Israel is an apartheid state; we shouldn’t be in the Arabian peninsula; etc), but if anything they are ignorant and/or naive; and the same goes for those on the right who are typically disinclined to view right-wing extremism and a serious threat. Beyond that, what is particularly relevant to note today is that, based on the facts we know so far, there is almost no way the state could have anticipated and prevented this attack, short of Minority Report-type technology. More than anything else, what is called for right now is humility and sorrow.
AMLTrojan – you are *almost* correct with “The fact is, the right-wing extremist groups in Europe are not typically also radical anti-government, just typically anti-Jew, anti-Muslim, and ultra-nationalist” …
The very/ultra-nationalist groups are neither right-wing nor left-wing – they are wa-a-a-a-ay out there where left and right meet at their extremes, where they become functionally indistinguishable totalitarianisms … similarly, they are not anti-Muslim, nor are they anti-Jewish – they are anti-anyone-not-their-own-narrow-group … and, while they may support other groups on a temporary basis, it is only as a matter of expedience … like the Nazis with Stalin or with the Arab League – anyone who isn’t sufficiently Aryan is unter-mensch …
I wonder if folk here will be able to earn from it …
This is why lone-wolf / small pack attacks are the scariest. Something like 9/11 is hard to pull off without signals / indicators. This? Up until this man started blasting, I would bet that no one knew who or what he was. If he had an accomplice, I’ll bet that we find that individual has been a close friend for years. Lastly–how do you defend this short of mandating every adult in your country go about armed? (Note: This is as absurd as suggesting every adult in a country go about _disarmed_.) Because sorry, I would think “youth camp on an isolated island” is probably the one place that someone should not have to be concerned about carrying.
What AML said. Suck less, Casey.