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More on the “Norwegian man”
(Note, 11:10 p.m.: many more comments have just been added to this entry.)
Thomas Bertonneau writes:
I have just looked at Dagbladet online, where the headline is: Gjerningsmannen er Norsk, or “The Suspect is Norwegian.” This refers to the shooting at the summer camp. On the face of it, this is unbelievable, as there is simply no precedent for a Norwegian mass-murderer of Norwegians. (The last mass-murders in Norway were executions perpetrated by German troops unde rthe Nazi occupation.) The Norwegian newspaper stories do say that the suspect disguised himself as a policeman. What, then, does the term “Norwegian” mean in this context? It might be the equivalent of “a Virginia man” or “a metro man.”
LA replies:
Except that he was also described as of Northern European appearance.
The idea that “Norwegian man” was equivalent to “Virginia man”—meaning a non-Western Muslim immigrant residing in Virginia—occurred to me, but the physical description scotches that possibility.
Thomas Bertonneau replies: It still sounds fishy to me. There are blond Turks and “Circassians.” Culturally, a Norwegian killing adolescent Norwegians en masse is unthinkable.
LA replies:
It’s not unthinkable, if he’s a convert to Islam.
LA continues:
I just went over to Jihad Watch, and Robert Spencer is making the identical point. Here’s the headline:
Norwegians now saying Oslo attack by “extreme right,” not jihadists
And immediately below that, Spencer says:
Because the shooter at the Utoya youth camp was Norwegian. No one seems to be wondering whether or not he is a convert.
Here’s an excerpt from the Norwegian article Spencer posts, from a publication called Nyheder (I’ve added quotation marks, which are not used in Spencer’s translation):
The renowned Swedish terrorism expert Magnus Searches Torp said earlier today that this appeared to be Al Qaeda’s work. Later he changed his mind.
“Had it only been a bombing, it would be natural to connect it to Islamic extremism. Now we have shootings at the Labour Party’s youth as well, and it changes the whole picture,” says Searches Torp to the Swedish news agency TT.
He believes that this simply may be a single crazy person’s work, he says.
“It’s a very strange device if you are inspired by al-Qaeda and attack on a youth camp in this way,” he says.
[Professor Tore Bjorgo at the Police College] at the police college says that the action is reminiscent of a bomb attack in Oklahoma City in 1995, where the right-wing extremist Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people by a powerful car bomb.
Bjorgo said that terrorist attacks may be linked to two to three main [suspect] environments—and that the extreme right is one of those.
“It reminds me of Oklahoma City bombing. The scenarios we have seen today, is described in the main, right-wing literature,” says Bjorgo.
He refers to books like “The Turner Diaries” and “Hunter.” The first book deals with a bloody race war, which among other things, the FBI’s headquarters are bombed. McVeigh was wearing a copy of “The Turner Diaries” when he was arrested.
“If it is true that the perpetrator had a Nordic look, this increases the credibility of the extreme right can be left behind,” says Bjorgo. [sic]
He would not speculate on how likely this is.
“This will most likely clarify rather soon,” says Bjorgo….
- end of initial entry -
Thomas Bertonneau replies to LA:
“It’s not unthinkable, if he’s a convert to Islam.”
Yes, but then he wouldn’t be a Norwegian anymore in any essential way.
LA replies:
True.
Thomas Bertonneau continues:
The “extreme rightwing” perpetrator would be credible if the crime consisted in blowing up a mosque and killing kids at a madrassa. We should be adamant in our skepticism about the official account of this incident. There is no “extreme rightwing” in Norway; “extreme rightwing” is just a label that Norwegian liberals apply to anyone who differs from them on anything, however slightly.
JL writes:
The attacks in Norway were probably carried out by one man acting alone. He is an ethnic Norwegian, almost certainly a neo-Nazi, not a Muslim. While Muslim terrorists might bomb government buildings in Oslo, it would not make sense for them to target a Social Democratic youth camp as this man did. The camp was located on an island outside of Oslo, reachable only by boat. If he had simply wanted to murder a random bunch of Norwegians, he would not have made that trip after setting off the bombs in Oslo. He was clearly targeting these politically active teenagers for ideological reasons. A Muslim would not have chosen a leftist youth group for his target.
In November 2001, the Norwegian police arrested a 23-year-old neo-Nazi for possession of illegal firearms, explosives, and—crucially—police uniforms. He also had previous violent convictions. That man would be 32 today, which is also the age of the arrested terrorist. I think he is the perpetrator. Unless he has meanwhile converted to Islam, he is probably still a neo-Nazi. Here’s a not very good Google translation of a 2001 article about the man: . His name is reportedly Anders Behring Breivik.
Thomas Bertonneau writes:
Go to this article at Dagbladet and scroll down to the third photograph, the one purporting to show two men who narrowly escaped the downtown blast. Would you say that they are Norwegian? A massive propaganda ploy is in process.
Two Norway men, a.k.a. Two Oslo men.
LA replies:
The photo shows two men, apparently Muslims, who live in Oslo, and who apparently were in the vicinity of the government building when the bomb went off. True, if these two men were arrested for terrorism, the Norwegian papers, if they followed the protocol of American papers, would describe them as “Oslo men,” and, if they had Norwegian citizenship, as “Norwegians.” But these men have not been arrested. They were passersby and near-victims at the scene of the attack, as were many other people. The photo does not provide any support for the idea that the killer at the youth camp who has been identified as a Norwegian is not a Norwegian, or that there is some huge propaganda ploy in process with the aim of convincing us that he is.
Thomas Bertonneau replies:
What the Dagbladet photo shows is that the Norwegian press is skewing its coverage of the enormity. Were no identifiably Norwegian people near the car-bomb explosion? Why single out these two men among the hundreds who must have been in the vicinity when the bomb exploded? The photograph is stunningly selective and it is selective in a noticeably tendentious way.
LA replies:
That is a different point from your original point that there is an attempt to make us believe that the youth camp mass murderer is a Norwegian when he really isn’t.
JL writes:
Thanks for posting my comment. However, I now think that the similarities between Breivik and the 23-year-old neo-Nazi may be just a coincidence. Articles about him say that he has no criminal history to speak of, and that he became politically active only relatively recently. Breivik has described himself as a nationalist, and has criticized multiculturalism and Islam in online discussions. He may not be a neo-Nazi.
Timothy A. writes:
The alleged killer’s alleged Facebook page sure doesn’t look like a neo-Nazi’s page to me. [LA notes: that Facebook page is no longer accessible.] It looks like the kind of thing a leftist would conjure up to describe his preferred suspect. Christian, conservative, hunter, blonde …
(Linked at the newly generated Wikipedia article on Breivik.)
I don’t recall neo-Nazis being fans of John Stuart Mill, Franz Kafka and Winston Churchill like this guy supposedly is.
Another strange thing is that the only postings on his Facebook wall are YouTube “trance music” videos posted just four and five days ago.
Very odd, and yet this is the source being used to build a profile of this man in the blogosphere.
Thomas Bertonneau writes:
I never cited the Dagbladet photo as “proving” anything about the Utoya shooter. I cited it as indicating very powerfully that the Norwegian press is skewing the representation of the murderous incident. The photo of the two obviously non-Norwegian bomb-explosion survivors is the equivalent of the DHS video about terrorism. That photo should inspire in perspicacious people the same dubiety as the DHS video. The skewed reportage is consistent with my skepticism about the alleged Norwegian identity of the shooter; it is also consistent with my sense that a program has begun to obfuscate the truth about today’s events in Scandinavia.
DE writes:
One site reports that this man is the suspect.
Alan A. writes:
Name Of Utoya Shooter Released. Anders Behring Breivik. Photos
And at Huffington Post
And at the Daily Mail, this:
“Police dismiss initial fears Norwegian terror attacks were work of Islamist organisations.”
Sophia A. writes:
This is not a time to score political points but I did suspect it was a Norwegian. Why? He pulled off a well-coordinated attack alone. One psychopathic Norwegian has the intellect of 10 Muslims.
And why should we “not like” this? I have been saying for a long time that the neo-Nazi wing of the nationalist movement, while not possessing the institutional muscle of Islamic terror, is poison. Look on any hardcore “right-wing” website. These guys are horrible. I’m not surprised one of them acted out.
This doesn’t demote Islam from being one of the major threats to Western civilization, but it’s a fact.
John McNeil writes:
I confess I’m about to engage in some wild speculation. I think JL’s case for the identity of the gunman is legitimate, however, I don’t agree with his assessment that targeting a Social Democrat youth group would not serve Islamic interests. As we at VFR know, the (false) right is largely dead and irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, and I believe that Muslims know that the left is the real threat in Europe. They remember well the Communist oppression of Muslims, and this attack could be a probing attack against their temporary allies, or perhaps even a declaration of war, considering that Islamic terrorist groups are already claiming responsibility for this attacked perpetrated by an ethnic Norwegian. Regardless, as soon as Muslims gain enough political clout through demographics, they will break their alliance with the left, and conflict will be inevitable.
How does this tie into the alleged Norwegian killer? Well, we have several facts indicating that this killer was both a neo-Nazi in background, and linked to Islamic terrorism. Perhaps this man, already blinded by his hatred, broke down and saw Islam as the only savior of Europe. He may have felt that neo-Nazism was getting him nowhere, and that the general rightwing opposition was doomed to failure. His support of Islamic terrorism may be a desperate ploy, not to save his people who he may feel are doomed to extinction, but to claim vengeance against the very forces responsible for Western collapse.
Am I off the mark? Well I’ve seen vibes of sympathy for Islam on certain segments of the right which are largely consumed by their hatred of the left. And I think there are those who realize that there will be a great war between Islam and the left, and may choose to take sides in that war, rather than stand for what’s right.
Again, I admit that this is wild speculation, and of course we won’t know for sure until more information becomes available. But I do think that we can learn a lesson from this should my theory prove correct: that if we allow our opposition towards the left become so obsessive then we may end up sacrificing our values and make alliances that would seem unfathomable in order to bring down a shared hated enemy. Of course I could easily say, “That will never happen to me!” But as the left continues to siege the remnants of the West and turn our civilization into a real-world Mordor, would not the temptation to ally with Islam grow stronger? Especially if we feel that we have nothing to lose?
John McNeil continues:
I’ve been reading more information about this incident, and it seems my theory is already wrong. This killer allegedly hates Islam, though it’s odd that Islamic terrorist groups are claiming responsibility for the Oslo bombing, which is what made me believe this guy was working with them.
Dean Ericson writes:
Oh man. This story says:
“Norwegian media has linked Breivik to a Facebook account in which the poster described himself as a Christian conservative.”
We are NEVER going to hear the end of this.
Roland D. writes:
Note the persistent emphasis on the race and appearance of the suspect in the Norway attacks. We are relentlessly told that he is a “blond and blue-eyed Norwegian,” even though photos of the suspect make that quite clear.
Were the 9/11 terrorists described as “black-haired, black-eyed, dark-skinned” men? Has there in face been any physical description of Muslim terrorists in the mainstream press over the last decade, excepting Mohammed Atta’s psychopathic stare?
In stories about more ordinary crimes, the overwhelming majority of which are committed by non-Caucasians, we either get no information at all about the race of the alleged perpetrators, or it’s revealed mutely to us by the inclusion of photographs of the accused. In this case, we’re getting lots of photographs and lots of verbal/written descriptions.
The thought occurs to me that were I a Muslim intent on furthering the goal of the dhimmitude the West, it would be quite a coup to identify and encourage, at least indirectly, a Caucasian far-right ideologue to commit violent atrocities in one of the various socialist Western European countries. The propaganda value of a Great White Terrorist and the concomitant further increase in political correctness, toleration of Muslim barbarism in the name of “diversity,” and refocusing of police and intelligence resources on the supposed hordes of incipient Caucasian terrorists would be of inestimable value to me and my cause.
I would also gain similar benefits were I a left-wing politician intent on consolidating the power of the state over the individual.
I’m not making any accusations in this particular instance, as too few facts are known, but I wanted to ensure that such a “reverse Reichstag” scenario isn’t ruled out in incidents of this type.
AM writes:
Here is a Fox News writeup on him:
As theories abounded early Saturday as to the group or person behind the deadly twin attacks in Norway a day earlier, investigators began to face the fact that they were likely dealing with a home-grown terrorist.
Key suspect Anders Behring Breivik—a blond, 6ft (183cm), 32-year-old Norwegian—was arrested after a gunman opened fire on a summer camp of students who had met to spend a long weekend discussing politics, playing football and enjoying music. The camp was organized by the Workers’ Youth League and was a meeting for young socialists.
Breivik was also believed to be linked to the explosions that ripped through Oslo earlier in the afternoon.
As police began searching the flat that he shares with his mother in a wealthy area of western Oslo a picture began to emerge of a loner with links to right-wing extremists and who had been well-educated and enjoyed hunting, The (London) Times reported.
Breivik appeared to come from an affluent background, attending a middle-class secondary school in the city. Apart from a traffic conviction ten years ago he has no criminal record, according to a Norwegian newspaper. He completed a year of national service in the army.
Breivik had set up his own business, Breivik Geofarm, and a month ago had started to run an organic farm in Hedmark in eastern Norway. There he reportedly produced and stored fertilizers that he was able to use in explosives.
He was known to be active on the internet, expressing extremist Islamophobic views on forums and criticizing immigration policies.
He recently claimed that politics today was not about socialism vs. capitalism but nationalism vs. internationalism. He argued on a Swedish news website that the media were not critical enough about Islam and claimed that Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom in the Netherlands was the only “true” party of conservatives.
He argued that socialism was breaking down traditions, culture, national identity and other societal structures and that this in turn made society weak and confused.
On July 17 he set up a Facebook and Twitter account, posting a single tweet, “One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100,000 who have only interests.”
He claimed to be well-read and worshiped the Norwegian World War II hero Max Manus. On his Facebook profile he listed his favorite books as “The Trial” by Franz Kafka and “Nineteen Eighty-Four” by George Orwell and his favorite television show as “Dexter,” a series about a Miami police forensics expert who moonlights as a serial killer of criminals whom he believes have escaped justice.
Among his other interests he listed founding and developing organizations, freemasonry, working, gaming, partying and fitness. He described his relationship status as single.
His business was described as buying, selling and managing stocks, project developing and real estate.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 22, 2011 06:12 PM | Send
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