The hideous irony; and a huge victory for the anti-Western left


The killer

On the same day that I criticized the Department of Homeland Security video showing terrorists as neatly dressed young white men, a young blond Norwegian man committed, not just a terrorist mass murder, but the totally unprecedented, inconceivable act of a Norwegian man mass murdering his fellow Norwegians, most of them young people and teenagers; if he were a Muslim convert, the act would be conceivable, but he evidently has no connection to Islam. This monster, Anders Breivik, in addition to killing so many people, has made it OK for the anti-white leftists at DHS to do the very thing for which I was taking them to task. For all future time, whenever conservatives argue that terrorism warnings or surveillance in airports should center on Muslims, not on all of us equally, the liberals will be able to point to Breivik, and our argument for focusing on the Muslim threat will be stymied.

In fact, it wasn’t just on the same day, but virtually at the same minute. I posted the initial entry about the DHS video at 9:31 a.m. Eastern Daylight Saving time. The explosion in Oslo took place at 3:26 p.m. Central European Summer Time, which is 9:26 a.m. Eastern Daylight time. So just as I was drafting the entry protesting the portrayal of whites as terrorists, perhaps as my fingers were tapping the keys, the white man set off the bomb in Oslo.

That remarkable coincidence (no, it was Jungian synchronicity) symbolizes the huge victory Breivik has given the anti-white treasonous left. As difficult as it has been to protect the West from Islam, it will become much more difficult in the future, because of this blond devil.

- end of initial entry -

Dean Ericson writes:

It is a truly terrible irony. Initially I was blaming LIBERALS for the carnage, since it looked to be a jihad attack by Muslim immigrants. I even sent an angry comment to the Times blaming liberals, which they declined to publish, thank goodness. Oh terrible irony, terrible irony—he’s one of “ours”. Of course, he’s a sick, evil man and not at all one of “ours,” and no sort of Christian, and no kind of normal traditionalist, but never mind that—he’s now the poster boy for any and all opposition to liberalism, in much of the left’s mind. “Right wing hate” personified. What’s the f____r’s name? “Anders Behring Breivik”—get used to having it thrown in your face for all time. A grim day. Satan walks the land, God help us.

Dean Ericson continues:

Remember how quick and eager they were to try and blame “right wing hate” for that madman shooter down in Arizona? Well now they have an actual “right wing hater” and he seems to be something more monstrous than any Hollywood writer could have dreamed up. The slaughter on the island is so horrific, sadistic, shocking, evil, cruel, wicked … I can hardly believe the accounts I’m reading.

The Times account says, “but many speculated that the target was Mr. Stoltenberg’s liberal government.” So we’ve got a “right wing Christian fundamentalist” mad about Muslim immigration and so angry at liberals he commits mass-murder against them. In the wake of this all opposition to the liberal agenda is going to be demonized as “Breivikism” and scrutinized by the full range of security agencies. And, we have to admit, it’s going to be justified. There may well be other crazed, evil, right-wing fanatics out there. Along with the crazed, evil Muslims and the crazed, evil leftists and all the rest of crazed, evil people infesting this poor planet. Man, what a wreck. God help us.

Karl D. writes:

It seems this madman was a reader of Gates of Vienna and Jihad Watch, as well as other Counter Jihad sites. This will do wonders for those blogs and the movement in general. He also commented at a Norwegian site called document.no. A commenter at GoV has linked many of his online comments and provided Google translations if you care to peer into the man’s psyche.

Also, it seems that Charles Johnson and a few others were feeding a rumor that the killer was none other the Fjordman himself.

Dean Ericson replies:

Oh that’s great, just great.

And I had already thought to myself just this morning that Charles Johnson must be ecstatic.

Thomas Bertonneau writes:

I’m stunned and almost speechless. I’m also still deeply suspicious of the appearances. Should the appearance stand, then, as you say, it is a stunning defeat for the West.

Tim W. writes:

The man is truly a monster who deserves the condemnation of the world, which he’ll get without excuses being made for him. Prayers for all the victims of this devil.

All it takes is one evil terror attack from a right-winger and the forces bent on destruction of Western Christendom will run with it for decades. There could be a dozen similar attacks committed by Muslims or leftists in the next twenty years, but the one committed yesterday by the homegrown blond trash is the one media and governments will recall vividly circa 2031.

If your site were the traditionalist equivalent of Daily Kos, you would have deleted your “ironic coincidence” post from yesterday. Markos Moulitsas would have hit the delete button the moment the irony became clear, as would any number of leftist bloggers. But your site is on a plane well above the rabble that occupy the “progressive” blogosphere. You not only didn’t delete the posting, you’ve cited it for further discourse. That’s one of the reasons I respect you so much, and trust this site as a place for honest discussion.

LA to Tim W.:

Is this what you mean by my “syncronicity” posting from yesterday?

But still, how about that for an ironic coincidence? On the same day that we discussed the sick and outrageous DHS video that portrays cleancut whites instead of Muslims as terrorists, a man described as a blonde Norwegian committed a terrorist mass murder in Norway.

Tim W. replies:

I meant the DHS posting itself, the one where the video depicting terrorists as mostly white was discussed. It turned out to be ironic because at the very time we were discussing the anti-white attitudes of our elites in producing such a video, an actual white terrorist was doing his evil deeds in Norway. Of course, that doesn’t change the fact that the biggest terror threat to the West remains Islamic, but it was ironic and perhaps a case of synchronicity, as you later noted.

Any number of leftist bloggers, had they posted something that proved ironic, would have deleted their original posting in a 1984 style re-writing of history. You didn’t do that. You not only left the post up, you noted it as a point for further discourse.

LA replies:

Thank you for your observations. I wouldn’t have thought of that. I was just doing what I’m always doing, grappling with the amazing, complex reality that keeps unfolding before us.

Allan Wall writes:

I appreciate your coverage and commentary on the Norwegian massacres. It’s both a humanitarian disaster, obviously, and, as you point out, a dangerous tool in the hands of the International Left. I shudder to think how they can use this, both in Europe and the U.S.

I noticed in this article that it’s already starting. It says, “The suspect in police custody—a blonde blue-eyed Norwegian with reported Christian fundamentalist, anti-Muslim views…”

Timothy A. writes:

The suspect’s alleged Facebook page is available here.

The suspect’s religious beliefs seem to have been escalated (in recent news reports) from “Christian” to “fundamentalist Christian” (and what does “fundamentalist” mean in the Norwegian context? That one believes in the Trinity?).

The misinformation campaign seems to have overstepped though when they tried to identify the suspect with the blogger Fjordman.

See also the comment thread at JihadWatch.

If I were conspiratorially minded, I’d think this was one of those “false flag” operations the leftists proclaim whenever one of their own does something unspeakable. As it is, it seems to be a Columbine-style attack with gleeful leftists manipulating the digital record in order to maximize the propaganda value. I’m surprised they haven’t yet ginned up evidence that he was a Rush Limbaugh listener.

Kevin O. writes:

On the subject of irony, Wikipedia’s new entry on Anders Breivik provides at footnote No. 14 a link to a Google page that purportedly translates some of the alleged perpetrator’s Web comments. The comment below has struck me as particularly unexpected. Referring to news reporting on a terrorist attack in Russia in November 2009, he appears to complain that “CNN” have implied “extreme right” involvement, to which he replies:

“I do not understand why cnn mention the extreme right and the National Socialists? I have never ever heard of a right extreme or NS terrorist attacks of importance on European soil. This sounds like kulturmarxistisk wishful thinking.”

LA replies:

I’ve just glanced at some of his online comments at that page. He sounds like an intelligent conservative trying to understand the issues of the day. He doesn’t give off any signs of being the kind of person he has turned out to be.

In the below comment he attacks “hate” ideologies, among which he includes Islam, Nazism, and Communism. This is not the kind of argument that would be used by the anti-Semitic or neo-Nazi far right. It is the kind of argument one would expect to find at conservative anti-jihad sites.

Also note his confusing use of “conservative,” which he uses in the sense of “radical,” “extreme” or “militant.” Thus when he speaks of “conservative Muslims” as compared with “moderate Muslims,” he really means radical or extremist Muslims as compared with moderate Muslims. Europe is so far left today that the very word “conservative” is synonymous with extremism and Nazism. And he evidently shared that conception. Which again makes him sound like the opposite of the kind of person he has turned out to be.

Here’s the comment:

The problem is that it often does not help about 80% of Muslims are “moderates”, ie they ignore the Quran. “It takes very few people to overthrow a plane.”

What percentage is the Taliban of Pakistan’s population? 1%, 3%, 5%? 1%, 3%, 5%? And how much chaos is there today?

In every society where Islam exists there will be a certain percentage of the Muslims who actually follow the traditional interpretations of the Koran.

And then we have the relationship between conservative [Muslims and so-called “moderate Muslims”.

There is moderate Nazis, too, that does not support fumigation of rooms and Jews. But they’re still Nazis and will only sit and watch as the conservatives Nazis strike (if it ever happens). If we accept the moderate Nazis as long as they distance themselves from the fumigation of rooms and Jews?

Now it unfortunately already cut himself with Marxists who have already infiltrated-culture, media and educational organizations. These individuals will be tolerated and will even work as professors and lecturers at colleges / universities and are thus able to spread their propaganda.

For me it is very hypocritical to treat Muslims, Nazis and Marxists different. They are all supporters of hate-ideologies. Not all Muslims, Nazis and Marxists are conservative, most are moderate. But does it matter? A moderate Nazi might, after having experienced fraud, choose to be conservative. A moderate Muslim can, after being refused to enter a club, be conservative, etc.

It is obvious that the moderate supporters of hate-ideologies, at a later date may choose conservatism.

Communism has historically led to 100 million deaths.

Nazism has historically led to 6-20 million deaths.

ALL hate ideologies should be treated equally.

Alissa writes:

You wrote:

On the same day that I criticized the Department of Homeland Security video showing terrorists as neatly dressed young white men, a young blond Norwegian man committed, not just a terrorist mass murder, but the totally unprecedented, inconceivable act of a Norwegian man mass murdering his fellow Norwegians, most of them young people and teenagers; if he were a Muslim convert, the act would be conceivable, but he evidently has no connection to Islam.

Here’s a view: If he isn’t a Muslim convert, a leftist, or a Darwinian conservative (racial reductionist), then perhaps he’s one of those extremely “pessimistic conservatives.” You say “his fellow Norwegians.” Perhaps to him they weren’t his people anymore. Since the West is declining and veering towards collapse, why not hasten the decline? It’s similar to Roissy going after all of the bar skanks and “gaming” low-quality women and sluts instead of persevering in goodness despite all of the incredible troubles around us. Perhaps he sees those young people and teenagers as too late to save or no longer his people. How could they be “his people” if they continually believe in concepts like multiculturalism, diversity and whatnot? How could “his fellow Norwegians” do this to their own country? To him perhaps they were traitors. What he did was terrible but it’s not hard to understand what would lead to this monstrous act. Ironically yesterday I was reading the difference between a sociopath and a psychopath while commenting on a thread concerning the Casey Anthony case when the bomb went off in Norway.

Neil P. writes:

This is a total disaster on so many levels. If I were a conspiracy theorist I’d say this monster was an agent provocateur.

Sophia A. writes:

“He was able to kill 80 on the island because the citizens of Eurosocialist countries are forbidden guns, and trained to docility.”

This is a cruel and uninformed comment. Norway is exactly the kind of society that I thought we want to build here in the U.S.: prosperous, well-educated, thrifty and based on a core common culture. Because of their core common culture, Norwegians have high trust in one another. That’s why this is so particularly horrifying. If it had been Muslims, this evil wouldn’t be a betrayal of trust. (With the importation of alien minorities, the trust will evaporate, because diversity destroys trust. But that’s a comment for another day. right now, the issue is the poison of Nazism.)

It’s time for us to, as the saying goes, “man up” and face the enemy within.

There are many psychotic Nazis on the nationalist right. Just read the comments at Occidental Dissent. They are all over the place. Didn’t you broke off relations with Amren because of their bemused toleration of anti-Semites and neo-Nazis? There has to be a zero-tolerance policy for Nazism on the conservative nationalist right otherwise the left will win—in triumph.

The Nazis infesting the conservative movement are poison, and they, not the left, are really the chief obstacle to the creation of an intelligent, humane nationalist movement here. Their anti-Semitism and hatred of blacks as blacks (not their behavior, but their very existence) is obsessive, brutal and visceral.

Every time someone talks sense about the need to protect whites and European culture in the U.S., one of these bozos pipes up, and suddenly the room gets very quiet because of the mass exodus. Please don’t blame this on the left. It’s because most normal human beings don’t want to have anything to do with Nazism, neo or otherwise.

Only a few of them are psychotic and motivated enough to do what this monster did, but they are all poison.

LA replies:

While I of course agree with Sophia’s general view and have said the same many times, the problem is that this killer evidently gave no signs of being on the neo-Nazi right or anything like it. He appears to have been more of a standard conservative anti-jihadist / anti-multiculturalist.

Sophia A. writes:

“He appears to have been more of a standard conservative anti-jihadist / anti-multiculturalist.”

Correct … so far. Let’s wait for more information to come out.

But if he was a “standard conservative anti-jihadist, anti-multiculturalist” that makes it even worse for me. Because that’s what I am.

Robert C. in Nashville writes:

Yet, his right wing, nationalist, native Norwegian identity make it more puzzling. Why would a person with conservative views, who saw his country as being under attack from Islam and multiculturalism, while politicians did nothing, attack—not a Mosque, Moslems or a government building, but a youth camp of his fellow citizens? How is this even connected to those views? Yet this is the sole ideological fact we are provided with, as if it explains something

Laura G. writes:

We all need to remember that it has been completely standard for over a decade for early investigations of every individual act of terrorism to deny, minimize, hide, and refuse to investigate the likely Muslim incentives. After a considerable delay, wisps of information begin to emerge, poorly-read sites begin to report the data, and mainstream media never cover the full story. That results in the current situation in which the public is left with the impression that the attack was caused by some mindless insanity or, more likely, another right-wing terrorist. The actuality that the attack was a direct result of Muslim jihadist ideology is obscured. This is dhimmification of our general public and facilitates the insertion of sharia into our society. I know you are completely and fully aware of all of this, and am just writing to encourage a continued attitude of “wait and see,” and demand that a full investigation of his associations be made.

Daniel S. writes:

I am still trying to make sense of the terror attacks in Norway, the motives of the alleged terrorist are not clear to me. He is a supposed “fundamentalist Christian” (not sure what that means in the Norwegian context) and “far-right” (again, a meaningless term in most modern liberal-dominated political discourse), but the question of why remains. When a Muslim carries out a jihad terror attack it is obvious why he has done it (i.e. the Koran instructed him to wage war against the infidels), but if this guy in Norway was a “cultural conservative” of the type that frequent Jihadwatch and Gates of Vienna how does he get to the point where he thinks shooting teenagers is a good idea? I await to see how this monster justified his wanton acts of murder. (The more I see the more I begin to suspect that he is mentally disturbed.)

Whether or not this satanic man thought himself acting in the cultural defense of Norway, it is the left that clearly gains from this attack and it will waste no time exploiting it. It will not be just the fringe neo-Nazi types that are targeted, but any conservative opposition to the liberal-multicultural regime will be lumped with this monster.

Gintas writes:

Lucky for him he lives in compassionate Norway where there is no death penalty. He won’t be executed because, you know, you would never want someone innocent executed. So he gets to live his life out in prison on the taxpayer’s dime.

LA replies:

What a horrible thought, that this creature will be taken care of by the state for the next fifty years, that guards, prison officials, and other inmates will have to deal with him, take care of him, share the same space with him, talk with him. Will this make the Norwegians and other Europeans understand that for this person to go on living is a monstrous injustice? Will they finally understand that the liberal banning of capital punishment has gone “too far” and that, at the least, an unprincipled exception is needed?

I repeat that the day Timothy McVeigh was executed, the earth became a better place. Capital punishment is about removing from this world people who don’t belong among us. It is an essential and indispensable prop of civilization.

Thomas Bertonneau writes:

I suffer the same bewilderment as many of those posting today at VFR. The Utoye massacre makes no sense to me; I can see no obvious motive. Breivik’s comments on “hate ideologies” are perhaps a straw at which one might clutch. If anything, the “anti-hate” theme is indicative of extreme leftwing views. It is the left, not the right, which uses the terminology of “anti-hate.” Traditionalists and conservatives are specific, not sweeping, in their characterizations of the threat to society. It also occurs to me that there is a resemblance between the summer-camp holocaust and a noteworthy instance of the contemporary jihad. It’s Beslan, where Chechnian separatists murdered ethnic Russian children in a school. The parallelism is not exact. The Beslan victims were schoolchildren; the Utoye victims are adolescents, up into their early twenties. I agree with Laura G. that the events in Norway make so little sense that a reserve of skepticism remains justified.

The reports of a second gunman on the island have not gone away.

Max P. writes:

It seems each time there is a terror event, like Arizona or Norway, everybody on the conservative side is frozen scared until they can be assured they won’t be linked to the crime.

Why does the left not also feel this way? Had this shooter been a Muslim, would the anti-Western left have been worried that the jig was up on their open borders agenda? Day after day crimes are committed by illegals and other protected minions of the anti-Western left, yet they never seem to recoil in fear that these events will hurt their agenda. Instead they become ever more entrenched in their beliefs and blame others for the disaster.

It is similar to the way the neoconservatives continue to push their agenda despite the disastrous last decade. Like the left they never let the facts on the ground interfere with their plans. So why should conservatives be any different?

Twenty-four hours ago I believed Muslim immigration into Norway and the West was bad. Today, I still believe it is bad. The fact that a native Norwegian was the killer does not change this belief.

Laura G. writes:

Just another comment on this terminally weird event and person. As we’ve learned from watching President Obama, to understand the motivations behind someone’s actions, it is essential to focus on what the person does, and NOT on what the person says. This is particularly true if you already know or suspect that the person is honesty-challenged.

So, what has the killer done? In one horrible act he has accomplished the following:

1. He has killed off a sizable number of the children and young adults who are in the Norwegian elite and probably who were being groomed to be successors in power.

2. He has tarnished the image of rightwing nationalists and Norwegian defenders to an extent that was previously impossible to imagine. These groups will be prime suspects in future terrorist attacks.

3. He has made it toxic to assume that this sort of terrorist attack is Muslim in origin until/unless definitively proven otherwise.

So, from these points of view, this has been an astoundingly successful advance of the cause of the international Muslim community and causes, and greatly empowers the forces of sharia.

4. In addition to killing high-value kaffirs, he has provided another demonstration to other would-be terrorists of the vulnerability of schools and youth groupings. This can be used for future attacks. Beslan can be copied in the West also.

So, it seems to me that the policy of watching what someone has done needs to be followed in this instance. There are ample examples of people who successfully have embedded themselves deeply into a society using a cover which is a lie but is accepted by that society. They may even live their lying cover for years. The Cold War was full of those situations. For me, it is easier to imagine that his blogging statements are part of a false cover than to imagine that he did what he did in order to make an anti-multiculturalist or pro-Norway point. Could he be a Muslim convert who had a special task? That scenario seems to make a great deal more sense than ascribing his actions to an angry pro-Norwegian gun enthusiast who made his point by killing off his own youth and leaders. It also makes more sense than the possibility that he is acting solely on psychotic voices and without external direction and assistance.

It is unfortunately also the fact that if he was covertly converted, it will require a special form of persistent and targeted investigation to clarify the situation. I wonder if the pacifistic and appeasing Norwegians are capable of conducting that sort of evaluation of the killer and his complete past. Can they even contemplate the possibility of a hidden Islamic basis for the murders?

LA replies:

Laura makes a reasoned, step by step argument that cannot be simply dismissed. But I am very doubtful of it, because it still comes down to the standard logic of all conspiracy thinking: If something happened which materially benefits our adversaries, our adversaries must have planned the entire event to happen just the way it happened, no matter how counterintuitive that seems. The assumption is that our adversaries control reality to a superhuman degree. So, for example, as is believed by many Muslims and leftists (and also by not a few on the anti-war right), since the 9/11 attack gave President Bush the license to start a war on terror and invade and occupy two Muslim countries, President Bush must have planned the 9/11 attack. Now Laura in effect has developed an anti-Truther theory: since the Norway mass murders have arguably aided the cause of the Islamization of the West by enabling the Western left to discredit cultural conservative anti-jihadists, Muslims must have planned the Norway mass murders.

Another way of stating the assumption at work in conspiratorial thinking is: Nothing bad that happens, happens by contingency or accident. Everything bad that happens, happens because our fearsomely powerful and capable adversaries made it happen.

This type of conspiratorial thinking operates on all scales, from the smallest to the largest, and is seen at work at all points of the political spectrum. It is a fundamentally flawed way of understanding political reality. Which is not to say that political actors never engage in skullduggery. Of course they do. But the skullduggery must be within the plausible range of human capability if it is to be believable. The 9/11 Truthers’ theory fails that test. Does Laura’s? I said before that her theory is not simply dismissible, which was why I posted it. But when I think of the degree of intelligence and planning that she is attributing, not just to some generic enemy, but to Muslims, I think her theory is impossible.

Dan K. writes:

I know nothing about this event except to say it has the trappings of a FALSE FLAG operation.

What are the chances that the truth will be told to us by the mainstream mass media?

Daniel L. writes:

An AP report quotes Anders Breivik’s defense lawyer: “He [Breivik] has confessed to the factual circumstances”. The article also states that Breivik “wrote a 1,500-page manifesto before the attack in which he attacked multiculturalism and Muslim immigration.”

This keeps getting worse. Breivik might not be an agent provocateur, but he certainly took all the right steps.

Jim R. writes:

I am struck by the choice of targets: Labor Party camp, and the PM’s office. This has very strong echoes of Chinese bus bombings by frustrated men who have been “destroyed” (land stolen by party officials, kids run over by the privileged sons of party officials) and so on. It seems more blood feud than anything else.

See this:

“China has occasionally witnessed bus explosions staged by disgruntled farmers or laid-off workers wanting to air grievances over poverty, demolitions or corruption.”

Also, so much of the reporting does not make sense. If there was a car bomb then how did the perp get away? Walk? Take a bus? The shooting began only a short time after the bombing to my understanding of current reporting. Presumably time and space apply even to crazed shooters. Implying he either had nerves of steel and a car parked somewhere, or a driver and accomplice. Then there is the bombing itself. Recall Timothy McVeigh of evil memory trained with Fortier in the Kingman AZ desert to make sure that his home-constructed detonators would function, to set off the bomb, to the annoyance of the neighbors. He did so deliberately far away from Oklahoma City. It would be very interesting to see if this accused bomber/gunmen traveled, and to where.

Next, we have the police uniform and bag of weapons, including “machine pistol” as it is now reported. All heavily illegal in Norway, requiring the assistance of a criminal network.

Then we have the fact of the island, meaning either the gunmen took a scheduled ferry to the island and no one noticed … a lone man dressed as a policeman with a bag of guns, or alternatively he had a boat ready.

In short I do not think these vile acts could have been done by one man. The (literally) giggling lunatic Jared Lee Loughner was well known to be a lunatic, as was Cho Seung Hui, and the Columbine Killers. Their plans were not sophisticated, multi-level, multi-location, their mental illness made sustained planning impossible. A political motive cannot be excluded, but one to advance conservative causes seems like John Wilkes Booth, enraged at Lincoln, killing Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis.

Rather, if this guy is not a Giovanni Ramirez (LA gang member accused and now cleared of the beating of Giants Fan Brian Stow at Dodger Stadium) or Richard Jewell (accused by the FBI and cleared of the Atlanta Olympic bombing done by Eric Rudolph), it seems he had help, and the motive was explicitly “Chinese,” i.e., a deep grievance against the ruling party for some perceived (and likely actual) wrong. [LA replies: I would add that McVeigh’s clear motivation was a burning anger against the U.S. government that he had conceived over the Waco incident. His motivation was very straightforward. This would be in line with your theory of Breivik.]

Liberals will want to tar the Tea Party with this, but fortunately the American Public is more concerned over the death of Amy Winehouse, the Debt Limit Drama, and the NFL lockout. The public can watch only so many dramas play out in the news. [LA replies: I didn’t know about the death of Amy Winehouse, who has been conspicuously heading for an early death for the last few years. The American TV news and other media remain amazingly focused on the debt talks. It’s funny how American left-liberals, though they want America to become like Europe, have very little interest in actual events in Europe, or any events outside the U.S. (In their own way, they’re the true isolationists!) So it’s possible that the reaction to the Norway mass murder will not be a replay of the Tucson mass murder.]

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 23, 2011 07:30 AM | Send