Times highlights killer’s supposed American influences

Today, in a piece entitled, “Killings in Norway Spotlight Anti-Muslim Thought in U.S.,” the New York Times focuses on the mainly American counter-jihad writers and bloggers who were frequently quoted in the killer’s manifesto, namely Robert Spencer, Baron Bodissey of Gates of Vienna, Pamela Geller, and Fjordman. It includes this:

Marc Sageman, a former C.I.A. officer and a consultant on terrorism, said it would be unfair to attribute Mr. Breivik’s violence to the writers who helped shape his world view. But at the same time, he said the counterjihad writers do argue that the fundamentalist Salafi branch of Islam “is the infrastructure from which Al Qaeda emerged. Well, they and their writings are the infrastructure from which Breivik emerged.”

That’s a pretty clever move by Sageman: even as he clears the counter-jihad writers of the charge of preaching violence, he makes it seem that Breivik’s violence came from their “infrastructure.” Moreover, Sageman’s analogy between the Salafi branch of Islam as the infrastructure from which al Qaeda emerged and the counterjihad writers as the infrastructure from which Breivik emerged is wholly false, since the infrastructure from which al Qaeda emerged—which by the way is Islam itself, not “Salafi” Islam or any Western-invented concept of “radical” Islam—is an infrastructure that has for the last 1,389 years preached the Allah-sanctified killing and subjugation of infidels, while the infrastructure from which Sageman says Breivik emerged has not preached killing anyone. Sageman’s remark is a lie because, as we’ve come to understand over the last three days, there are in effect two Anders Breiviks: Breivik the standard-issue counter-jihadist, and Breivik the mass murderer of innocents.

Just yesterday, the Times itself underscored that duality when it quoted Kari Helene Partapuoli, director of the Norwegian Center Against Racism, saying that “The distance between the words spoken and the acts that he carried out is gigantic, because what he did is in a different league of what the debates have to do about.” But today, with Sageman’s remark, the Times slyly fudges that “gigantic” difference and would have its readers believe that the infrastructure from which emerged Breivik the opponent of the Islamization of Europe is the same infrastructure from which emerged Breivik the mass murderer.

To repeat, the thoughts and influences that led to Breivik’s opposition to Islamization have nothing to do with the thoughts and influences that led to his diabolical act of murder of Labor Party young people. There were two entirely different “infrastructures” operating on Breivik’s mind, and Sageman makes it appear that there was just one infrastructure.

The falsehood is significant, because it helps fuel the left’s agenda of denying the Islam threat, promoting the Islamization of America, and suppressing the left’s real enemy, the political and cultural right. The Times article says:

More broadly, the mass killings in Norway, with their echo of the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City by an antigovernment militant, have focused new attention around the world on the subculture of anti-Muslim bloggers and right-wing activists and renewed a debate over the focus of counterterrorism efforts.

In the United States, critics have asserted that the intense spotlight on the threat from Islamic militants has unfairly vilified Muslim Americans while dangerously playing down the threat of attacks from other domestic radicals. [Emphasis added.] The author of a 2009 Department of Homeland Security report on right-wing extremism withdrawn by the department after criticism from conservatives repeated on Sunday his claim that the department had tilted too heavily toward the threat from Islamic militants.

As I said last evening, given that Breivik, a follower of the counter-jihadist, Islam-critical school of thought, committed mass murder, it would be reasonable and legitimate for authorities to examine the works of Islam critics (including myself) to see if they are promoting violence. Since they clearly are not promoting violence, such examination would not take long. That is very different from the agenda implied in the Times passage quoted above—a permanent re-direction of anti-terrror efforts away from Muslims and toward “domestic radicals,” i.e., counter-jihadists and cultural conservatives.

As long as the American left has existed, it has insisted that threats to America did not come from actual dangers such as Communism, mass uncontrolled immigration, and multiculturalism, but from the people who warned against those dangers. The current effort to make Islam critics seem a greater danger to America than Islam itself is part and parcel of the left’s age-old treasonous agenda

Here is the article:

July 24, 2011

Killings in Norway Spotlight Anti-Muslim Thought in U.S.

By SCOTT SHANE

The man accused of the killing spree in Norway was deeply influenced by a small group of American bloggers and writers who have warned for years about the threat from Islam, lacing his 1,500-page manifesto with quotations from them, as well as copying multiple passages from the tract of the Unabomber.

In the document he posted online, Anders Behring Breivik, who is accused of bombing government buildings and killing scores of young people at a Labor Party camp, showed that he had closely followed the acrimonious American debate over Islam.

His manifesto, which denounced Norwegian politicians as failing to defend the country from Islamic influence, quoted Robert Spencer, who operates the Jihad Watch Web site, 64 times, and cited other Western writers who shared his view that Muslim immigrants pose a grave danger to Western culture.

More broadly, the mass killings in Norway, with their echo of the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City by an antigovernment militant, have focused new attention around the world on the subculture of anti-Muslim bloggers and right-wing activists and renewed a debate over the focus of counterterrorism efforts.

In the United States, critics have asserted that the intense spotlight on the threat from Islamic militants has unfairly vilified Muslim Americans while dangerously playing down the threat of attacks from other domestic radicals. The author of a 2009 Department of Homeland Security report on right-wing extremism withdrawn by the department after criticism from conservatives repeated on Sunday his claim that the department had tilted too heavily toward the threat from Islamic militants.

The revelations about Mr. Breivik’s American influences exploded on the blogs over the weekend, putting Mr. Spencer and other self-described “counterjihad” activists on the defensive, as their critics suggested that their portrayal of Islam as a threat to the West indirectly fostered the crimes in Norway.

Mr. Spencer wrote on his Web site, jihadwatch.org, that “the blame game” had begun, “as if killing a lot of children aids the defense against the global jihad and Islamic supremacism, or has anything remotely to do with anything we have ever advocated.” He did not mention Mr. Breivik’s voluminous quotations from his writings.

The Gates of Vienna, a blog that ordinarily keeps up a drumbeat of anti-Islamist news and commentary, closed its pages to comments Sunday “due to the unusual situation in which it has recently found itself.”

Its operator, who describes himself as a Virginia consultant and uses the pseudonym “Baron Bodissey,” wrote on the site Sunday that “at no time has any part of the Counterjihad advocated violence.”

The name of that Web site—a reference to the siege of Vienna in 1683 by Muslim fighters who, the blog says in its headnote, “seemed poised to overrun Christian Europe”—was echoed in the title Mr. Breivik chose for his manifesto: “2083: A European Declaration of Independence.” He chose that year, the 400th anniversary of the siege, as the target for the triumph of Christian forces in the European civil war he called for to drive out Islamic influence.

Marc Sageman, a former C.I.A. officer and a consultant on terrorism, said it would be unfair to attribute Mr. Breivik’s violence to the writers who helped shape his world view. But at the same time, he said the counterjihad writers do argue that the fundamentalist Salafi branch of Islam “is the infrastructure from which Al Qaeda emerged. Well, they and their writings are the infrastructure from which Breivik emerged.”

“This rhetoric,” he added, “is not cost-free.”

Dr. Sageman, who is also a forensic psychiatrist, said he saw no overt signs of mental illness in Mr. Breivik’s writings. He said Mr. Breivik bears some resemblance to Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, who also spent years on a manifesto and carried out his mail bombings in part to gain attention for his theories. One obvious difference, Dr. Sageman said, is that Mr. Kaczynski was a loner who spent years in a rustic Montana cabin, while Mr. Breivik appears to have been quite social.

Mr. Breivik’s declaration did not name Mr. Kaczynski or acknowledge the numerous passages copied from the Unabomber’s 1995 manifesto, in which the Norwegian substituted “multiculturalists” or “cultural Marxists” for Mr. Kaczynski’s “leftists” and made other small wording changes.

By contrast, he quoted the American and European counterjihad writers by name, notably Mr. Spencer, author of 10 books, including “Islam Unveiled” and “The Truth About Muhammad.”

Mr. Breivik frequently cited another blog, Atlas Shrugs, and recommended the Gates of Vienna among Web sites. Pamela Geller, an outspoken critic of Islam who runs Atlas Shrugs, wrote on her blog Sunday that any assertion that she or other antijihad writers bore any responsibility for Mr. Breivik’s actions was “ridiculous.”

“If anyone incited him to violence, it was Islamic supremacists,” she wrote.

Mr. Breivik also quoted European blogs and writers with similar themes, notably a Norwegian blogger who writes under the name “Fjordman.” Immigration from Muslim countries to Scandinavia and the rest of Europe has set off a deep political debate across the continent and strengthened a number of right-wing anti-immigrant parties.

In the United States, the shootings resonated with years of debate at home over the proper focus of counterterrorism.

Despite the Norway killings, Representative Peter T. King, the New York Republican who is chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said he had no plans to broaden contentious hearings about the radicalization of Muslim Americans and would hold the third one as planned on Wednesday. He said his committee focused on terrorist threats with foreign ties and suggested that the Judiciary Committee might be more appropriate for looking at non-Muslim threats.

In 2009, when the Department of Homeland Security produced a report, “Rightwing Extremism,” suggesting that the recession and the election of an African-American president might increase the threat from white supremacists, conservatives in Congress strongly objected. Janet Napolitano, the homeland security secretary, quickly withdrew the report and apologized for what she said were its flaws.

Daryl Johnson, the Department of Homeland Security analyst who was the primary author of the report, said in an interview that after he left the department in 2010, the number of analysts assigned to non-Islamic militancy of all kinds was reduced to two from six. Mr. Johnson, who now runs a private research firm on the domestic terrorist threat, DTAnalytics, said about 30 analysts worked on Islamic radicalism when he was there.

The killings in Norway “could easily happen here,” he said. The Hutaree, an extremist Christian militia in Michigan accused last year of plotting to kill police officers and planting bombs at their funerals, had an arsenal of weapons larger than all the Muslim plotters charged in the United States since the Sept. 11 attacks combined, he said.

Homeland Security officials disputed Mr. Johnson’s claim about staffing, saying they pay close attention to all threats, regardless of ideology. And the F.B.I. infiltrated the Hutaree, making arrests before any attack could take place.

John D. Cohen, principal deputy counterterrorism coordinator at the Department of Homeland Security, said Ms. Napolitano, who visited Oklahoma City last year for the 15th anniversary of the bombing there, had often spoken of the need to assess the risk of violence without regard to politics or religion.

“What happened in Norway,” Mr. Cohen said, “is a dramatic reminder that in trying to prevent attacks, we cannot focus on a single ideology.”

- end of initial entry -

Daniel S. writes:

Will the influence of the radical environmentalist Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber, get as much attention as Robert Spencer and Fjordman?

LA replies:

And of course to many people, Kaczynski was a hero. Also, I don’t have a citation for this, but I remember that once, around 1996, the New York Times reported, neutrally and without disapproval, that some people in America regarded him as a “hero.” The Times may not have actively defended him, but they sought to soften and remove any moral condemnation of him.

Kilroy M. writes:

You may be interested to know that the first rhetorical attack (at least to my knowledge) on a conservative institution in the name of preventing a Norway-style massacre has been made, in Poland. Central Europe is by far the most socially conservative region of the EU, despite the fact that much of its post-Communist nomenclature have survived the fall of Communism. In this story, a leftist organisation has stated that the journalism in “Radio Mary”, the traditionalist Catholic radio station which advocates strong Eurosceptic, anti-gay, anti-liberal, and patriotic policy positions, could lead to mass murder. The pertinent quote: “Tolerating the language of hate, aggression and xenophobia could lead to similar tragedies.” The push is on to defund it.

Of course, what will “lead to similar tragedies” is not intolerant language, but “tolerating” the conditions that have lead to the extreme frustration of fragile minds who are inclined to this kind of behaviour. If it’s more political correctness that these liberals want (by suppressing the unacceptable speech) then we should be clear in our denunciation of the tyranny that this will lead to. It is the liberal left that is fascistic here, not us, and we should take every opportunity to inform the left and others of that fact. I believe the only way that we can fight our inevitable demonisation is by going on the attack and claiming that it is disgusting and outrageous to use the Norway tragedy for political point scoring. If we spend our time disassociating ourselves from the murderer, and arguing how he doesn’t represent us and what we are, we’ve already lost. Taking the defensive stance on this will compound the disaster for our movement. We need to keep making our position clear, be unapologetic about it, and tell the left that they are responsible for this.

LA replies:

I meant to make a similar point last night, but didn’t get around to it. The moment the subject comes up, instead of defending ourselves we should immediately launch into the fact that Islam is what it is; that the Islam threat exists; and that we are not going to back off from saying that. Since the Norway event has focused the attention of people more than ever before on Islam critics, we should use the opportunity, not to be defensive about our Islam-critical position, but to state it even more strongly than before.

Kevin O. writes:

You wrote:

” … as we’ve come to understand over the last three days, there are in effect two Anders Breiviks: Breivik the standard-issue counter-jihadist, and Breivik the mass murderer of innocents.”

It appears the author of the Breivik manifesto was fully cognizant of his double identity. On p. 845, he makes the following remark:

“I have never been happier than I am today and I do not find it problematical hide my true ideological agenda from everyone else. To all I know I am a moderate right-winger and not a resistance fighter.”

On the subject of “Christian fundamentalism,” the author seems emphatically to deny that this is his worldview (ignoring the fact that any claim to Christianity is belied by committing mass murder). On p. 1361, in answer to the FAQ-style question, “Do I have to believe in God or Jesus in order to become a Justiciar Knight?”, he replies (emphasis in original):

“As this is a cultural war, our definition of being a Christian does not necessarily constitute that you are required to have a personal relationship with God or Jesus…. In many ways, our modern societies and European secularism is a result of European Christendom and the enlightenment. It is therefore essential to understand the difference between a “Christian fundamentalist theocracy” (everything we do not want) and a secular European society based on our Christian cultural heritage (what we do want)…. It is enough that you are a Christian-agnostic or a Christian-atheist (an atheist who wants to preserve at least the basics of the European Christian cultural legacy (Christian holidays, Christmas and Easter)).”

LA replies:

Thanks much for this information. To underscore and restate your two points:

1. Breivik explicitly tells us that his identity as a moderate right-winger is entirely separate from his identity as a “resistance fighter,” i.e., as a mass-murdering terrorist. Indeed, so separate were these identities that none of his moderate right-wing associates had any idea of his identity as a “resistance fighter.”

2. Breivik makes it clear that he is what is known as a “cultural Christian.” This is a very common stance today among conservative-leaning Europeans. Cultural Christians value and want to preserve certain aspects of Europe’s historic Christian culture, even as they plainly admit that that they are NOT believers in God, NOT believers in Christ, and NOT Christians. Which means that it is a gargantuan lie for the media to describe Breivik as a Christian, let alone as a fundamentalist Christian.

Kevin O. writes:

This is not easy work for any of us, but in accordance with the admirably rigorous standards of your website, I need to make an important correction to the second quote I gave you earlier.

From p. 1349, it appears the Q&A regarding Christianity which I quoted in my previous comment is from an interview with another person, who is described as “a Justiciar Knight Commander of the PCCTS, Knights Templar,” which would undercut the point that Breivik is not a Christian.

However, earlier in the book, on p. 1307 (under the apparent general topic, “Western European Civil War Phase 3”, which begins on p. 1293), there is the following text:

A majority of so called agnostics and atheists in Europe are cultural conservative Christians without even knowing it. So what is the difference between cultural Christians and religious Christians?

If you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and God then you are a religious Christian. Myself and many more like me do not necessarily have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and God. We do however believe in Christianity as a cultural, social, identity and moral platform. This makes us Christian.

A majority of Christians, especially liberal, humanist Christians oppose the doctrines of self defence. I believe that self defence is a central part of Christianity as documented in another part of this book.

[end of quote]

I have included the latter paragraph in this extract as I believe it confirms that the “Myself” and “I” do in fact refer to the author himself on this occasion.

FYI, the quote found by Mark Richardson where Breivik denies he is very religious appears on p.1344, just before the interview with the other person.

LA replies:

Thank you for the clarification. But it does not change the fact that Breivik by his own testimony is not a Christian, as the word is normally and doctrinally understood. A merely “cultural Christian” such as Breivik may call himself a “Christian,” people can call themselves anything they please, but that doesn’t make him a Christian. A person who does not believe in God and Christ, a person who “believes in Christianity as a cultural, social, identity and moral platform,” is not a Christian. Various non-believers, such as Thomas Jefferson, have extracted from the Gospels the moral teachings they liked, while rejecting everything about God and Christ. Jefferson was not a Christian, though he could probably be described as a “cultural Christian.”

And furthermore, of course, a person who believes in and carries out mass murders of innocents to advance an ideological agenda is not a “Christian” even in the merely moral sense.

July 26

Gintas writes:

You wrote:

That’s a pretty clever move by Sageman: even as he clears the counter-jihad writers of the charge of preaching violence, he makes it seem that Breivik’s violence came from their “infrastructure.”

How long before we start hearing “it’s time to drain the swamps”?

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 25, 2011 07:18 AM | Send