July 29, 2011, 4:31 PM
| Comments (13) | | |
 |
| |  |
Last Friday morning, Anders Breivik burst onto the international screen when he carried out a monstrous act of terrorism against his fellow Norwegians. Breivik bombed the offices housing the Norwegian government with the intention of murdering its leaders. He then travelled to the Utoya Island and murdered scores of young people participating in a summer program sponsored by Norway's ruling party.
In all, last Friday Breivik murdered 76 people. Most of them were teenagers.
Although Breivik has admitted to his crimes, there are still some important questions that remain unanswered. For instance, we still do not know if he acted alone. Breivik claims that there are multiple cells of his fellow terrorists ready to attack. But so far, no one has found evidence to support his claim. We also still do not know if - for all his bravado - Breivik was acting on his own initiative or as an agent for others.
Finding the answers to these, and other questions are is a matter of the highest urgency. For if in fact Breivik is not a lone wolf, then there is considerable danger that additional, perhaps pre-planned attacks may be carried out in the near future. And given the now demonstrated inadequacy of Norway's law enforcement arms in contending with terror attacks, the prospect of further attacks should be keeping Norwegian and other European leaders up at night.
Despite the dangers, very little of the public discourse since Breivik's murderous assault on his countrymen has been devoted to these issues. Rather, the Norwegian and Western media have focused their discussion of Breivik's terrorist attack on his self-justifications for it. Those self-justifications are found mainly in a 1,500 page manifesto that Breivik posted on the Internet.
Some of the material for his manifesto was plagiarized from the manifesto written by Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, whose bombing campaign spanned two decades and killed 3 and wounded 23. Kaczynski got the New York Times and the Washington Post to publish his self-justifications in 1995 by threatening to murder more people if they refused.
Breivik's manifesto has become the center of the international discussion of his actions largely as a result of the sources he cited.
Kaczynski, like his fellow eco-terrorist Jason Jay Lee, who took several people hostage at the Discovery Channel in Maryland last September, was influenced by the writings of former US vice president Al Gore. A well worn copy of Gore's book Earth in the Balance was reportedly found by federal agents when they searched Kaczynski's cabin in Montana in 1996. Lee claimed that he was "awakened" to the need to commit terrorism to save the environment after he watched Gore's film, "An Inconvenient Truth."
Aside from Kaczynski, (whom he plagiarized without naming), certain parts of Breivik's manifesto read like a source guide to leading conservative writers and bloggers in the Western world. And this is unprecedented. Never before has a terrorist cited so many conservatives to justify his positions.
Breivik particularly noted writers who focus on critical examinations of multiculturalism and the dangers emanating from jihadists and the cause of global jihad. He also cited the work of earlier political philosophers and writers including John Stuart Mill, George Orwell, John Locke, Edmund Burke, Winston Churchill and Thomas Jefferson.
Breivik's citation of conservative writers, (including myself and many of my friends and colleagues in the US and Europe), has dominated the public discussion of his actions. The leftist dominated Western media - most notably the New York Times -- and the left wing of the blogosphere have used his reliance on their ideological opponents' arguments as a means of blaming the ideas propounded by conservative thinkers and the thinkers themselves for Breivik's heinous acts of murder.
For instance, a front page news story in the Times on Monday claimed, "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."
The reporter, Scott Shane named several popular anti-jihadist blogs that Breivik mentioned in his manifesto. Shane then quoted left-leaning terrorism expert Marc Sageman who alleged that that the writings of anti-jihad authors "are the infrastructure from which Breivik emerged."
That is, Shane quoted Sageman accusing these writers of responsibility for Breivik's acts of murder.
Before considering the veracity of Sageman's claim, it is worth noting that no similar allegations were leveled by the media or their favored terror experts against Gore in the wake of Lee's hostage taking last year, or in the aftermath of Kaczynski's arrest in 1996. Moreover, Noam Chomsky, Michael Scheuer, Stephen Walt and John Mearshimer, whose writings were endorsed by Osama Bin Laden, have not been accused of responsibility for al Qaeda terrorism.
That is, leftist writers whose works have been admired by terrorists have not been held accountable for the acts of terrorism conducted by their readers.
Nor should they have been. And to understand why this sort of guilt-by-readership is wrong, it is worth considering what separates liberal democracies from what the great Israeli historian Jacob Talmon referred to as totalitarian democracies. Liberal democracies are founded on the notion that it is not simply acceptable for citizens to participate in debates about the issues facing their societies. It is admirable for citizens in democracies to participate in debates - even heated ones -- about their government's policies as well as their societies' cultural and moral direction. A citizenry unengaged is a citizenry that is in danger of losing its freedom.
One of the reasons that argument and debate are the foundations of a liberal democratic order is because the more engaged citizens feel in the life of their societies, the less likely they will be to reject the rules governing their society and turn to violence to get their way. As a rule, liberal democracies reject the resort to violence as a means of winning an argument. This is why, for liberal democracies, terrorism in all forms is absolutely unacceptable.
Whether or not one agrees with the ideological self-justifications of a terrorist, as a member of a liberal democratic society, one is expected to abhor his act of terrorism. Because by resorting to violence to achieve his aims, the terrorist is acting in a manner that fundamentally undermines the liberal democratic order.
Liberal democracies are always works in progress. Their citizens do not expect for a day to come when the debaters fall silent because everyone agrees with one another as all are convinced of the rightness of one side. This is because liberal democracies are not founded on messianic aspirations to create a perfect society.
In contrast, totalitarian democracies - and totalitarian democrats -- do have a messianic temperament and a utopian mission to create a perfect society. And so its members do have hopes of ending debate and argument once and for all.
As Talmon explained in his 1952 classic, The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy, the totalitarian democratic model was envisioned by Jean Jacques Rousseau the philosophical godfather of the French Revolution. Rousseau believed that a group of anointed leaders could push a society towards perfection by essentially coercing the people to accept their view of right and wrong. Talmon drew a direct line between Rousseau and the totalitarian movements of the twentieth century - Nazism, fascism and communism.
Today, those who seek to silence conservative thinkers by making a criminal connection between our writings and the acts of a terrorist are doing so in pursuit of patently illiberal ends to say the least. If they can convince the public that our ideas cause the mass murder of children, then our voices will be silenced.
Another aspect of the same anti-liberal behavior is the tendency by many to pick and choose which sorts of terrorism are acceptable and which are unacceptable in accordance with the ideological justifications the terrorists give for their actions. The most recent notable example of this behavior is an interview that Norwegian Ambassador Svein Sevje gave to Maariv on Tuesday. Maariv asked Sevje whether in the wake of Breivik's terrorist attack Norwegians would be more sympathetic to the victimization of innocent Israelis by Palestinian terrorists.
Sevje said no, and explained, "We Norwegians view the occupation as the reason for terror against Israel. Many Norwegians still see the occupation as the reason for attacks against Israel. Whoever thinks this way, will not change his mind as a result of the attack in Oslo."
So in the mind of the illiberal Norwegians, terrorism is justified if the ideology behind it is considered justified. For them it is unacceptable for Breivik to murder Norwegian children because his ideology is wrong. But it is acceptable for Palestinians to murder Israeli children because their ideology is right.
As much as statements by Sevje, (or Gore, Walt, Mearshimer, Scheuer or Chomsky), may anger their ideological adversaries, no self-respecting liberal democratic thinker would accuse their political philosophies of inspiring terrorism.
There is only one point at which political philosophy merges into terrorism. That point is when political thinkers call on their followers to carry out acts of terrorism in the name of their political philosophy and they make this call with the reasonable expectation that their followers will fulfill their wishes. Political thinkers who fit this description include the likes of Muslim Brotherhood "spiritual" leader Yousef Qaradawi, Osama Bin Laden, Hamas founder Sheikh Yassin, al Qaeda in Yemen leader Anwar Awlaki and other jihadist leaders.
These leaders are dangerous because they operate outside of the boundaries of democratic polemics. They do not care whether the wider public agrees with their views. Like Mao -- who murdered 70 million people -- they believe that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun not out of rational discourse.
Revealingly, many not particularly liberal Western democracies have granted these terrorist philosophers visas, and embraced them as legitimate thinkers. The hero's welcome Qaradawi enjoyed during his 2005 visit to Britain by then London mayor Ken Livingstone is a particularly vivid example of this practice. The illiberal trajectory British politics has veered onto was similarly demonstrated by the government's 2009 refusal to grant a visa to Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders. Wilders has been demonized as an enemy of freedom for his criticism of Islamic totalitarianism.
The Left's attempts to link conservative writers, politicians and philosophers with Breivik are nothing new. The same thing happened in 1995, when the Left tried to blame rabbis and politicians for the sociopathic Yigal Amir's assassination of then prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. The same thing happened in the US last summer with the Left's insistent attempts to link the psychotic Jared Loughner who shot Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and her constituents, with Governor Sarah Palin and the Tea Party.
And it is this tendency that most endangers the future of liberal democracies. If the Left is ever successful in its bid to criminalize ideological opponents and justify acts of terrorism against their opponents, their victory will destroy the liberal democratic foundations of Western civilization.
Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.
| Comments (13) | | |
|
Sweet Caroline: what you say is true, and I can see Europe is crawling with it. Here across the Pond, though, I'll beg to differ at least for the time being: our greatest current danger Stateside is the possibility of liberal democracy being scrapped, and not for totalitarian 'democracy' but for blatant, unapologetic plutocracy. I think it's worth pointing out that the Left isn't the only side that's sought to link their opponents to extremists: that's Glenn's, Rush's, and many a phony preacher's stock in trade. Not to mention Mussolini, Hitler and indeed the anti-organized labor people as far back as 150 years ago here and in Britain. I would agree, though, that attempts to criminalize one's political opponents are dangerous, across the board, to liberal democracy. I consider other dangers to be a religion-state connection and too much wealth in the hands of too few. And what happens when one's political opponents, while still not shooting at one, resort to methods harmful to the country at large, such as trying to hold our full faith and credit hostage in order to achieve what only they, and not anywhere near a majority of us, want to have? I hope you've a chance to answer this; I like 90% (so far) of what you write.
I cannot agree less with you , I am sorry.
I read part of the manifesto as well as some conservative texts.
In one of them fjord man with an almost flawless logic does reach the conclusion that the ones most responsible for the islamisation of norway are the labor politicians.
They are traitors , the author does claim.
This is exactly what the guman does claim.
The people in the island were targeted because they all belong to the labor party and they were the next generation of traitors , according to the gunman .
There is therefore a connection between ideas and deeds.
For you this is crystal clear as long your lovable pali neighbors are involved.
You clearly see there is a connection between demonisation of the israeli jews
and palestinian violence.
Palestinian keep hearing jews were the invaders.., they have no connection to the holy land , they are murderers..;
No wonder sooner or later an arab will blow himself or stab a jew , " the invader ".
Such connection does exist both in the left and in the right.
More than denying that there is a connection between deeds and violence as far as the right ( and left ) is concerned .., I believe you should realize that hate does kill.
Try to fight ideas but be very very careful in order not to feed hatred in peoples hearts.
But if you feed some hatred, hostility , in peoples hearts..,never ever feed mass hatred towards a wholle group of people be it the jews.., muslims.., the palestinians or whatever.
Hold your ground but hate no one.
That is the lesson we shall learn from the tragedy that took place in norway.
Fight for your ideas but never ever hate someone just because he is a jew , a palestinian , a portuguese or a Likudist.
What really bothers me about Anders Brevik is that he stated in his manifesto that he was working on the same things that muslim jihadists were working to achieve. If he were such an anti-muslim then WHY did he not bomb a mosque or attack a group of muslims? I understand he was deranged(crazy) but I think he was "crazy like a fox". Could he really be actually an admirer of radical muslims, their goals, their methods and still profess to hate them??
I'd like to see the full comments by the Norwegian ambassador because the part you quoted certainly did not show him agreeing that terrorism against Israel was 'legitimate'.
It simply stated what most Norwegians view as the motivation behind terrorist attacks. Understanding what motivates people is not the same as agreeing with their motivations, nor is it the same as approving of particular acts that may then follow from such motivations.
I find it rather offensive that you suggest that because they oppose various aspects of Israeli state policy, most Norwegians are therefore content to see Israeli children murdered. The whole tone of your article is seriously distasteful.
And labelling Norway as 'illiberal', by the way, is just patently absurd.
First of all, Breivik is said to have had this plan about nine years ago, when there was not yet much Islamcritical blogging around!
__________________________________________
# A friend on July 30, 2011 9:32 PM
.....Could he really be actually an admirer of radical muslims, their goals, their methods and still profess to hate them??
An important question. Breivik certainly noticed their success with the international community. Success that paid off in political as well as in financial support given by the international community. f.e. the billions pocketed in by Arafat and the PA.
Hello there.........its me...........again,
More and more truth comes to the surface regarding those moments on Utoya Island.......it seems the parents of these youth had decided to place their very own flesh and blood into the murderous crucible of international politics.........it seems that Utoya, at first glance an idyllic Norwegian playground, was little more than a training ground for the cannon fodder of Hamas and Hezbollah as young men and women were readied, through brain-washing and a steady diet of propaganda, to be placed into the breech of islamic terrorism.........
Utoya Island, a sort of Ikea-esque version of the madrassas of Pakistan where the very finest of suicide bombers are moulded..........
So, I thought I would share my thoughts with you on parents who throw their children to lions.........
Here lays the truth….
There is no difference between the muslim who whispers the blackest of lies in the ears of the unloved, the easily impressed and the dull witted and then, for the sake of political agenda, ignites these same lost souls in a blinding flash of light in the marketplace….where in a symphony of carnage and the sweetest of agony, the innocent are borne away on rivers of blood………this Middle Eastern creation, the work of madmen, the pride of Lucifer himself..... yet greatly admired by some as so too the Norwegian politicians and academia who whisper lies into the ears of their own children as they set out to the island of Utoya…....these so called educated and enlightened men and women who champion the cause of psychopathic, terroristic murderers…..these Norwegian men and women, closet national socialists, who seek the murder and annihilation of all Jewry on a global scale….these monstrous Norwegian men and women who whisper lies into their children’s ears and then set these children loose into the political arena to, in seeking, as all children do, the approving eye of that which gave them life, willingly act as little more than cannon fodder for their parents vicious agenda…......
How incredibly sick….....how incredibly demented, these Norwegians who use their children as pawns in a game that they themselves are loathe to play….....wretched bloody cowards the lot......and now they stand on the world stage and, tears flowing down cheeks, with hand on heart, with refrains of melodramatic background music as their flesh and blood is lowered into the ground.....and now......with obscene hypocrisy..........they seek our solace and our sympathy…..what wretched souls these sick Norwegian psychopaths…....now, having offered up their very own children to the cause and conflict of islam and terrorism they will be accorded, with admiring deference by their fellow media luminaries, academics and politicians, the very best seats in cafes and bistros.....where, noshing on exotic cuisine, sipping expensive wines, dressed in shemaghs and wrapped in the Palestinian flag, the haute couture of media, mass murders and academia everywhere, they will be treated as celebrities for murdering their very own children.....how utterly vile...........
In the darkened doorways lurk the omnipresent leering muslim vultures, Hamas and Hezbollah.......they sit quietly and marvel at a job well done.....for the slaughter of these deluded youth was a win/win massacre for muslims.......you find evidence of that in their immediate reaction to the bombing as every Jihadist group, muslim and islamist with an axe to grind didn't just rush to the Norwegian river of blood....no, they jumped in and, splashing and frolicking about, claiming responsibility.....revelling, as they love to do, in the death and misery of innocents and children.......
But as events unfolded and it became apparent that Anders Breivik was responsible..........these muslims faded away quietly as here was something beyond their wildest dreams.....and the academia smiled...........and the media was delighted.......and the band played on...........
How utterly bloody wretched.......
Regards, Don Laird
Edson, Alberta, Canada
Truly one of the best blogs on the Norway shootings and its aftermath. It is hard to imagine a better way to describe the current situation and the meaning of this outrage in Norway. It might also be observed that opposition in authoritarian states is invariably subversive, but not terrorist, nor does it extole terrorism or admire it. Where were the terrorists against Nazi Germany? Communist states have seen terrorist attacks, but these attacks just represented and represent competing authoritarian creeds like the Muslims in Yugoslavia, the USSR and the PRC.
Again, it really is time to have a hard look at what passes as "liberal" and "conservative" in the global public debate. There is no intellectual vitality to claims of liberalism when one embraces terrorists as heroes. And there is no intellectual vitality to conservatism that claims its legitimacy is rooted in the structure of liberal societies. Conservatism shows a similar weakness when its rhetoric is always reduced to some struggle against liberalism.
There is right and there is wrong and people can know the difference without bearing some political stripe.
The reaction to the deadly terrorist attacks in Norway demonstrates the heights of hypocrisy of the Left. One cannot deny that Breivik's actions clearly show the dangers of right-wing extremism. However, the Left ignores the most common form of terrorism in the world today. The lackluster excuse of the Left to explain Islamist terrorism is disenfranchised people attempting to assert their human dignity against oppressive economic forces, using the veneer of religious discourse. Afterall, religion is the opiate of the people according to the Marxists. The virtue of these people is solely due to their socio-economic class. (It ironic that the Sultans of Jihad often come from the upper eschelons of society. Perhaps neo-Marxism is the morphine that deadens the consciences of the hardcore Left and keeps their moral compasses spinning.)
The Norwegian ambassador's whitewashing of Palestinian terrorism as understandable is typical of this neo-Marxist mindset. Terrorism against Israel is always the exceptional case because it can be justified according to these Leftist theorists. Where was the outrage against the perpetrators that murdered children and teenagers at the Dophinarium, Sbarro, and all other attacks in the last decade? Not hardly a peep from the stone-hearted Left. Yet, the same people are apologists for the Cimmerian death cult of the Janus-faced Terrorist Entity that resides in the West Bank and Gaza.
Anna Geifman has argued that terrorists have sunk to abysmal depths by targeting children since the infamous Beslan attack. Terrorists know they can send seismic shockwaves through the societies they hate by targeting their children.
The hardcore left have always been fascinated by violence, destruction, and death. They have stared into the mouth of the abyss to jolt their anesthetized consciences. Its a thrill ride through the pallid territory of materialism and ennui. How could the murderous Che Guevara become a cultural icon among the Left except in this moral vacuum?
I have started to read Breivik's manifesto, and it strike me that he secretly admires Islamist terrorists, even though they are his supposed enemies. I guess totalitarian birds of a feather flock together. What he hates more is the liberal democracies of Europe. His vision is neo-fascist. (Not unlike his Islamist counterparts.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSj0mfL-1oc
As the burials get going, my feelings are for the Norwegian tragedy. In particular as the Norwegians are impressive custodians for liberated speech. We in London have had our tragedy with extremists, as have many in the world. We must not let the extremists to win. Bye.
the difference btw OBL citing walt & chomsky is that they don't share ideologies. Breivik, you, geller, pipes steyn etc all share the same evil muslim creeping sharia canard conspiracy theories. thus its reasonable to infer your writings motivated breivik and others like him.
that is a legacy you should feel eternal shame and remorse for.
By Law Student on August 3, 2011 3:15 PM
...creeping sharia
Not so creeping, but rather speeding ahead,
if Breivik had his way:
he contemplated collaborating with Muslims on terrorist attacks against Europe. "An alliance with the Jihadists might prove beneficial to both parties... We both share one common goal."
Breivik: "They are asked to provide a biological compound manufactured by Muslim scientists in the Middle East. Hamas and several Jihadi groups have labs and they have the potential to provide such substances. Their problem is finding suitable martyrs who can pass “screenings” in Western Europe. This is where we come in. We will smuggle it in to the EU and distribute it at a target of our choosing. We must give them assurances that we are not to harm any Muslims etc."
More Breivik: "There might come a time when we, the PCCTS, Knights Templar will consider to use or even to work as a proxy for the enemies of our enemies.
Under these circumstances, the PCCTS, Knights Templar will for the future consider working with the enemies of the EU/US hegemony such as Iran (South Korea is unlikely), al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab or the rest of the devout fractions of the Islamic Ummah with the intention for deployment of small nuclear, radiological, biological or chemical weapons in Western European capitals and other high priority locations.
Justiciar Knights and other European Christian martyrs can avoid the scrutiny normally reserved for individuals of Arab descent and we can ensure successful deployment and detonation in the location of our choice."
The support and understanding Muslim Terrorists get from Western goodies must have muddled Breiviks head.
If any such abominable thing happens as Breivik planned in the West the responsibilíty is as well with all excusers of Islamfascism as with the actual perpetrators.
:
:
A talkback here http://frontpagemag.com/2011/08/01/something-rotten-in-norway/ pointed out:
"Breivik mentioned in his manifesto that he used to be friends with members of Blitz (communists known for violent demonstrations, intimidation, assault, drug abuse and crime) and SOS Rasisme (communists taking refuge in "anti-racism", with members known for physically attacking political opponents. And he used to agree with them politically as well, until he got in trouble with immigrant gangs in the 90s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blitz_(movement) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuvBTfrvsIM (One of the leaders in SOS Rasisme threatening with violence.) http://www.adressa.no/nyheter/innenriks/article14... (A leader convicted of several incidents of violence.)"
"The Norwegian right have no traditions of political violence. Without a doubt this is something he picked up from them."