Several hours ago a massive bomb exploded outside a government office building in downtown Oslo. Witnesses report that it was a car bomb. So far seven are people dead and several wounded; check for live updates here.
Shortly after the bombing a man disguised as a police officer opened fire at a camp where the youth wing of the ruling Labor party were holding a meeting. A former Prime Minister had been scheduled to attend the meeting.
So far, no Amish groups have claimed responsibility.
Update: reports say the youth camp shooter was blond and blue-eyed. An eyewitness tells reporters that there were 20 to 30 dead bodies in the water.
EBD at 10:37 PM: “Let it slide, Black Mamba. Alex thinks all the non-leftists in the world belong to a club, and that we hold regular meetings.”
I’d like to apply for membership, if I may. Where do I sign up?
Alex is right. Didn’t you see all the Tea Partiers ululating in glee at the attack? I have been out lighting fireworks and banging drums all evening, as I’m sure all of you have.
Still waiting for Alex’s cites from Jihad Watch and Gates of Vienna though. I somehow missed those posts, although of course as a club member I follow all that stuff…
Louise, I agree with much of what you say, my first gut reaction when I read the initial report was “damn muslims”, I mean who in their right mind wouldn’t?
But as the news trickled out (and I agree, it’s still early)to me it looks like one extremeist. The part about him having access to large amounts of fertilizer had my radar up.
The “Tim McVeigh” of Norway would be some nut nursing a grudge against Sweden; not a dude who hung out on “Jihad watch…. And gates of Vienna”.
here is link to a site where the alleged shooter posted
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:3DdrrggjSUYJ:www.document.no/2009/10/dumhetens_pris/+site:document.no+anders+behring&hl=en&gl=uk&strip=1
Forget trying to understand the twisted minds of crazy people, Black Mamba. Some people are just nuts and their motivations are beyond the understanding of the sane mind. If anything I’d bet that news will trickle out about previous episodes of mental instability.
Black Mamba: I believe that it’s his car bomb. A witness said that they the a man in a police uniform leave that specific car. I’m waiting to hear the time lines of both events.
We’ll see.
It would be hard to find anyone, on either end of the political spectrum, who isn’t surprised this wasn’t an Islamic action. That fact, alone, is enough to forgive our rush to blame muslims. They are the default suspects, and they’ve earned that status.
apparently about 80 shot dead on the island
this guy did his home work before he started
Exactly coach.
Over at the Globe and Mail there is close to 3,500 comments.
About 3,400 of them are along the lines of “anyone who thought that islam was involved is a racist”, ” right wing nut job conservatives “,and fortunately for comic relief,there is one guy who blames Rupert Murdoch for creating the atmosphere that allowed this atrocity. I think that was because Palin and Limbaugh are not that well-known over there.
It’s amusing ,but it is a waste of time.
The information comes from the Norwegian bloggosphere, quoting people who knew the attacker. I suppose there’s some possibility they’re mistaken. We’ll see.
wallyj
“About 3,400 of them are along the lines of “anyone who thought that islam was involved is a racist”, ” right wing nut job conservatives “,”
I spent a bit of time reading those this afternoon and noticed a considerable overlap with those who spent their time blaming Israel, Jews, Mossad…false flag operations.
Scary irony, that! I wonder what the breakdown was of poster ethnicity/political affiliation.
alex – give us a link. Look, I’m a trusting person, I’m not calling you a liar, so if you don’t have a link, give us an anecdote. A recollection. You say you read this guy on two blogs with which I at least am glancingly familiar. Can you tell us what you remember him having said? At least a vague idea? You did bring it up.
The Norwegian NSDAP couldn’t bring itself to torching the Reichstag?
Black Mamba…Alex made it up. It’s a drive by smear by an ideologue committed to propagandizing the narrative.
Here is a link to a blog post that makes connections between the alleged shooter and other blogs
http://www.realisten.se/
Says Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs: “….is claiming that the Norway shooter is a “Pamela Geller fan,” and that he is actually Fjordman, whose articles I have published here at Atlas on occasion. He has persisted in this even though Fjordman is online tonight and clearly not under arrest. This shows how desperate Johnson is, and how low he will sink. In reality, the shooter is not Fjordman. I have met Fjordman, I know his identity, and he is not Anders Breivik. This is just a sinister attempt to tar all anti-jihadists with responsibility for this man’s heinous actions.”
Sure, here:
http://www.realisten.se/2011/07/23/anders-behring-breivik-gripen-for-terrordaden-i-oslo/
Although now they’re saying it might not be him after all. Not sure. I’ll offer an apology for jumping to conclusions – regardless of whether or not it turns out to be him, it was wrong of me to go on such sparse info. I don’t normally do that. And yes, I know that nobody here would support his actions. But if you honestly expect Muslims to take responsibility for their fanatics, you need to start doing the same for the ones who share your beliefs.
Alex,
“But if you honestly expect Muslims to take responsibility for their fanatics, you need to start doing the same for the ones who share your beliefs.”
As I haven’t expected this of Muslims, I’m not sure why you think I should accept responsibility for anyone other than myself…whatever my beliefs.
You really are steeped in the narrative, aren’t you? Let go, you’ll feel better thinking for yourself.
Those photos exude vanity. He’s a nutbar for sure. Next time I see a someone with a weird little beard like that I’m just gonna blast away.
Black Mamba: “alex – give us a link. Look, I’m a trusting person, I’m not calling you a liar, so if you don’t have a link, give us an anecdote. A recollection. You say you read this guy on two blogs with which I at least am glancingly familiar. Can you tell us what you remember him having said? At least a vague idea? You did bring it up.”
It’s based on an online rumor–unconfirmed at this point–that Breivik is also the blogger who went by the pseudonym Fjordman.
Google “fjordman” and either Gates of Vienna or JihadWatch to find the relevant articles. Or just go to the Fjordman Wiki page (yes, he has one). It’s too early though to say that the two guys are one and the same.
If you don’t expect it, then I’m obviously not talking to you. Go away.
Alex.
“If you don’t expect it, then I’m obviously not talking to you. Go away.”
Why do you believe I should expect your average Muslim to apologize for the fanatics? I don’t. Is that what the narrative tells you to expect that I believe?
Again, start thinking for yourself.
Do you actually understand English? Go back and read what I wrote.
I watched the CBC report – there was nothing on any other channel – and I was not shocked or dismayed by their reporting. They said that no one had yet claimed responsibility for the Oslo bombing. Now I, and I’m sure many here, believe that Islamists are the culprits, but I don’t blame CBC for not jumping to conclusions before any group has claimed responsibility.
And when they posted the picture of massacre-guy, I don’t blame them again for not speculating about some kind of religious motivation.
I’m sure, as the days unfold, the Islamists will be found guilty of the Oslo bombing, but any responsible news organization would refrain from such assertions until more facts came to light.
I give the CBC a pass on this; I thought their reporting was accurate and restrained, although I wish their on-site voice would stop speaking out of the side of her mouth.
It’s times like this where I like to step away from the Internet and Twitter for a few days and wait for the details to come out. Way too many rumors and guesses floating around.
Alex, which part of Christs teachings advocated the murder of innocents? Vaguely pointing out that the Bible has some violent verses to compare Christianity to militant Islam shows that you do not know basic Christian theology. Yet you seem to pride yourself as some sort of expert on religion.
Presently, for those of us who jumped to the conclusion that it was was an Islamist terrorist attack, it appears that it is was not.
A more correct statement earlier on would be that it was likely Islamist terrorism, based on the odds of say roughly 16,000 Islamist terrorist attacks confirmed to 1 which was not over the last 10 years.
We’ll have to keep track of the number of Islamist terrorist attacks and see if the odds change very much over say the
next 10 years.
If it is a lone psychopath as now seems likely, they’ve been motivated to a significant degree by the sensationalist media coverage to do terrorist attacks. They get attention and become undeservedly famous. An FBI psychiatrist discovered that interviewing some of them in the early days of hi-jackings.
It’s the same reason why the media usually doesn’t give attention to suicides.
As for sensationalized coverage of terrorist attacks leading to more of them. Isn’t that exactly what Islamist terrorists are trying to achieve? Against Western armed forces they don’t stand a chance( okay, Gadaffi duck holding out against 6 of the largest NATO forces for 4 months doesn’t look so hot.).
Thus attacking civilians is the terrorist way of pretending to themselves to be “brave” and “important”.
Who wants to wage that the MSM will soon blame the instruments he used?
Alex,
“Do you actually understand English? Go back and read what I wrote.”
Good advice. So I did…you said…
“Although now they’re saying it might not be him after all.”
Wait a minute…didn’t YOU say
“I remember reading his articles, and figuring he was a nut. ”
How did this change from what YOU said to what THEY said?
YOU read HIS articles.
Now you are asking me whether “I” understand English. I understand it enough not to say I read articles by someone I hadn’t actually read.
What other reading comprehension tests are you failing?
A ridiculous amount of rampant speculation all over this thread. Wait for the police and security services reports before ascribing responsibility.
Alex: “…expect Muslims to take responsibility for their fanatics…”
An old and bitter topic that long predates the rise of Islamism in its modern form. The Nuremburg trials tried to come to terms with it, i.e. was all Germany responsible for the crimes and atrocities of the Nazis. By herding German civilians through the concentration camps, the occupying Allies could make them aware of the monstrosity they had allowed to rule them for 11 years. Germany had to deal with this issue again in the 1990s over those who were revealed to be informers for the East German secret police.
The only sane way for a society to handle atrocities is to punish those guilty of committing such crimes, and move on. Moderate Muslims are no more guilty of Islamist atrocities than all Germans were of the mass genocide of the concentration camps. Otherwise all that happens is an unending cycle of racial and religious hatred and violence symbolized by things like the Protocols of Zion.
And Northern Ireland stands as a classic example of a modern industrial society that nearly destroyed itself because it was unable to get out of such a mind trap.
Kaga, if Christs teachings were the only thing in the bible, we wouldn’t have an issue. You’re being dishonest.
Kevin, I agree with everything in your previous post except this bit:
“I’m sure, as the days unfold, the Islamists will be found guilty of the Oslo bombing”
I trust nothing and I’m sure about nothing until I have evidence and confirmation.
Well Alex when are you going to take responsibility for all the mass murderers that fit in the Secular Humanist category?
On a more realistic note I wonder if the Norwegian mass murderer considers himself a Christian because of a devout attachment to Christ or because he identifies being Christian as part of being Norwegian. I once had the ‘pleasure’ of talking to a rabid anti Semite who thought of himself a Christian because the country of his birth was ‘Christian’ but when asked even the most basic tenets of the Christian faith he had nary a clue!
Having a warped sense of nationalism which includes the delusion of a religion he knows virtually nothing about may have justified, in his mind, killing those whom he viewed as destroying his country and the religion he attaches to it. One thing for certain he did not draw on Christianity in formulating or executing his diabolical slaughter.
KevinB @12:02 – “I’m sure, as the days unfold, the Islamists will be found guilty of the Oslo bombing, but any responsible news organization would refrain from such assertions until more facts came to light.”
Yes. I’ll stand by my guess, but of course news organizations should stick to the facts on something like this.
Alex.
” if Christs teachings were the only thing in the bible, we wouldn’t have an issue. You’re being dishonest.”
What’s that one about bearing false witness?
Oh btw Alex please go take a course or two on Christian hermeneutics cause right now you sound like an ill informed idiot.
I’ll stop now unless I find something real to add – and if you google the killer’s name there is some terrible footage – but this really isn’t about Christianity and it isn’t about Alex and his broken shift key.
Firsthand accounts are starting to come out..”
“Some of my friends tried to stop him by talking to him. Many people thought that it was a test … comparing it to how it is to live in Gaza. So many people went to him and tried to talk to him, but they were shot immediately.”
I don’t know what planet these campers are from, but I’m not gonna be trying to talk geopolitics with the guy spraying bullets everywhere.
“homegrown stuff”
these lunatics are everywhere, obviously some political motive or trying give that appearance at least.
a left wing Norwegian gone Postal?
I cant see a right wing motive for this kind of thing.
McVeigh was Militia, anti-gov. not anti-party.
“Kaga, if Christs teachings were the only thing in the bible, we wouldn’t have an issue. You’re being dishonest.”
Then you clearly don’t understand Christian theology or the context of each book. Continue to show your ignorance.
Alex, the most recent post at Gates of Vienna, about the events in and around Oslo, contains a h/t to several people, one of whom is *fjordman*, for the links therein. I doubt he’s been sending links, and helping cover the story, from police custody.
This is the problem with people like you who treat Google links to obscure blogs as scripture: you come across an utter falsity — a lie — and you desperately try to hit people over the head with it. It just makes you look dumb and desperate.
Speaking of dumb:
“If you honestly expect Muslims to take responsibility for their fanatics, you need to start doing the same for the ones who share your beliefs.
The belief that Jews should be wiped off the face of the earth — for example — is fairly widespread among Muslims in the ME. It’s taught in the Koran, and by Imams; there have been scores of suicide bombings and murders of Jews over the years, stretching well past the Munich Olympics. How many conservatives who believe in limited immigration either advocate massacring those who don’t share those beliefs, or have massacred people, as an expression of this belief? Yes, that’s right: *ONE*.
You see, Alex, it’s just not part of our belief system; it’s not taught by us, or to us. The gunman is not one of us, he’s a psychopath.
“I’m really gonna enjoy watching you trip over each other in your hurry to distance yourself from (the Oslo shooter).
Quit while you’re behind, because you’re losing ground.
If the total of 80 people dead on the island turns out to be correct, it’s just one more example of how easy disarmed populations are to kill. I’m sure there wasn’t a single gun among the people on that island and all it would have taken would have been just one shot to stop the killer.
Well, he’s made his way into the history books as the highest total before this was 36 or so in Tasmania — an event which led to semi-auto rifles being banned in Australia. IIRC, that shooter used a SKS and the real tragedy in that case was that there was a cop in the area who could have shot him early in his urban target practice session but didn’t for some reason.
Look for copycat events in the next few weeks. I think I’ll throw a rifle in the back of my vehicle for the next month or so as I don’t want to be in a situation where I can’t shoot back if some lunatic decides to see if he can surpass this guys body count.
It wouldn’t surprise me if this was part of a UN gun ban campaign as the UN is trying to get countries to agree to disarm their populations. Norway has high levels of civilian firearms ownership and quite a low homicide rate. Obviously what they need is a CCW program. The other thing that is unclear is if he had fully automatic firearms or just semi-auto. I suspect that AK-47’s are fairly easy to get in Norway if one happens to have Albanian connections.
Kaga: read the bible. It would be nice to talk to an informed Christian, for a change.
Alex: “you need to start doing the same for the ones who share your beliefs” This is an outrageous statement. You have no idea what motivated this killer. Do you take “responsibility” for everyone who happens to have an ideological leftist position? Maybe the body builders should “take responsibility. Wasn’t the accused a body-builder.
Those prone to see a pattern of Muslim violence base their views somewhat on how the notion of jihad is interpreted. It is Muslims who are in the best position to clarify what is jihad and what is violent aberrant behaviour. We are not asking that Muslims take responsibility for the crimes of Muslim terrorism, but that they take responsibility for — or at least participate in finding solutions. Not sure if that is being done or not.
Why would I take responsibility for people whose views I detest?
this has nothing to do with muslims, the guy was into the world of warcraft and a member of the masonic lodge.
Against the government for allowing immigration and gone postal. Another lunatic like timothy Mcveigh.
Since everyone had the urge to go jumping to whatever conclusions they chose to suit their own agenda … this is perfect example of how the habits of the MSM affects the world view of the public. For my part … as soon as I found out that Reuters was pushing the Right Wing Fanatic angle … I was willing to believe the opposite.
So what if this is one in a thousand where they got it right?
If it had been one of their pets … you can be sure that the MSM would be looking for excuses to blame the Norwegians or Israel and that’s the problem.
The MSM cannot be trusted…. except that they will now … as certain leftard freeks have already started doing … try to create a myth that this murderous SOB is somehow kith and kin to every other white person in the world … except of course the snivelling progressive types.
multirec at 11:01 PM: “But as the news trickled out (and I agree, it’s still early)to me it looks like one extremeist. The part about him having access to large amounts of fertilizer had my radar up.”
It would seem to me to be politically motivated. The building in Oslo targeted was the place where the Norwegian PM’s office was located. The camp on the island was full of people from the ruling political party. I think these facts are central to explaining and understanding the perp’s motives and state of mind.
I’m not one who believes doctors who perform abortions should be murdered, but there is a certain societal characteristic that often drives people to do things like this, and that is that these people are shut out and their ideas almost always dismissed by the ruling elites, the media and other entities that influence public opinion and create so called “narratives”.
Political correctness is one of those narratives: white + Christian = nutcase against whom it is justified to rail or if he is white he must be a Christian fundi. How many times have we heard that about Tim McVeigh? How many times have we heard the left hold up the example of an tiny handful of abortion doctor murderers to prove that Christians are no different than Islamists, when in fact the numbers of abortion doctors murdered in the past 30 to 40 years pales in comparison to the number of people killed by Islamists just in the past 10 years.
I do not have quick access to the latest terrorist acts total that are listed on some blogs for Islamic extremists, but it would appear that the score is now about 10,000 for the Islamists and 2 for the McVeigh types.
Drawing a moral equivalency as some are want to do is a little rich.