UPDATE
(Sunday, July 24 at 4:40 pm)
His motive
As I indicated in my original commentary below, expecting psychopaths to have a reasonable explanation for their behavior is oxymoronic. And the explanation this one is proffering for his rampage only reinforces this point.
According to his self-published manifesto (and no psycho worth his salt would be caught dead without one these days: remember the Unabomber’s?), he did it to take revenge against white Europeans for betraying their heritage by supporting immigration from African and Muslim countries. Of course, if this anti-Muslim, white supremacist had any balls, he would have gone to a Black Muslim country in West Africa, where many of the people he hates emigrated from, and carried out his one-man Christian crusade there.
Ironically, Norway’s justice system is so humane that he’ll probably be released from prison within 20 years, still in the prime of his life. At least in America his victims would have derived some consolation and “closure” from seeing him fried in the electric chair, which was the “inhumane” punishment McVeigh received.
Of course, it’s easy to have humane laws if one’s society is relatively free of violent crimes and mass murders like this. I have to think that Norway will now re-examine its view of crime and punishment with a view towards amending laws to ensure, not that he is executed, but that he spends the rest of his life in prison.
NOTE: The police have revised the death toll down to 76 (8 in Oslo and 68 on Utoya island).
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Islamic jihadists have instilled such terror in people all over the world that whenever there’s a bombing anywhere we immediately think “oh, oh, another 9/11”.
What far too many of us forget, however, is that long before al-Qaeda terrorists struck the twin towers in New York and the Pentagon in DC, a good ol’ American boy named Timothy McVeigh struck a government building in Oklahoma. This should have made it painfully clear that, when it comes to terrorism, we have as much to fear from domestic/Christian terrorists as from foreign/Muslim ones.
Well, it seems this domestic form of terrorism has come to Norway. For preliminary reports are that a man as native to Norway as McVeigh was to the USA perpetrated what is being described as that country’s 9/11.
Specifically, a 32-year-old Norwegian has been linked to a massive bomb blast at the offices of the prime minister and other government officials that killed seven in Oslo yesterday. Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg was not among the casualties.
Even more tragic, this same Norwegian has been identified as the “lone wolf” who, disguised as a police officer, opened fire a few hours later at a political youth camp on an island 50 miles north of Oslo, killing more than 80.
When the police finally arrived on the island – one and a half hours after he began shooting these kids like sitting ducks – this coward surrendered without putting up any resistance. He may be psychotic, but he’s clearly sensible enough to appreciate that in order to fully enjoy his 15 minutes of infamy, he had to be taken alive.
I don’t know why the media always reward these psychopaths by giving them the fame they covet; that is, by plastering their pathetic mugs all over television and reporting pop psychology about why and how they did their dastardly deeds?
You’d think that – given the record of these psychotic and vainglorious episodes since Columbine – we would have figured out by now that the best way to discourage them is by focusing our attention on the victims and limiting what we say about the shooter to: May God have mercy on your soul as you burn in hell!
(Massacre in Omaha, The iPINIONS Journal, December 7, 2007)
More to the point though:
It must be understood that no matter their collective resolve, there’s absolutely nothing law enforcement officials can do to prevent such attacks.
(London 7/7 terrorist attacks, The iPINIONS Journal, July 8, 2005)
But let this be a reminder that we do not need al-Qaeda when one of “our own” can visit such devastating terror – the worst gun rampage by a single man in history – upon us.
My thoughts and prayers go out to the people of Norway.
Related Articles:
7/7 terror attacks in London
Massacre in Omaha
Massacre at Virginia Tech