I watched the disgraceful Islamophobic rantings on the BBC and Sky News last night in mounting disbelief. Security correspondent and security expert vied with each other to tell us that the dreadful attacks in Norway were the work of al-Qaida. One extraordinary American, introduced as from a Centre for Combating Extremism, explained that these Norwegian jihadists had international links and plans to attack London and the New York subway. Norway was a target, we were repeatedly told, because of its NATO membership.
There was at least six solid hours of this poisonous bullshit. I did not pick up on one single person who said that this probably was not Islamic terrorism – despite the glaringly obvious fact that the atrocity had a Norwegian domestic political agenda, being an attack on the Prime Minister’s office, and on a youth camp of the governing party. The internet was buzzing for hours with the news that the attacker on Utoya Island was blonde, without the broadcast media mentioning it. The American security expert I mention above had that base covered – he had obviously seen those reports, but did not mention them. However he said that jihadist groups had probably recruited European looking operatives to carry out the attacks, because they were aware that security services “consciously or unconsciously operated racial profiling.”
This morning Al Jazeera and Russia Today were carrying the news that the attacker was Anders Breivik – and even a picture of him – while the BBC and Sky still were not, and while they had stopped the blatant Islamophobic ranting, had still not admitted it was not an Islamic militant attack.
I would love to believe that this incident would cause the media to reassess the value of the numerous “security experts” whose companies, institutes, funding, profile and standards of living have been spectacularly boosted by the “War on Terror”. But I doubt it.
All terrorism is terrible. Islamic extremist terrorism is terrible. But not all terrorism is Islamic extremist. To presume it is, is just as valid as to assume that any shooting in the UK is carried out by a black person. If the BBC reacted to the next news of a shooting or stabbing, by six hours about crime in the black community, when it turned out the perpetrators are white, there would rightly be outrage. This is no different.
UPDATE
The mainstream media and those “Security experts” are now struggling to cover up and justify their blatant Islamophobia. The New York Times was right at the forefront of the Islamophobic ranting, attributing the bombing to a non-existent Jihadist group and then being quoted all across the airwaves as the authority for that attribution. It has now published this amazing self-justificatory bullshit:
Norway has about 550 soldiers and three medevac helicopters in northern Afghanistan, a Norwegian defense official said. The government has indicated that it will continue to support the operations as long as the alliance needs partners on the ground.
Terrorism specialists said that even if the authorities ultimately ruled out Islamic terrorism as the cause of Friday’s assaults, other kinds of groups or individuals were mimicking Al Qaeda’s brutality and multiple attacks.
“If it does turn out to be someone with more political motivations, it shows these groups are learning from what they see from Al Qaeda,” said Brian Fishman, a counterterrorism researcher at the New America Foundation in Washington. “One lesson I take away from this is that attacks, especially in the West, are going to move to automatic weapons.”
All the mainstream media are rushing to take down their crazed Islamophobic rantings from their websites this morning – the BBC did it just twenty minutes ago, and had a short period in consequence when they had nothing up on Norway. I expect newspaper sites will be doing the same. Print editions, of course, do not have that ability.
Mainstream media – all the hate and lies they can peddle. What would really be an interesting public inquiry, would be the links between “security” and “defence” correspondents and the security services whose propaganda they spread. I should love to know what security service briefings were behind yesterday’s Islamophobic lies.
Shaun,
It is indeed.
It seems it is just the opposite to Madrid where at first they were trying to pin it on ETA only to find it was Islamist.
I have to agree with SOME of Richo’s comments. I frequently go to Norway and it does “seem” to have a lot of non-Scandanavian looking people (best way I can put it).
That’s only an observation don’t know how they are treated, curious to know what are the figures for Uzbek refugees in various countries around the world.
Paul,
according to Wikipedia (I know) the immigrant population is about half a million or 10% – not high by Western European standards. The two largest immigrant groups are Poles and Swedes.
So racially obvious immigrants are presumably no more than 5% of the population.
There is nonetheless a great deal of anecdotal evidence of xenophobia both by the public and officials.
@Mary “Any connection?”
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The day before the massacre the norwegian foreign minister visited the island. “The Palestinians must have their own state, the occupation must end, the wall must be demolished and it must happen now, said the Foreign Minister to cheers from the audience”
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A similar view was hold by one of the very rare swedish politicians with personal integrity, Anna Lindh. She was destined to become to next swedish PM, but before that she was conveniantly murdered by a psychcally ill person.
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One of multiple messages sent by this incident could be “Don’t mess with Israel”, the reciever being the norwegian government. The hands-on deliverer of the message would then be Mossad.
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The magnitude of the operation in Oslo implies long time planning, coordination and significant resources. Even if you ship a guy to that island give him an automatic rifle and some ammo, he won’t be able to take down 90 people on his own. I.e. most likely he was assisted by pro’s who helped him shooting people.
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As this unfolds anomalies will start to surface and those are the trails of the real perpetuators.
Instanalysis from stratfor:
At least 17 people have died and more have been injured in an explosion in downtown Oslo and a shooting at a Labor Party youth camp outside the Norwegian capital. Norwegian police arrested the shooter at the camp and believe he is connected with the explosion, though others could be involved.
The significance of the events in Norway for the rest of Europe will depend largely on who is responsible, and the identity of the culprits is still unclear. However, STRATFOR can extrapolate the possible consequences of the attacks based on several scenarios.
The first scenario is that grassroots Islamist militants based in Norway are behind these seemingly connected attacks. Grassroots jihadist groups are already assumed to exist across Europe, and this assumption — along with previous attacks — has bolstered far-right political parties’ popularity across the Continent. Many center-right politicians have also begun raising anti-immigrant policy issues in order to distract from the ongoing economic austerity measures brought about by the European economic crisis. If grassroots Islamist militants are found to be the culprits in Norway, it will simply reinforce the current European political trend that favors the far right. That said, some far-right parties, particularly in Northern Europe, could get a popularity boost sufficient to push them into the political mainstream, and possibly into government.
If an individual, grassroots or organized domestic group with far-right or neo-Nazi leanings perpetrated the attack, the significance for the rest of Europe will not be large. It could lead to a temporary loss of popularity for the far right, but long-term repercussions for the far right are unlikely since these parties have begun tempering their platforms in order to attract a wider constituency.
There is also the possibility that the attacks are the work of a skilled but disturbed individual with grievances against the Labor Party. This possibility would have few long-ranging repercussions beyond a reworking of domestic security procedures in Norway.
Another scenario is that the attack was carried out by an international group which may have entered the country some time ago. Regardless of the time frame, if the culprits crossed a border to get into Norway, other European countries will feel very vulnerable; Norway is Europe’s northern terminus, and if international militants can get to Norway, they can get to anywhere in Europe. This vulnerability could severely damage the Schengen Agreement, once a symbolic pillar of Europe’s unity, which has been under attack in the last several months. The agreement allows visa-free travel between the 25 countries in the Schengen Area (most of which are EU members, but the Schengen Area does include some non-EU members like Norway and Switzerland). The agreement came under pressure when Italy threatened to allow migrants fleeing the Libyan conflict and Tunisian political unrest to gain temporary resident status in order to cross into France. It was Rome’s way of forcing the rest of Europe to help it with the influx of migrants. The solution proposed by France and Italy was to essentially establish temporary borders “under very exceptional circumstances.” Later, Denmark reimposed border controls, supposedly due to an increase in cross-border crime.
The attack in Norway, if it involved cross-border movements, could therefore damage or even end the Schengen Agreement. Other European countries, particularly those where the far right is strong or where center-right parties have adopted an anti-immigrant message, could push for further amendments to the pact.
A transnational militant plot against a European country in the contemporary context could also be significant for European defense policy. When the 2004 Madrid attack and 2005 London attack happened, many in Europe argued that the attacks were a result of European governments’ support for U.S. military operations in the Middle East. This is no longer really the case for Europe, although European forces are still in Afghanistan. It is much more difficult to blame Europe’s alliance with the United States for this attack. As such, Europe could very well be motivated to take ongoing efforts to increase European defense coordination seriously. Current efforts are being led by Poland, which is doing so mainly because it wants to increase security against Russia’s resurgence, not because of global militancy. The problem with Warsaw’s plan is that it has little genuine support in Western Europe, other than France. An attack on Norway could, however, provide the kind of impetus necessary for Europe to feel threatened by global events.
The last scenario is that the attack is linked to Norway’s involvement in the campaign in Libya. If the Libyan government is somehow connected to the bombing and/or shooting, the rest of Europe will rally behind Norway and increase their efforts in Libya. This scenario would essentially close off the opening in negotiations prompted by a recent move by Paris and other European governments saying they would be open to Moammar Gadhafi’s remaining in Libya.
Shaun
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”I wouldn’t say speculating based on past events is making stuff up. Given the events such as those I put in those links I believe media organisations are justified in speculating …….”
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Speculating based on past events. That would mean the media would have to acknowledge first that it is absolutely terrible at ‘speculating based on past events’.
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A perfect example is the one we are now discussing.
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So an ‘expert’ on BBC News 24 would have to say – I don’t have clue what I am talking about or know what the hell is going on and have a long record for being completely wrong on everything but here is my opinion any way…
and don’t challenge me based on my previous ‘speculating based on past events’.
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Here’s one from the Independent that was on google news, 22 hours ago.
”Analysis: Jihadist networks have long singled out Norway, By Jerome Taylor, Religious Affairs Correspondent, Friday, 22 July 2011”
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” “Norway is part of Nato’s mission in Afghanistan and as far as jihadists are concerned, any country involved in what they see as an illegal occupation of Muslim territory is a legitimate target,” explains James Brandon, an expert on Isalmist militancy at the Quilliam Foundation.”
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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/analysis-jihadist-networks-have-long-singled-out-norway-2318922.html
!A shadowy terrorist group called Assistants of the Global Jihad claimed responsibility for the bombing of the Norwegian Prime Minister’s office and a massacre at a children’s day camp via the Internet.”
Said Neil Ungerleider
http://www.fastcompany.com/1768726/oslo-terrorists-allegedly-claim-responsibility-via-jihadi-forums-youtube
Who is Neil Ungerleider?
Here’s another of his articles from 18 months ago:
http://www.jewcy.com/religion-and-beliefs/we_are_all_converts_reviewing_shlomo_sands_invention_jewish_people
Go figure.
Like I said, I watched BBC and Sky coverage as events unfolded yesterday and at no point was I led to believe that events in Norway were unequivocally attributed to islamic groups.
There was discussion about possible sources based on things such as: (i) Mullar Krekar threatening Norwegian politicians for his deportation (if that is not basis for speculation given what happened I don’t know what is); and (ii) the fact that Al-Quaeda linked arrests have been made in Oslo in the last year. I specifically remember Sky acknowledging the fact that this could have also been from internal politically-based groups – a point that was quite strongly put forward by an American commentator ( I forget his profession now).
My overall point is that, although there have been some stupid allegations – such as that on the front page of the Sun, overall I feel the coverage and speculation regarding the source of these horrific events has been justified and not misleading.
The Quilliam Foundation – a bunch of ‘House Negros’ intent on inciting the opprobrium of their lesser co-religionists.
Shaun,
Your position I am sure is genuine, but it is confusing. You believe speculation is justified, even when the entire focus of the speculation is completely wrong? What other options did you see speculated upon, and can you compare the weight you felt was given to each possibility?
Pingback: Norway and the ‘Islamist’ bombing bullshit | Inayat's Corner
This from the New York Times article, the paragraph immediately before the section Craig quoted:
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“There was ample reason for concern that terrorists might be responsible. In 2004 and again in 2008, the No. 2 leader of Al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahri, who took over after the death of Osama bin Laden, threatened Norway because of its support of the American-led NATO military operation in Afghanistan.”
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This was obviously an act of terrorism. So the article equates ALL terrorism with Islamist terrorism, and implies that if the perpetrator wasn’t an Islamist, then this wasn’t terrorism.
Shaun
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The bomb went off at about 3.30pm GMT and the shooter/bomber was captured sometime after 9pm GMT.
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Shouldn’t the media have simply reported the events as they unfolded over what was a very short period of time, and couldn’t the talking heads have waited till a few facts had come into the news rooms before commenting?
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Why was there a need to speculate at all?
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As we now know it was a complete waste of time, what exactly was the point?
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Or, maybe I’m asking; what is the point of rolling 24 hour news if they have to fill much of their news shows with people who have as much of an idea of what is going on as I do.
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The upside and downside of 24 hour tv news is that it is live and so has to fill the space with something and so when a major news item comes along like this, which clears away all the other stories they have to fill the void with something seemingly relevant and of course in the early hours they no very little. Therefore all the regular correspondents are wheeled out to say their piece in a studio in west London miles from the scene and they fall back to established positions which may have some truth but at this point it is just speculation. As a viewer of these programmes you have to be aware of how they work and be aware they provide only outline details, information and comment. Caveat emptor !
Scouse Billy linked to here:
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http://www.fastcompany.com/1768726/oslo-terrorists-allegedly-claim-responsibility-via-jihadi-forums-youtube
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which cited the following link for its source.
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http://www.jihadica.com/alleged-claim-for-oslo-attacks/
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It’s a blog post with many disgusting racist contributions. But look at the very first comment, posted July 22, 2011 at 10:46 am.
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“I am an arabic linguist trained at DLI. I have been monitoring a lot of websites in my time off as a soldier here in the National Guard. I have a team of retired agency members, along with some SF perosonnel who are also with me as I monitor this material. I would like to include you in the dissemination of material that I find. Our team was responsible for the quick alert that a major CIA analyst’s cover was blown and for a few other reports. I see that your organization and mine share a desire to get to the information and get it out to the proper channels asap. If you need any assistance or would like to be included in emails, please let me know. My name up top is my pseudonym and I would appreciate that it stays that way. I will give you my sources with every report I send out so that your guys not only have access to what I see, but can also verify the information and vett it. Thank you for your time.”
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Disinformation arises randomly. But “a team of retired agency members, along with some SF perosonnel” (sic – SF = Security Forces?) monitor for, gather, and amplify this disinformation, and recruit people who report it.
“All the mainstream media are rushing to take down their crazed Islamophobic rantings from their websites this morning – the BBC did it just twenty minutes ago, and had a short period in consequence when they had nothing up on Norway. I expect newspaper sites will be doing the same. Print editions, of course, do not have that ability.”
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I’m surprised this sort of thing isn’t mainstream already; because once the URL for an on-line article is ‘published’, the author can change the content of that article at leisure, and as frequently as they want, whilst maintaining the same URL, and its place in the search engines.
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A bit like the horse reading the righting on the wall in ‘Animal Farm’, and suspecting that the message was changing over time, but couldn’t quite pinpoint the changes.
I wouldn’t normally pollute this comments thread with a link to Fox News but Craig, as an ex ambassador, may be interested to see how another ex-ambassador (John Bolton) added his own twist to the ‘disgraceful Islamophobic rantings’ that were prevalent yesterday-
http://foxnewsinsider.com/2011/07/22/john-bolton-oslo-attacks-were-%E2%80%98politically-motivated%E2%80%99/
I’d like to think that one benign outcome from the truly terrible events in Norway yesterday would be the termination of Bolton’s career as a Fox News pundit, but I’ll probably be disappointed on that point.
i am glad you articulated my thoughts on yesterday. what annoyed me most about this coverage is that the guardian newspaper, my favourite news source was equally as mistaken. despite the mounting information that pointed inwards, they are still talking about islamist factions, right now on bbc 24. (midday saturday) how they are more vulnerable towards terrorism and that norway are naive to think this wouldn’t happen. and it hasn’t! this ultra tragic event was carried out by a disturbed person with a grudge that went unchecked. this rolling news has hit a new low in my opinion. their collective prejudice has been found out. i hope they really don’t ignore their error.
A contributor at ZeroHedge found the perpetrator’s FaceBook page, but the content has been removed:
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http://www.zerohedge.com/article/oslo-shooter-profiled-anders-behring-breivik-32-nationalist-hated-islam#comment-1483425
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http://www.facebook.com/people/Anders-Behring-Breivik/100002651290254
Norway’s halo is being burnished today. Not such a peace loving democracy really. They are part of the killing coalition in Libya (until August I gather) and previously in ISAF in Afghanistan.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_War_order_of_battle
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and in a small way in Iraq for three years. {http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-National_Force_%E2%80%93_Iraq).
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They are also the largest oil and gas producers/traders I believe.
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Questions.
Was the gunman really solo?
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If som were the gunman and the bomber one and the same person?
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Are there any details of how he came to be captured and restrained when he was well armed and obviously an expert marksman to be able to kill agile youngsters running around? All seems a bit pat.
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Had he been in the Norway military’s version of the SAS to acquire his skills with a rifle?
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Where did that quantity of explosives come from?
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Will we know the truth here?
Clark,
Thank you for following up on my link.
Note at the end of the FastCompany piece:
“We recommend checking the Twitter feeds of the New York Times, BBC, and Norwegian journalist Rune Håkonsen for the latest.”
(i.e. Get your disinfo here folks…)
Link here to Alexander Higgins who suggests Mossad to blame:
http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=94&contentid=8719
Someone had the presence of mind to save the FB page as a pdf before it was removed:
http://www.solidprinciples.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Anders-Behring-Breivik-FACEBOOK.pdf
Mary, the following is from ZeroHedge, by commenter “AldousHuxley”, however, I don’t know his source:
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http://www.zerohedge.com/article/oslo-shooter-profiled-anders-behring-breivik-32-nationalist-hated-islam#comment-1483434
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“In May 2009 he founded a company called Breivik Geofarm, a small farm where he produced watermelons and a few other things. Why? To have unlimited access to inorganic fertilizers, which he most likely used to explode the bomb in Oslo. Can’t post links because I haven’t posted enough times, just google Breivik Geofarm.
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But it doesn’t stop there. He bought the farm at a strategic posission: Close to a military landingstrip. Why? To have the noice reduced of his testbombs over the sound of jets. In the coming days though, neighbours will come say they’ve heard loud noises every now and then without thinking too much about it.”
BBC’s Frank Gardner saying on yesterdays six o’clock news that if the two attacks are connected that will most certainly lead investigators to al-Qaeda.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b012pcd2/BBC_News_at_Six_22_07_2011/
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The BBC and Gardner will have to issue an apology to al-Qaeda.
“Will we know the truth here?” Mary. Good question.
Answer: Do we ever?
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‘Assistants of the Global Jihad’. This is precisely what we were discussing yesterday or day before. I even invented an organisation title very similar to this one. They – the intel. and sec services – are so bloody unoriginal. How about ‘Associates of the Inter-planetary Sharia’, or ‘Officers of the Milky Way Farishta Tendency’? These are all intelligence agency inventions and/or fronts.
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The Norway massacre is about something else, I suspect. But it is being used cynically and deliberately – this is NOT accidental, this hymn-singing from the same sheet – there is most certainly something systemic afoot.
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The CIA The usual daddies of bastard terrorists, the world over) exerting pressure on Nordic countries to conform, perhaps?
I used to do analogue electronics, before the components became too small to solder by hand. Designing a powerful amplifier is a tricky business. The faster and more powerful the amplifier, the more prone it is to “instability” – which means that the output feeds back to the input, gets amplified, and goes round and round, getting louder, until something breaks.
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The modern news media is a fast, powerful amplifier, and it wasn’t designed at all, it just evolved. The internal distortion it creates completely overwhelms the actual input, so the output is just meaningless distortion.
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Let’s hope it breaks before we all go deaf, ‘cos we don’t seem capable of turning it off, or even down.
The guy is no “fundamentalist” christian, he simply is a christian, protestant most probably, like 90% of europeans. He is a freemason, that is for sure, and that means antichristian, or at least anti-catholic:
http://www.libertaddigital.com/c.php?op=thumb&id=http://s.libertaddigital.com/fotos/noticias/andersbreivikmason.jpg&x=0&y=
Sure that will not be in front page of BBC.
He also is an admirer of an anti-fascist nazi resistant.
BBC sucks with ideological agenda against all our roots.
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“It’s a reminder that the entire international community holds a stake in preventing this kind of terror from occurring. We have to work cooperatively together both on intelligence and in terms of prevention of these kinds of horrible attacks.” Obama (from CheebaCow).
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CheebaCow, this may well be code for: ‘You do as we say always and without demur, qualification or restriction, or else… you see what can happen’.
He is basically a fundamentalist fool. That´s all. May the Lord and Blessed Mary have compassion of those poor people slaughterd.