On the American Conceptual Inspriations for the Oslo Massacre

Norwegian Shooting Suspect’s Views Echo Xenophobia of Right-Wing Extremists in U.S., Europe

Even after the massacre in Norway, right-wing pundits in the U.S. have come out in defense of Breivik’s analysis, if not actions. On Monday, Pat Buchanan wrote at The American Conservative, quote, "As for a climactic conflict between a once-Christian West and an Islamic world that is growing in numbers and advancing inexorably into Europe for the third time in 14 centuries, on this one, Breivik may be right," unquote.

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AMY GOODMAN: Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly lambasted the press for referring to Anders Breivik as a "Christian terrorist," on the grounds that Breivik was not actually practicing Christianity. O’Reilly said no true Christian can be a terrorist and insisted Christian fundamentalists are essentially different from Muslim fundamentalists.

BILL O’REILLY: On Sunday, the New York Times headline, "As Horrors Emerged: Norway Charges Christian Extremist." Number of other news organizations, like the L.A. Times and Reuters, also played up the Christian angle. But Breivik is not a Christian. That’s impossible. No one believing in Jesus commits mass murder. The man might have called himself a Christian on the net, but he is certainly not of that faith. Also, Breivik is not attached to any church and in fact has criticized the Protestant belief system in general. The Christian angle came from a Norwegian policeman, not from any fact finding. Once again, we can find no evidence—none—that this killer practiced Christianity in any way.

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Robert Spencer didn’t shoot anybody. Chuck Colson didn’t shoot anybody. And they didn’t call for shooting anybody. They do produce a rhetoric that kind of walks right up to the edge of things. I mean, if you are out there, like Robert Spencer or some of these other American conservatives, and saying, "Islam is a religion of violence. There can be no accommodation with it. They are trying to destroy us," you know, and then you sort of say, "And what to do about it? I don’t know. You decide." Well, Breivik decided. Breivik took a kind of logical next step from that rhetoric. And that’s part of why I think it’s troubling when people sort of attempt to dismiss him as a madman and not deal with the politics that are very much a part of our, unfortunately, mainstream political discourse, that walk right up to the edge of violence.

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/7/27/norwegian_shooting_suspects_views_echo_xenophobia

Alex Cockburn adds this:

The Norsemen, Breivik and William Lind

Incidentally, on the topic of Breivik, we have had an enquiry from a reader noting that Breivik’s “Manifesto” has plagiarized material from William Lind, erstwhile Director for the Center for Cultural Conservatism for the Free Congress Foundation, and asking that since CounterPunch published material by Lind, what is our precise relationship to this contributor. The inference seems to be that we published racist neo-Nazi propaganda which helped inflame Breivik. God knows what he would say about our contributor William Blum, considering the late Osama bin Laden famously cited Bill as one of his favorite writers.

As any CounterPuncher can quickly establish by reviewing Lind’s contributions  through our “Search” function at the top of this home page, we published columns on the conduct of America’s wars by  Lind between 2003 and 2007, in the Bush years because, from a conservative position,  he was a trenchant and knowledgeable military analyst and critic of the US onslaughts on Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere. Lind had been a participant of the military reform group, trenchant critics of the Pentagon.

His column was distributed by the Center and we would pick it up if it was on themes we cared for, which did not include Lind’s commentaries on many other matters, the cultural downslide of America and so forth.

CounterPunchers should know that its editors stand responsible for pieces CounterPunch publishes – though we obviously don’t agree with every word in the roughly 3,000 pieces we put up on this site every year. We publish and where necessary edit articles for  the edification of a large and intelligent regular readership. We don’t publish anti-Semitic or Nazi propaganda, as assessed by any rational person. I add this because many people eager to throw these terms around are irrational and usually malevolent. If you read our website with any frequency you will know where we’re at, as a left, radical enterprise.   We’ve always held it as part of our brief – stemming from political appreciation of the actual prospects here in the USA – that we should acknowledge positive political work and insights on the libertarian front and the right and from original viewpoints. Every once in a while some Trotskyite purist like Louis Proyect will hoist his skirts  and jump up on the kitchen table, aghast at the sight of an “incorrect” thought or assault by CounterPunch, often specifically me, on the canons of political and cultural PC as sedulously observed by this politically and intellectually demure old Trot. Then, when I say something he likes he’ll dispense a grateful bouquet.

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http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn07292011.html