Oslo Bombing Puts Norway on Edge

[PixarFan2006]

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2 ... edge-VIDEO

Wow, just wow.

[Goliath]

That was a big shock. It was the last place I expected such a thing to happen.

Aside from the bombing of the governmental buildings in the heart of the capital (causing 2 deaths and tens of severely wounded), there also was a deadly shooting on an island some 40 kilometers from Oslo. It's reported that at least 10 teenagers have been killed. A man, dressed as a polce officer, opened fire at a gathering of the youth division of the governing social-democratic Labour Party. Prime-minister Stoltenberg was scheduled to make a speech on the annual festival of his party's youth division. He has been taken into security in an undisclosed location.

The shooter is a 32 year old man from Norway, who is suspected of also having placed the carbomb in Oslo. He has been taken into custody. There have been reports the police thinks he acted on his own. Earlier, the New York Times reported that the islamic terror group Ansar al-Jihad al-Alami had claimed responsibility for the attacks, because of Norwegian involvement in the operations in Libya and Afghanistan. This has turned out to be false.

[Goliath]

I can't say how extremely sad and disappointing I find it to see this thread has gotten not a single reply from somebody else besides me.

For those who care: all in all, 92 people have been killed, of which the overwhelming majority were teenagers! They were attending a political meeting of the Labour Party on a small island not far from the capital Oslo. A man disguised in a police officer's uniform, told the youth to gather all in one place and then started shooting them. Lots of teens fled into the woods and eventually in boats or jumped into the water to escape the island, but the shooter kept firing at them, killing them as they tried to get away. It was a massive bloodbath, which shocked and traumatized the surviving teenagers, who saw their peers slaugtered before their eyes.

The shooter is a 32 year old man from Norway and is described by the police as a right-wing extremist. On the internet (Facebook and such) he described himself as a deeply religious Christian and a staunch conservative and nationalist. He also wrote extensively about his hatred of Islam and immigrants. He blamed Norway's and other EU countries for their stances on immigration, which he wrote are far too weak. He used to be a member of an extreme-right political party in Norway, but he quit them because he thought they were too soft. He also said he took inspiration from Dutch anti-islam, far-right populist politician Geert Wilders.

I think he chose the social-democratic Labour Party, because everywhere in Europe, far-right populist politicians have succesfully convinced large portions of the voters that only left-wingers have let immigrants into their respective countries, and that 'the left' is content to favor immigrants over the 'own' people --a blatant and easily disproven lie, but somehow it seems to work.

Meanwhile, over at FreeRepublic.com, the largest on-line gathering of Tea Party-conservatives, they don't believe it was a Christian conservative right-winger. According to them, that's obviously a conspiracy of the liberal media to make conservatives look bad.

[Flanger-Hanger]

I can't say how extremely sad and disappointing I find it to see this thread has gotten not a single reply from somebody else besides me.

I don't know about others, but the reason I didn't respond was I really didn't (and don't) know how to put into words how to react to this situation. I would not asume that a lack of response automatically means that posters on the site don't care about the situation. It is indeed a shock, for me something that sounds unbelieveable that it even happened and certainly a terrible situation for the country and more so for the people directly involved.

I assume you also saw on Bill Maher overtime he brought up a quote from the Norwegian Prime Minsiter and his response to the incident involving "more democracy and more openness" to show they will not be stopped by these kinds of attacks. What was your reaction to the statement?

As for Tea Partiers, their reaction should come as no suprise given their track records involving facts and "Liberal" (anything that's not Fox) news outlets.

[Duckburger]

Yes, I was following this story yesterday right as it happened online. First the bomb in Oslo killing 7 (?) people, then that turned out to be a diversion for the shooting on Utøya. With those horrible pictures they released. Which turned out to be even worse, since they said the death count was 9 or 10, which was quite a relief last night (seeing as previously mentioned numbers reached 35). But this morning it was already 80. It makes me sick to even think about it, I honestly can't properly line my thoughts up. It's too depressing to even think about, which is why I avoided the thread at first. As awful as this is, I think it's still a good wake-up call to the world that anyone can be (classified as) a terrorist. Not just Islamic people. Apparantly this nutjob also has some sort of journal where he kept track of everything he was doing -he was apparantly planning this for 9 years. Shame on the dozens of newspapers worldwide that printed this story with preconceived notions (numorous Swedish, Italian papers -and the Wallstreet Journal). It also saddens me a bit that Amy Winehouse's death has completely overshadowed this story.

I wonder what those people on FreeRepublic are sadder about: the shooting, or the fact that it wasn't done by a Muslim. As if they care about 'socialist' Norway, probably can't even locate it on a map.

[Flanger-Hanger]

It also saddens me a bit that Amy Winehouse's death has completely overshadowed this story....

...As if they care about 'socialist' Norway, probably can't even locate it on a map.

I wonder if there's a relation between these two points?

[Disney's Divinity]

Which turned out to be even worse, since they said the death count was 9 or 10, which was quite a relief last night (seeing as previously mentioned numbers reached 35).

That's what I thought last night when I read this, that at least it wasn't a large number (though the fact that there's a number at all is depressing). I hate to even imagine this now that the number's around 80 to 90, that a group of people were just massacred.

It kind of angers me more for the fact that they were "youth."

[Duckburger]

@Flanger Hanger -Good point.


Not that I don't care about Amy Winehouse or anything. I was pretty stunned when I read that she'd died, but seeing her recent performance in Serbia and even the last few years, it really doesn't surprise me. She obviously couldn't win the battle against her addictions. It also seems a bit hypocritical that people are more than ready to make fun of, belittle and bash people like her when they are alive and drugged up, but as soon as they die it's all "oh my god, that's so sad RIP".


@Disney's Divinity

I agree, makes it much sadder. It's obvious that this guy really didn't care. And politics being the main reason he did this is also pretty awful. I wonder if he suffers from mental problems.

[jpanimation]

Meanwhile, over at FreeRepublic.com, the largest on-line gathering of Tea Party-conservatives, they don't believe it was a Christian conservative right-winger. According to them, that's obviously a conspiracy of the liberal media to make conservatives look bad.

Fox News also described him as a right-wing extremist, and they're not exactly what most would call the "liberal" media.

[Prince Edward]

Horrible events here in Norway, we are a little country and "nearly everyone" knows someone that has been killed or injured or survived the shooting it seems. People are shocked and very moved by this awful tragedy, but also of the courage and bravery we have seen. It seems like the entire country and every political party have come together in grief, support and unity, and the parties have agreed to postpone their campaigns for the election later this year.

[Wonderlicious]

This is really awful. My condolences go to the friends and relatives of the departed. The fact is that it shows that it's not just "people with customs different to ours" who can be terrorists; people can take standard, accepted Western values and turn them into something psychotic and evil. It's awful, though, that some are going and claiming that it's all some leftist conspiracy. Some people really need to be sectioned...

[Goliath]

Today, we found out a lot more about the shooter, Anders Breivik, who, according to his lawyer and the police, has formally confessed. He has apparantly said he was fully aware he was committing a horrible act, but he felt it was "neccesary" after all. He has left a manifesto on the internet of over 1,500 pages, in which he thoroughly describes his views on European politics. From what I gather from Dutch media that have quoted from it, it's a very coherent work; not the kind of rambling a 'lone wolf' usually leaves behind. Of course I find his ideology to be repulsive, but what shocked me most is that some of his quotes about islam, multiculturalism and immigrants could have come straight out of the vocabulary of one of our leading politicians, the far-right Geert Wilders, named by Breivik as one of the people he'd like to meet.

I literally can't count the times anymore that I've read comments similar to those of the shooter on internet forums the past few years. There is so much hatred and intolerance out there. Even today on a Dutch forum (and this is a large, mainstream forum), people were blaming 'the left' for having created so much hatred among people like Breivik that it is "perfectly logical" that it "had to burst out someday". This frightens me. I'm afraid this may inspire others to act the same; to copy Breivik's actions.

I don't know about others, but the reason I didn't respond was I really didn't (and don't) know how to put into words how to react to this situation. I would not asume that a lack of response automatically means that posters on the site don't care about the situation. [...]

I assumed that was indeed the reason why there were no replies. It is very hard to come up with a reply, other than saying you're shocked or disgusted by it. I just didn't want this thread to get buried real soon without giving it any attention, you know? I mean, maybe it's just mhy perception or the result of every-increasing media attention to these kinds of things, but it seems to me that these kind of attacks happen more and more.

Just a few months ago, in The Netherlands, a young man started shooting indiscriminately in a shopping mall, killing six people, before taking his own life. Last year, Jared Loughner opened fire at a meeting of Congresswoman Giffords, shooting her in the head and killing eight (I believe) other people, including a nine year old girl. How gruesome those attacks were, they seemed to be done in-the-moment, and whatever the shooters left behind were incoherent ramblings against society. But with this mass-killing, there was carefull planning involved and the targets were very precisely chosen, based a very coherent and well-articulated reasoning of the shooter. I don't know which is more frightening to me: indiscriminate attacks or well-choosen ones, based on political and religious beliefs.

I assume you also saw on Bill Maher overtime he brought up a quote from the Norwegian Prime Minsiter and his response to the incident involving "more democracy and more openness" to show they will not be stopped by these kinds of attacks. What was your reaction to the statement?

I didn't have a chance to see last Friday's episode yet, because it wasn't available online until tonight, so I'm gonna watch it later.

The response of prime-minister Stoltenberg seems to me to be very in-the-moment. It's the kind of thing the people want to hear right now; he understand that; therefore he makes that statement. But do I believe there really will be more democracy and more openness? No, I don't, not for a minute. The extreme-right, anti-islam/anti-immigrant parties which are on the rise all across Europe will continue to grow, and that includes Norway. There will not be more tolerance, no-one will lower their rhetoric, no-one will try to stop the ever-increasing polarisation. And there will not be more democracy and openness, because that's not in the interest of the ruling elite. They will never give up any of their power to the people. It has been that way after all major incident, no matter what the country was: there will be a brief moment where we feel 'the crisis will not go to waste' and we hope we can make something positive out of it, but it just never happens. It's like when the finanical crisis hit and so many governments all over Europe (and the US, too) said it was time to "drastically reform the financial system to prevent something like this from ever happening again". Nothing ever changed. Everything is still exactly the same as it was before the meltdown and we're setting us up for the next one...

Ironically, the parties that always demand more 'direct democracy' and an 'more openness' are exactly the same extreme-right populist parties that have inspired the shooter. And when these populists gain actual influence on the government, like they have in Denmark and The Netherlands, they behave exactly like the old elites they said they hated so much, and they engage in the same political backroom deals they once condemned.

[...] As awful as this is, I think it's still a good wake-up call to the world that anyone can be (classified as) a terrorist. Not just Islamic people. [...]

That's certainly true, but I would be a hypocrite if I didn't admit that I was thinking of Islamic terrorism, too. The minute I heard about a carbomb going off in the centre of Oslo, I was thinking to myself: "it'll turn out to be a 'home-grown' islamic terrorist. One of those pricks who've never ever set foot in any islamic country and has enjoyed the free Western lifestyle for his entire life, but now has seen some videos on YouTube and thinks he has to fight the Jihad, too". That's what I thought. And I don't blame myself and others for initially thinking this. Because as much as I hate the bashing of ordinary muslims that's going on every single day in our media and politics, it is a fact that we've seen a lot of islamic terrorism in the last decades. The 9/11 attacks are a given; then there was the bombing of the nightclub in Bali; the bombing of the subway in Madrid; the bombings in London; and the murder (literally a slaughter) of filmmaker Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam.

So do I blame people for thinking this? No, I don't. Do I blame 'The New York Times' for head-lining that a Jihadist group had claimed responsibility for the Oslo bombing without checking it? Absolutely! (Why people still praise that paper to high heaven after the Iraq War debacle and the paper's endorsement of the coup against a democratically elected president, I'll never understand.)

[Duckburger]

I think it's safe to say most everyone thought about Islamic extremists first (including me). That's just the way it is. With 9/11, London, Madrid, Mumbai and a number of other events -I can't say I blame people for jumping to that conclusion.

[Super Aurora]

sorry for late response. i was following this from another forum which is over 25 pages .



anyone curious:

this is the killer

[ajmrowland]

Well, this is honestly the first time I heard about this. It's sad but somehow, I'm not really too shocked. These last few years, it feels like there are more bombings and shootings in the world than ever. Makes me wonder what really causes these people to go ballistic but either way, it has got to stop.

And I dont like that it almost always seems to be a conservative pulling the trigger.

[Goliath]

I don't know how this is being reported in the US, but this has been *the* leading story for all tv news broadcasts and newspapers in The Netherlands.

Today, we learned that the Norwegian police had adjusted the number of deadly victims from 94 down to 76. Still an incredibly high number, but at least a bit less than we initially thought.

The shooter had to appear before the judge today for the first time. He still pleads not guilty, because he doesn't think he has done anything wrong. He also revealed that there are about 80 more people like him all across Europe, whom he has met and with whom he had made plans to carry out more and similar attacks every few years. He has said these people, like himself, all call themselves 'Templars', after the Medieval crusaders who thought the muslims in the 'Holy Land'. This was all released through the press, but the press was not allowed at the hearing, which happened behind closed doors, as to not give him any more of a platform for his sick ideas than he has already had.

In Norway, the maximum penalty he can receive, is 21 years in prison. Norway doesn't have a 'life in prison' sentence. Legislation has just been passed to change this, but this doesn't apply to him anymore. However, after 21 years, if he's still deemed a danger to society, his sentence can be prolonged twice by 5 years each time, to be carried out in a psychiatric clinic. The maximum sentence he can face thus amounts to 31 years in prison.

Today, there was a mass wake and a 'silent protest march' to remember the victims in the centre of Oslo. I saw this on tv and I was very impressed by it. You wouldn't believe the number of people who were there. You have to check this on YouTube to believe it. I bet there were thousands and thousands of people. I saw prime-minister Stoltenberg give a speech, as he had also done yesterday at a church memorial for the victims. I don't know this man or his politics (other than that he's a social-democrat, which, in essence, always has my sympathy), but I was very impressed with him. He looked and sounded like a true statesman (not at all like George Bush was played the cowboy and screamed for revenge on the rubble of the Twin Towers).

[Disney's Divinity]

I don't know how this is being reported in the US, but this has been *the* leading story for all tv news broadcasts and newspapers in The Netherlands.

Well, they were talking about it on The View, so I can only assume it's been getting a lot of media attention. That's where I also heard about:

In Norway, the maximum penalty he can receive, is 21 years in prison.

Which seriously disturbed me greatly. The fact that he'll be out of jail one day, I mean.

[jpanimation]

When I first saw his picture on the news, I thought it was Aaron Ekhart. Must've been the angle of the picture or something.

[Rose Dome]

My reply is late because I didn't feel that I could sufficently put into words, just how terrible this is, but here I go.

This is so awful that I still don't want it to be true. I want to stop it, even though it's already happened, and I want to stop anything like it from ever happening again. It's so awful that I almost feel guilty

Doesn't something like this just make you hate life?

My thoughts are with the Friends and Families of the victims.

[disneyboy20022]

I don't know how this is being reported in the US, but this has been *the* leading story for all tv news broadcasts and newspapers in The Netherlands.

This Tragedy in Norway is somewhat being compared to the Oklahoma City Bombing w/ Timothy McVeigh in the media in the USA.

I didn't know how to respond either. I mean it's shocking....and I heard the maximum years in prison is 21 years...so he'd be released by the time he's in his mid 50s....which is sorta disturbing....I heard the death toll was at 91 at one point...

My thoughts and prayers go out to all those effected by this Horrific Tragedy...