Killings in Norway Spotlight Anti-Muslim Thought in U.S.

[alp227]

Source: The New York Times

The man accused of the killing spree in Norway was deeply influenced by a small group of American bloggers and writers who have warned for years about the threat from Islam, lacing his 1,500-page manifesto with quotations from them, as well as copying multiple passages from the tract of the Unabomber.

In the document he posted online, Anders Behring Breivik, who is accused of bombing government buildings and killing scores of young people at a Labor Party camp, showed that he had closely followed the acrimonious American debate over Islam.

His manifesto, which denounced Norwegian politicians as failing to defend the country from Islamic influence, quoted Robert Spencer, who operates the Jihad Watch Web site, 64 times, and cited other Western writers who shared his view that Muslim immigrants pose a grave danger to Western culture.

More broadly, the mass killings in Norway, with their echo of the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City by an antigovernment militant, have focused new attention around the world on the subculture of anti-Muslim bloggers and right-wing activists and renewed a debate over the focus of counterterrorism efforts.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/25/us/25debate.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

---

So are there political points of view that inherently incite violence against certain groups of people, such as the Robert Spencer websites mentioned in this article? And when Glenn Beck and other right-wing talkers spew their incendiary anti-liberal points of view? When people like Breivik are driven to do the despicable, evil things they do, is the incitement of violence in their own interpretations of speech or inherent in the speech itself? While I unapologetically support free speech even for the right-wing viewpoints that I disagree with, I have to wonder if some radical speech puts people at risk.

[aquart]

1. Right now our problems are Christians plus Cantor.

His name makes me cringe with horror and shame. History will forget the others and remember the Jew destroyed America. Unless he's converted? Can someone assure me Cantor has seen the light? (I don't care which light. Just let him walk toward it.)

[No Elephants]

4. "History will forget the others and remember the Jew destroyed America." Very doubtful.

[mwb970]

13. Cantor is the worst of a very, very bad bunch.

I cringe in horror whenever his whiny, snivelly mug shows up on my TV screen. Quick, change the channel!!

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Related article, also from NYT:Oslo Suspect Cultivated Parallel Life to Disguise ‘Martyrdom Operati

o Suspect Cultivated Parallel Life to Disguise ‘Martyrdom Operation’
By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ and MATTHEW SALTMARSH
Published: July 24, 2011

~snip~
With the 1,500-page manifesto, which he said took three years to complete, Mr. Breivik endeavored to find common cause with xenophobic right-wing groups around the world, particularly in the United States. He quoted extensively from the anti-Islam writings of American bloggers, and cut and pasted a whole section of the manifesto written by Theodore J. Kaczynski, known as the Unabomber, into his own, replacing “leftism” with “multiculturalism” as the object of aspersion.

~snip~
He once approached Hans Rustad, the editor of a popular conservative Website called Document.no, with a proposal to create a pan-European movement modeled on Tea Party groups in the United States.

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/25/world/europe/25breivik.html?pagewanted=1&ref=world

[Cool Logic]

3. Anti-Muslim sentiment has a longer and more intense history in Europe than it does in the US.

[No Elephants]

5. Meh. We caught up fast.

[EFerrari]

6. The same can be said for just about everything. n/t

[noel711]

9. Anit-Muslim sentiment in Europe?

Longer than USA?
Sure.
How old is the USA? Hmmm, 236 years?

How many years has Europe been a culture?
Hmm, Rome fell about 476...
Europe having a distinct culture from the east?
Probably before Mohammad started
having his revelations about 610.
So you might say Europe has years of practice
with anti-Moslem sentiment. Years,
Even before the Crusades.
Don't pin this on Europeans.
They have had years of struggle against fascism,

However, now with the internet, twitter, lots of
televised radio and television availability,
especially from our homegrown variety of right wing
extremists, stoking the fire is easy.

[slackmaster]

20. Yes, the Internet has intensified the effects of Islam's long-standing PR problem

I wonder when Islam is going to wise up and start doing something constructive about it.

[ellenrr]

7. free speech is one thing, hate speech is another

[MrDiaz]

8. Why?

Why is there so much hate towards Christians, but not any towards muslims, who have done theses outrages attacks all across the world?

[greiner3]

10. You are so funny;

However, you forgot your sarcasm icon.

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Berlin Expat]

11. About time!

Salam, one and all. It's about damned time they start looking at some of these kooks like Robert Spencer, Pamela Gellar, et al. They're responsible for spreading a lot of the vile venom, which we see and hear echoed by the likes of Glenn Beck, Hermann Cain, Michael Savage, and a fairly large contingent of the Tea Party movement.

I was poking around at LGF earlier and to his great credit, Charles Johnson posted that these people (the anti-jihadists) now have the blood of innocents on their hands.

[yellowwood]

12. Fox

A lot of it is created by Fox Media. It's what they choose to emphasize and what they choose to leave out. No media was more "worried" about the Mosque near "ground Zero" than they were. They create an "atmosphere" with this kind of attention.
The last time I looked, they still had the old PNAC instigator William Kristol as one of their panelists.

[buckrogers1965]

22. The neocons and tea baggers

are fighting over who can be right wing nuttier.

Unfortunately mentally unstable people follow these right wing nuts and read the message between the lines and carry out what the right wing nuts were hoping for in the first place.

[mwb970]

14. Meanwhile, I live next door to a Muslim family, and they're great.

The guy's yard and garden are the best-looking and best-tended on the street. They are quiet, friendly, and respectful. He is the hit of the neighborhood.

This is the micro view: what's the problem? Those who take a sweepingly macro anti-Muslim position undoubtedly do not personally know any actual Muslims. Many may not have ever SEEN one.

(That last remark reminds me of a black woman I heard on NPR describing her youth in an all-black Southern town. She recalled that when she saw her first two white people she asked her mother "Are they ghosts?")

[Berlin Expat]

18. Here in Berlin.......

I live in a neighborhood pretty well dominated by Muslims, mostly Turks, with a few Arabs/North African folks.

The majority of them are Sunni, but we have quite a few Alevi Shi'a as well, and my branch, the Sufis. Sometimes the Sunnis look askance at Sufism, but they're generally tolerant. Seeing a white-bread Muslim occasionally sends the "Does Not Compute" look flashing across their face for a second or two. But no-one has ever demonstrated towards me any prejudice in regard to my faith.

[Blue_Tires]

21. welcome to the site!

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[greytdemocrat]

19. Sometimes

A nut is just a nut.

It's horrible though that in this case, so many had to die.