Norway's corrective to our post 9/11 terror myth

[babsbunny]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jul/26/anders-breivik-terror-norway

A fixation with the jihadist threat makes Americans blind to the insidious menace of a rightwing extremist like Anders Breivik

Matthew Harwood
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 26 July 2011 21.30 BST

The first images of the destruction in Oslo's city centre Friday were reminiscent of New York City's, Madrid's and London's encounters with jihadist terrorism. But Oslo also looked eerily like Oklahoma City in 1995. And as the news trickled in that the terrorist attack was the work of Anders Behring Breivik, a Norwegian rightwing extremist, Americans had rapidly to re-evaluate their comfortable post 9/11 belief that only swarthy jihadists engage in terrorist atrocities. The ghost of Osama bin Laden quickly morphed into the visage of Timothy McVeigh.

No religion, ideology, race or ethnicity has a monopoly on political violence. Despite this truism, many Americans and US media outlets continue to conflate Islam with terrorism – a fact many media critics documented during the clumsy breaking coverage of Breivik's attack. This may seem understandable as we Americans face the anniversary of 11 September 2001 in little more than a month. Homegrown and overseas jihadists certainly present a clear and present danger to the United States, but they are by no means the only threat or, arguably, the most dangerous. Indeed, the US has come face to face with many potential Breiviks before – fortunately, few as bloodily effective as this terrorist.

[Ghost Dog]

1. And comments that were posted here in DU about the need to avoid

US-style democracy-destroying kneejerk reactions (which, fortunately, the Norwegian PM has known how to avoid) were deleted here.

[MisterP]

2. not only is it blinding, but probably more importantly it's REINFORCING

Breivik's beliefs (Templars aside) about the utter evil of Islam and the need of the "West" to "defend itself" against the prejudiced, woman- and gay-hating aliens within AREN'T EXTREME. Islamophobic views are broad and acceptable to far too many--not just Gellar and the rest, but Bernard Stasi and Presidents Chirac and Sarkozy and Sam Harris and Victor J. Stenger sound like Ann Coulter when it comes to wimmin-hatin' Mooslimes