Swedish politician Mona Sahlin said something like:
11th Sep. 2001, the dust cloud starts settling over NYC.
George W. Bush grabs the microphone: “Let’s hunt them down!”

22nd Jul. 2011, the dust cloud starts settling over Oslo.
Jens Stoltenberg grabs the microphone: “Let’s take good care of each other!”

I must stop caring and that in itself is hard to do. I shouldn’t even bother writing this yet I do. Guess I want to supply a different view for free thinkers, maybe I’m just an unique aberration or maybe everyone else long past understood that societies are always shams and call it “growing up” and learn to lie with every breath.

Sure, pretty words and flowers and candlelight and hugs and all that but the unavoidably real and officially documented problems seem destined to continue to be all but ignored, all major newspapers have introduced and called for even more censorship and surveillance as if the unconstitutional “DLD” wasn’t bad enough, and people are getting busy throwing even more dirt on “political” opponents in all directions including at themselves (although they may not realize). Its like they’ve neither understood the prime minister’s words nor the attacker’s intent (revolutionary pan-European civil war, something which they’re all too busy bringing into reality bit by bit through demonizing opponents with even more vigor than before), this despite it all being stated in the most plain and easily understandable language.

If this keeps up Breivik will have succeeded beyond his wildest imagination (it won’t take 70 years) and I’m not sure I want to hang around to witness it (although I likely don’t have any choice). Breivik’s opening gambit on provoking outrage that will in turn alienate anyone remotely “rightwing” from participating democratically has so far been surprisingly successful, he has played us all and will unfortunately likely continue to do so no matter if he’s dead or alive.

Beautiful.

Bush’s first speech: “The search is underway for those who are behind these evil acts. I’ve
directed the full resources for our intelligence and law enforcement
communities to find those responsible and bring them to justice. We will
make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and
those who harbor them.”

As opposed to what? “The NYPD and the FBI will be looking into this matter, but be assured, we will be a more open, a more tolerant society than what we had before.”

Yeah, I’m sure we all wish that had been what he said. /sarcasm

Bush constantly stressed tolerance and painted the 9/11 hijackers are extremists not representing Islam. We can criticize the policies and laws intended to stop such attacks in the future, but don’t pretend we wanted to hear all about tolerance and openness when a foreign organization attacked us. While we shouldn’t have had internment camps during WWII, the problem wasn’t that Roosevelt didn’t stress how we will be more open and tolerant after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Who were we supposed to go to war with then? No one could answer that, then or now, so Shrubbsey and Lone Cheney went to war with the country where the guy who funded the bombing of the world trade centers was living in a cave. That’s who we went to war with. And it still, to this day, makes NO SENSE and produced NO RESULTS, aside from the deaths of thousands of soldiers, tens of thousands of civilians, rekindled the fear and depravity that war instills in man leading to Abu Gharaib and increased animosity for the U.S. around the world. So mea culpa, there were some results, but not the one we wanted. 10 years of military action didn’t deliver THE GUY.

Because how did we get the cave-jumper? The intelligence community conducted an international criminal investigation. Detective work is what produced the double-tap. All the bombs we dropped and the drones we piloted did NOTHING.

Terrorism is a smoke-screen. It is a pretense used by war profiteers and warmongers to instill fear and worry in the minds of a populace in order to advance their aims and their agenda. Terrorists are almost to a one themselves fearful, weak-minded individuals, often poor and underprivileged people brought together by wealthy, influential, well-educated ideologues and brainwashed into committing terrific and horrible CRIMES. I would place good money that a comparative study of the psychological profiles of the 9/11 hijackers and Breivik would find tremendous commonalities in religious temperment, social acceptance, and mental pathologies of persecution and paranoia.

By 3PM on 9/11/01, sitting in my dorm room, I knew precisely what I wanted to hear from the President of the United States, and like Cory, I am incredibly pleased to hear them now 10 years later, but also extremely sad that it took so long.

Yay Norway!

Of course Norway can chose a hardline, doing massive surveillance and interrogations against everything and everyone rightwing “extremish”.

Would that lessen the risk for further violence? I’m betting on “nope”.

Sadly I doubt they would be in the same mindset had this been an attack orchestrated by al-qaeda.