Booms and headshots in central Oslo

[Triple Zero]

The Labour Youth League is the youth organization of the Norwegian Labour Party. They held a summer camp this week where hundreds of young people aged between 13 to 25 were discussing politics, making friends, doing sports, listening to talks about various topics and watching their favorite bands play. Or brainwashed into accepting the social democratic paradigm, if that sounds better to you.

All the political parties here in Norway (except for the Pensioners' Party) have a youth wing. Not every of them has a summer camp; the Young Conservatives have an annual large conference at a finer hotel somewhere in the country. One of my former classmates bought champagne for about 10000 Norwegian Kroner (about 1000£) at one of those. When he was 16.  

I always assumed youth went there on their own choice, because they have political ambitions and want to become familiar with the party etc. But then, yeah, I assume a lot of them are there because of their parents/family as well.

[Cain]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14266815

The suspect charged with carrying out a massacre at a youth camp in Norway and a bombing in the capital, Oslo, says he acted alone, police say.

Anders Behring Breivik, 32, admitted to carrying out both attacks, which he described as "gruesome but necessary".

At least 93 people were killed in Friday's attacks - 96 have been injured and some are still missing.

On Sunday, police briefly detained and later released several people without charge in a raid in Oslo.

Mr Sponheim told reporters the suspect had property in the area of the raid and police were looking for traces of explosives, though nothing of value was found.

In an earlier news conference, he said Mr Breivik "admitted to the facts of both the bombing and the shooting, although he's not admitting criminal guilt".

"He says that he was alone but the police must verify everything that he said. Some of the witness statements from the island have made us unsure of whether there was one or more shooters."

Mr Sponheim said police were not looking for anyone else at the moment - though they had not ruled out that the suspect might have had help.

He said Mr Breivik, who has been charged over both attacks and is due to appear in court on Monday, had co-operated during his interrogation.

Mr Sponheim confirmed that the maximum time Mr Breivik could face in prison under Norwegian law is 21 years.

At least seven people were killed in the bomb attack on the government quarter in Oslo. Soon afterwards, 85 people were shot dead as a gunman, dressed as a policeman, ran amok on the nearby island of Utoeya. An 86th person died in hospital on Sunday.

The gunman was arrested when police arrived an estimated 90 minutes after the massacre began. Mr Breivik's lawyer said his client surrendered after running out of ammunition, but police later said he still had a lot with him.

At least four people from the island camp shooting are yet to be found; it is thought some may have drowned after swimming out into the lake to escape the hail of bullets.

Mr Breivik's lawyer Geir Lippestad told Norwegian media: "He thought it was gruesome having to commit these acts, but in his head they were necessary.

"He wished to attack society and the structure of society," Mr Lippestad said.

He added that the actions had been planned for some time.

The suspect is reported to have had links with right-wing extremists.

Still pictures of him, wearing a wetsuit and carrying an automatic weapon, appeared in a 12-minute anti-Muslim video called Knights Templar 2083, which appeared briefly on YouTube.

A 1,500-page document written in English and said to be by Mr Breivik - posted under the pseudonym of Andrew Berwick - was also put online hours before the attacks, suggesting they had been years in the planning.

The document and the video repeatedly refer to multiculturalism and Muslim immigration; the author claims to be a follower of the Knights Templar - a medieval Christian organisation involved in the Crusades, and sometimes revered by white supremacists.

Police have not speculated on motives for the attack but the bomb in Oslo targeted buildings connected to Norway's governing Labour Party, and the youth camp on Utoeya island was also run by the party.

In the document posted online, references were made to targeting "cultural Marxists/ multiculturalist traitors".

[The Johnny]

21 years only? Maximum sentence? Wow

[Lenin McCarthy]

21 years only? Maximum sentence? Wow

The official maximum sentence is 21 years, but the sentence can be extended indefinitely, 5 years at a time, if the convict is considered a threat to society.

[Doktor Howl]

21 years only? Maximum sentence? Wow

The official maximum sentence is 21 years, but the sentence can be extended indefinitely, 5 years at a time, if the convict is considered a threat to society.

That's what I read.

[Jenne]

Pickle ive never heard of political youth camps here either. Ok off to rock just thought i would chime in as an american.

Compare to AWANA clubs.

Huh.  I was a uh CHAMP at Awana.  Go figure.

[Jenne]

More like the young Republicans than the Hitler youth.

I...was one of THOSE, too.

[Jenne]

This is actually starting to creep me out slightly.  I mean, myself and Anders Breivik were reading the same websites, at around pretty much the same time - for almost totally the opposite reasons.  I was worried about Islamic terrorism causing a fascist backlash, while he was preparing for it.

Damn it all to hell.  I tried to tell people I was worried about this kind of thing.  If Breivik was in London...damnit.  I said looking exclusively at Islamists would take attention off Republican dissidents and fascists - and here we are, three years later, with Republican dissidents shooting police and planting bombs in Belfast, and a fascist terrorist apparently wandering the streets of London, meeting with God only knows who. 

We could've caught him.

Naw.  There're powers that be that don't want to catch these guys.

Just saying.

[Jenne]

The Labour Youth League is the youth organization of the Norwegian Labour Party. They held a summer camp this week where hundreds of young people aged between 13 to 25 were discussing politics, making friends, doing sports, listening to talks about various topics and watching their favorite bands play. Or brainwashed into accepting the social democratic paradigm, if that sounds better to you.

All the political parties here in Norway (except for the Pensioners' Party) have a youth wing. Not every of them has a summer camp; the Young Conservatives have an annual large conference at a finer hotel somewhere in the country. One of my former classmates bought champagne for about 10000 Norwegian Kroner (about 1000£) at one of those. When he was 16. 

I always assumed youth went there on their own choice, because they have political ambitions and want to become familiar with the party etc. But then, yeah, I assume a lot of them are there because of their parents/family as well.

What cheeses me off about shit like this is that here my own kids are, in a language class for Dari and Pushtu, the two official languages in Afghanistan, and some bastard fuck would naturally assume this means religious training.

It doesn't.  I checked.  It's through San Diego State University, and yes, funded by a grant, but there's no religion at all.  It's all cultural stuff--songs, dances, teaching the language OUTSIDE the fucking Q'uran...but some asshole would hear about a class like this and assume the people running it, yes, chardor wearing but not proselytizing...are recruiting my kids for jihad.

So yeah, we as parents put my kids into this class for 4 weeks in July to learn their dad's native language and culture in an academic setting...but that's it.  It's what-you-see-is-exactly-for-once-what-you-get.  Mowing down the KIDS for doing what their parents want them to do during the summer is...beyond evil.  It's...yeah, I don't know the word for that.

[Triple Zero]

Suspect named

Anders Behring Breivik, the 32-year-old suspect in Friday's attacks in Norway, held right-wing views, say police. <snip>

Little is currently known about him apart from what has appeared on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter - and these entries appear to have been set up just days ago.

On the Facebook page attributed to him, he describes himself as <snip>

A Twitter account attributed to the suspect has also emerged but it only has one post, which is a quote from philosopher John Stuart Mill: "One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100,000 who have only interests."

As with his Facebook page, the tweet was posted on 17 July. <snip>

Cain where did you get this quote/article?

Because I'm still curious about the Facebook page, this article seems to suggest that not only the Twitter account but also the Facebook page did not exist before 17th of July. I'm not sure but I think this is the only place I actually read that. Could it be that they were wrong about that bit because it's one of the earliest reports mistakes?

I'm asking because of this (otherwise rather uninteresting) column: Breivik was my friend on Facebook, which would be quite suspect if the account did not exist before the 17th. She does not name a date when "one day" he sent her a friend-request.

[Cain]

That was from a BBC article, published around the time I posted it.

It may not exist anymore, given the BBC is using a different from normal method of relaying the story (multi-page updated stories, rather than seperate entries), but at the time of posting, that was what the article said.

Of course, it is possible Breivik had more than one account.  This "Andrew Berwick" identity, for example.

[Cain]

Oh shit

Norwegian police are investigating claims by Anders Behring Breivik, who has admitted carrying out Friday's twin attacks in Norway, that he has "two more cells" working with him.

Mr Breivik made the claim at his first court hearing since the bombing in Oslo and massacre at an island youth camp.

Police have now revised down the island killings from 86 to 68 but increased the bomb death toll by one to eight.

The judge said Mr Breivik had argued that he was acting to save Norway and Europe from "Marxist and Muslim colonisation".

The gunman had said his operation was not aimed at killing as many people as possible but that he wanted to create the greatest loss possible to Norway's governing Labour Party, which he accused of failing the country on immigration.

The bomb in Oslo targeted buildings connected to the Labour Party government, and the youth camp on Utoeya island was also run by the party.

Like you said Trip, this was designed to do maximum possible damage to the Norwegian Labour Party.

[Jenne]

...reminds me of something that Ayaan Hirsi Ali said when talking about her brief stint in the Dutch Parliament.  That the immigration laws in a lot of European countries that seem to offer more...clemency?...egress?...such as the Netherlands (and perhaps Demark, Norway and Sweden?  I confess I don't know their differences) in the 90's created less of a conducive environment for the Muslims coming in and instead created despair and cultural confusion amongst both the immigrants AND the indigenous.

Basically, the lack of forced integration meant that the Muslim families that came predominantly from African or Arab cultures were given enough freedom to try to integrate but none of the real tools with which to do so.  Their use of public funds for their care and upkeep as they struggled to find their way caused resentment amongst the European folks who were born there, and the Muslims ended up resenting the atmosphere that was so very strange from where they came but they didn't educate themselves enough to see that this difference wasn't evil or harmful to their children.

So extremism bred on both sides.

Ali's reasoning for why the government should've curtailed the immigrants' more restrictive cultural practices, especially vis a vis women and children, via legislature are seen as mightily biased and anti-Muslim.  However, I think she at least got the PROBLEM if not the SOLUTION right, to a certain degree (in other words, as far as I can fathom it with the little knowledge I have on the area).

[Igor]

Conservative author "stunned to discover" that his book was cited by Breivik. (And his named mentioned 22 times in the manifesto).
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903999904576465801154130960.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Book is called While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam Is Destroying the West from Within.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Conservative author "stunned to discover" that his book was cited by Breivik. (And his named mentioned 22 times in the manifesto).
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903999904576465801154130960.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Book is called While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam Is Destroying the West from Within.

What a shocker.