Oslo Bombing *Updated in first post*

[Cowperson]

Originally Posted by blankall

I'd agree with this. I think a lot of peolpe want to label him as psychopath because they don't want to accept that regular fully functioning people are capable of these acts. They don't want to think that they themselves might be capable of these acts.

We, therefore, have a natural compulsion to separate ourselves and humanity from these peolpe by labelling them as "psychopaths". The jury is obviously still out on this guy, but "psychopath" is a very strict definition that many murderers don't fit.

I assume professionals will eventually give us their opinions and help settle the argument.

There's a certain "how much is enough?" thing here.

He evidently was good enough at research to probably have know that even a dozen deaths would have been enough to make the point and generate sufficient global publicity for his cause.

He just kept going and going and going and going until he was eventually confronted and immediately surrendered. There wasn't even a dramatic shootout. What if the police had given him yet another hour and assuming no shortage of ammunition?

There's a singular lack of humanity there.

Even for Stalin, the author of the brilliantly observant "One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic" I doubt he could have personally done what this chap did. Ordering millions to their deaths is a different level than ruthlessly hearing the screams and the pleas for mercy from the helpless and unarmed while you're hunting them down and pulling the trigger over and over and over.

In this tragedy, I was also thinking there would be a lot less people dead if 90 of them had rushed him all at once . . . . . but that's not how we think in an instance like that. Unless we have time to think about it and organize ourselves like they did on the Pittsburgh aircraft on 9/11.

Cowperson

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Cowperson

I assume professionals will eventually give us their opinions and help settle the argument.

There's a certain "how much is enough?" thing here.

He evidently was good enough at research to probably have know that even a dozen deaths would have been enough to make the point and generate sufficient global publicity for his cause.

He just kept going and going and going and going until he was eventually confronted and immediately surrendered. There wasn't even a dramatic shootout. What if the police had given him yet another hour and assuming no shortage of ammunition?

There's a singular lack of humanity there.

Even for Stalin, the author of the brilliantly observant "One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic" I doubt he could have personally done what this chap did. Ordering millions to their deaths is a different level than ruthlessly hearing the screams and the pleas for mercy from the helpless and unarmed while you're hunting them down and pulling the trigger over and over and over.

You'd be surprised what people can rationalize to themselves. From his perspective, he wasn't killing 76 people. He was saving Europe.

Originally Posted by Cowperson

In this tragedy, I was also thinking there would be a lot less people dead if 90 of them had rushed him all at once . . . . . but that's not how we think in an instance like that. Unless we have time to think about it and organize ourselves like they did on the Pittsburgh aircraft on 9/11.

Rushing a guy with a box cutter is a lot easier than rushing into a line of machine gun fire. Especially if the shooter had tricked everyone into sitting in a group in front of him. The only way to stop him would be to flank him from behind and hope that someone else is close enough to you to help out once you do get ahold of him. We are talking about teenagers vs. a grown man. Depending on the exact geography, flanking might not even be possible.

[Cheese]

Sam Harris comments:

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/c...-islamophobia/

At certain points near the extremity of human evil it becomes difficult, and perhaps pointless, to make ethical distinctions. However, I cannot shake the feeling that detonating a large bomb in the center of a peaceful city with the intent of killing vast numbers of innocent people was the lesser of Anders Behring Breivik’s transgressions last week. It seems to me that it required greater malice, and even less humanity, to have intended this atrocity to be a mere diversion, so that he could then commit nearly one hundred separate murders on the tiny Island of Utoya later in the day.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Cowperson

I assume professionals will eventually give us their opinions and help settle the argument.

I don't know if its really an argument, I would expect that we're going to get several different opinions on this guy. I would also expect that he'll be fairly insistant on testifying on his own behalf.

Originally Posted by Cowperson

There's a certain "how much is enough?" thing here.

He evidently was good enough at research to probably have know that even a dozen deaths would have been enough to make the point and generate sufficient global publicity for his cause.

Granted, I do find it funny though that he set off a bomb in a office building during the holiday season when it was likely to be fairly abandoned. It tells me that his true target was the youth camp and not killing politicians. That also tells me that he was after what he would deem to be the biggest impact kills. People will always mourn the innocent over the politician. Also it creates a higher likelyhood of protective measures being enacted that are global rather then specific.

Originally Posted by Cowperson

He just kept going and going and going and going until he was eventually confronted and immediately surrendered. There wasn't even a dramatic shootout. What if the police had given him yet another hour and assuming no shortage of ammunition?

There's a singular lack of humanity there.

Not really, he didn't want to be a martyr to a cause that nobody thinks about. He's already confessed to the police according to the reports. He wants his chance to make a political impact, he wants to take responsibility for his actions and justify them. He wants his pulpit. He's completely opposite of the kid who shot the senator earlier this year who was clearly crazy. The Oslo shooter strikes me as someone rational albeit consumed by his beliefs.

Originally Posted by Cowperson

Even for Stalin, the author of the brilliantly observant "One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic" I doubt he could have personally done what this chap did. Ordering millions to their deaths is a different level than ruthlessly hearing the screams and the pleas for mercy from the helpless and unarmed while you're hunting them down and pulling the trigger over and over and over.

Ok, lets switch the focus from Stalin to Kruschev (sp?) who stood on the rear of the battlefield and ordered and witnessed mass executions of retreating soldiers. He was also one of the men who participated in the mass purge of the senior leaders of the Soviet Military. And he was not a psychopath, and fairly rational.

Originally Posted by Cowperson

In this tragedy, I was also thinking there would be a lot less people dead if 90 of them had rushed him all at once . . . . . but that's not how we think in an instance like that. Unless we have time to think about it and organize ourselves like they did on the Pittsburgh aircraft on 9/11.

Cowperson

There's the underlying fear that people need to overcome quickly that even a random shot is going to kill you, even if you rush with overwhelming odds.

[Weiser Wonder]

Psychopaths act rationally. They know what they are doing, and the difference between right and wrong. Psychopaths lack the capacity for empathy, which in no way means they aren't responsible for their actions.

Murder in and of itself is not a sign of a psychopath, that's correct. Timothy McVeigh, for example, wouldn't need to be a psychopath to do what he did, but that was one act. To shoot child after child is a much better indication of psychopathy.

While I agree it's important to realize mentally normal people can perform heinous acts, I think it's important to not be truthful of the emotional capabilities of people. I don't think most people are capable of these acts on an individual level. I think most heinous acts from normal people are a function of group think. This guy acted alone. I'd be very surprised if he didn't score off the charts in psychopath testing.

For what its worth, a significant portion of violent criminals are labeled psychopaths medically. Many are labeled that erroneously, I'm sure, but psychopathy is not that rare of a phenomenon. There are a surprising amount of psychopaths in the world.

[Cowperson]

Originally Posted by blankall

Rushing a guy with a box cutter is a lot easier than rushing into a line of machine gun fire. Especially if the shooter had tricked everyone into sitting in a group in front of him. The only way to stop him would be to flank him from behind and hope that someone else is close enough to you to help out once you do get ahold of him. We are talking about teenagers vs. a grown man. Depending on the exact geography, flanking might not even be possible.

Ninety people rushing a guy with one clip and no time to change it before they're on him would have resulted in less deaths.

I'll freely admit its kind of a dumb observation because most humans wouldn't think that way . . . . . scholars have long marvelled that six million Jews would go fairly quietly to their deaths as well.

Aside from the tragedy, this affair is fascinating in its own grotesque way.

Cowperson

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Cowperson

Ninety people rushing a guy with one clip and no time to change it before they're on him would have resulted in less deaths.

I don't think anyone thinks of the clip size, they notice the size of the gun and the barrel, and no matter what it looks like its aimed at you. No matter how brave we think we are, In terms of our fight or flight instincts its often over ruled by the self preservation aspect combined with the deer in the headlights instinct that if I don't move he won't see me.

Originally Posted by Cowperson

I'll freely admit its kind of a dumb observation because most humans wouldn't think that way . . . . . scholars have long marvelled that six million Jews would go fairly quietly to their deaths as well.

Aside from the tragedy, this affair is fascinating in its own grotesque way.

Cowperson

Nah, not dumb at all, I think in a larger crowd like the Jews in the processing line, theres the instinct that this can't possibly be happening to us, and disbelief I believe weakens the legs as we try to analyze something that isn't analystical.

The Jews went because they didn't believe that they would be killed enmasse.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Cowperson

Ninety people rushing a guy with one clip and no time to change it before they're on him would have resulted in less deaths.

I don't think the reality of the situatin works like that. He probably already killed several dozen people in the initial shooting when everyone was sitting in front of him. Even one clip from an automatic weapon can do heavy casualties to a group sitting in front of him if they don't scatter. After the initial shots survivors would have been scattered and putting distance between themselves and the shooter. There's no way you would have been able to organize more than a small handful of peopel to attack him at any give time.

He had pistol on him as well and could have used that to shoot anyone rushing at him during reloads.

Originally Posted by Cowperson

I'll freely admit its kind of a dumb observation because most humans wouldn't think that way . . . . . scholars have long marvelled that six million Jews would go fairly quietly to their deaths as well.

Nobody realized what was actually going on in the concentration camps. At that point in time, it was considered normal to move large groups of minorites and put them in isolated communities. It had been done several times to Jewish, and other minority populations, in the recent past. The Nazis told the Jews they were being moved to another ghetto location, which was a totally normal thing for them. This was especially normal for the Jews of Eastern Europe and the USSR. This was how they lived their lives.

THe nazi government was also very hush hush about the whole thing. You had people living blocks away from concentration camps (although probably willfully blind) not realizing what was going on. The Jews who ended up in the concentration camps were also spread out all across Europe and Russia with no way whatsoever to organize. These communities wouldn't have access to telephones etc.. By the time they got to the camps it was already too late.

[NBC]

A distinction needs to be made between the work camps and the extermination camps as they were different entities altogether. Frequently sites were located near to one another as was the situation with Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II - Birkenau. They had different operational processes. There were a few dozen concentration (work) camps located throughout Europe and six extermination camps - Auschwitz II - Birkenau being the largest.

Maybe people were not that aware of what was happening at Treblinka, Birkenau and Sobibor in terms of numbers of people killed, but it was hard to ignore the physical existence of the camps as well as the mass exodus of Jewish people.

But this is a major digression from the thread. My apologies.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by NBC

A distinction needs to be made between the work camps and the extermination camps as they were different entities altogether. Frequently sites were located near to one another as was the situation with Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II - Birkenau. They had different operational processes. There were a few dozen concentration (work) camps located throughout Europe and six extermination camps - Auschwitz II - Birkenau being the largest.

Maybe people were not that aware of what was happening at Treblinka, Birkenau and Sobibor in terms of numbers of people killed, but it was hard to ignore the physical existence of the camps as well as the mass exodus of Jewish people.

But this is a major digression from the thread. My apologies.

True, its not like the movies where the Nazi's were announcing peoples fates in the lineup, they usually motioned left or right. The ones on the Left were usually told that they had an infestation of some kind so they needed to take a shower. The ones on the right were usually taken to an area far away from the execution areas.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by Christopher Hitchens

One way of phrasing the question is this: Do the extreme jihadists and their most virulent opponents really have a symbiotic relationship? In tapes and sermons from mosques in London and Hamburg, you may find whole manifestos about the need to keep women as chattel, to eradicate the disease of homosexuality, to thwart the Jewish design over international finance, and other fantasies of the Third Reich mentality. Pushed to its logical or pathological conclusion, this would involve something that Europeans and Americans have never seen before: a conflict between different forms of fascism in order to see which assault on multi-ethnic democracy was the most effective.

http://www.slate.com/id/2299959
Commentary from Christopher Hitchens.

[troutman]

edit ^^^ already linked

A Ridiculous Rapid Response
Why did so many "experts" declare the Oslo attacks to be the work of Islamic terrorists?

By Christopher Hitchens
http://www.slate.com/id/2299959/

[Displaced Flames fan]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

The jihadist is real, but as we saw even in this case, unnamed analyst says such and such a group has claimed responsibility.

Hours Later: Oh, it's an upper middle class white christian and... Such and such a group doesn't even exist.

If I didn't know any better, I would swear it was satire.

So you're assuming the claim of responsibility was fabricated by the media?

Certainly within the realm of possibility, but I don't jump to that conclusion right away.

[SeeBass]

[Dion]

[Thor]

Good to see Hitch still writing, hard to find any real updates on his current health though; hope by some great fortune he's survives this cancer battle.

[Thor]

lol Beck adds humour to this horrible story.

Beck said the camp "sounds a little like, you know, the Hitler Youth or whatever. Who does a camp for kids that's all about politics? Disturbing."
However, politically-oriented camps are being organized in several U.S. states by chapters of the "9/12 Project" -- an organization founded by Beck himself in 2009.
The Colorado 9/12 Project hosted a "Patriot Camp" for kids in grades 1-5 earlier this month, featuring programs on "our Constitution, the Founding Fathers, and the values and principles that are the cornerstones of our nation."
And in August, the Danville, Kentucky, chapter is holding a "Vacation Liberty School" that organizers pledge "will help your children understand where we came from. Understand where we went wrong. Understand where the fork in the road was, and which path we should have taken."

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS...html?hpt=hp_p1

[SeeBass]

I sure hope they do not put a church anywhere near the bombing site.

Sure it is legal to do it, but it probably wouldn't be right.

They will probably call it some community centre.

I just hope the church would tell us where all the money would be coming from to build it.

[HOZ]

So apparently the guy used drugs and thought he was a warrior.

OSLO — A lawyer representing the anti-Muslim extremist who carried out the massacre in Norway sought to fill in some of the wide gaps in public knowledge about his client on Tuesday, portraying him as a “very cold” person who lived in his own world, buttressed by drugs and the belief that he was a warrior doomed to die for a cause others did not comprehend.

The lawyer, Geir Lippestad, declined to say whether his client, Anders Behring Breivik, 32, would plead insanity as a defense when his case comes to trial. However, the lawyer told a news conference, “this whole case has indicated that he is insane.”

This of course is his Lawyer who will try to paint his client in the "best" possible picture. I think Weiser Wonder's explanation of him being a psychopath is still the likeliest possibility.

[T@T]

Originally Posted by Cowperson

I assume professionals will eventually give us their opinions and help settle the argument.

There's a certain "how much is enough?" thing here.

He evidently was good enough at research to probably have know that even a dozen deaths would have been enough to make the point and generate sufficient global publicity for his cause.

He just kept going and going and going and going until he was eventually confronted and immediately surrendered. There wasn't even a dramatic shootout. What if the police had given him yet another hour and assuming no shortage of ammunition?

There's a singular lack of humanity there.

Even for Stalin, the author of the brilliantly observant "One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic" I doubt he could have personally done what this chap did. Ordering millions to their deaths is a different level than ruthlessly hearing the screams and the pleas for mercy from the helpless and unarmed while you're hunting them down and pulling the trigger over and over and over.

In this tragedy, I was also thinking there would be a lot less people dead if 90 of them had rushed him all at once . . . . . but that's not how we think in an instance like that. Unless we have time to think about it and organize ourselves like they did on the Pittsburgh aircraft on 9/11.

Cowperson

The should have pulled a Bin Laden on him.