Norway's Jens Stoltenberg: Can this guy run here, please?

By Carl 

Norway's response to the terrible tragedy over the weekend that stripped the innocence of the nation from terror attacks and mass murder? 

Intelligence:

Norway's prime minister said Wednesday that the response to twin attacks that have rocked his country will be "more democracy."

Jens Stoltenberg told reporters Wednesday that Norwegians will defend themselves by showing they are not afraid of violence.

The vicious attack in the normally placid country has left Norwegians appalled and shaky, but determined to move forward. Some government workers were planning to return to work in their offices in the buildings where the bomb blasts blew out most windows. 

Contrast this with "WANTED: Dead Or Alive," paranoia, patting down grandmas, "You're with us, or with the terrists," Islamophobia so bad that ten years later the first instinct for the cowardly was to blame Al Qaeda for a bombing and killings that a) didn't even fit their modality and b) were in a country that hadn't even blipped on the radar in bin Laden's statements.

A couple of years ago, I wrote a meditation on 9/11 that goes into great depth about the fears inherent in living in what was an open society which I invite you to read at your leisure. I will not repeat it here, except this excerpt:

I will never be afraid again of this world that has been created around me by naked greed and hideous envy, for I am stronger than any of you who would see me buckle and bend to your hatred. I will be true to my soul, and true to my heart, and will fight you with every breath in my body and with every fibre of my being.

And long after you have gone to dust, long after I go to dust, the monument to truth and peace and freedom that I have added a few miserable pebbles to will stand tall and firm as a bulwark against the dark you attempt to bring to the world.

Call it a Nordic trait, I suppose: the prime minister of Norway got it a lot faster than I did. Note that those words are not only directed at those who would attack me, my home, my people, but also to those who would twist events to their own warped ends.

Those people, the greedy cowards who stick their fingers into pies simply to prevent anyone else from savoring them because they fear the loss of one pie to someone else means no pie for themselves, they are as to blame for the events in Norway as Anders Breivik himself. Moreso, since they saw first hand the devastation of terror and still incited more anger and more fear.

Truth. Peace. Freedom. The tripod of enlightened society, the true wealth of nations.

Jens Stoltenberg, you have my gratitude.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Domestic terrorist targets Detroit-area mosque

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As The Detroit News is reporting, a 63-year old California man, an Army vet, has been "charged with one count of a false report or threat of terrorism and one count of explosives-possession of bombs with unlawful intent after Dearborn police arrested him Monday outside the Islamic Center of America, one the largest mosques in North America."

The news media won't do it, but it's pretty easy to connect the dots here, isn't it? The right has stirred up an enormous amount of anti-Muslim sentiment in recent years. (Just think back to the Park51 or "Ground Zero mosque" nonsense, with leading conservatives like Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin agitating for bigotry and a willing mob of bigots targeting not just that community center but all Muslims collectively.) And here we have Roger Stockham explaining himself on his MySpace page:

Proud of my kids. Happy with how much I've lived. Ready for it to be over, but have a policy I contend with often: So long as I am alive, I can't play dead.

And preparing to commit an act of terrorism against a significant Islamic target.

As with Jared Lee Loughner, I'm sure the right will claim that this guy's insane and that there's no connection whatsoever between its anti-Muslim rhetoric (and activity) and this planned act of terrorism.

And I'm sure the media will treat this as an isolated event. Just keep moving. Nothing to see. Mind your own business.

But we know better, don't we? It hardly takes an expert in string theory to figure this out.

Who's to blame for the Spokane MLK parade bomb?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As you may have heard, a bomb was discovered on Monday along the route of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade in Spokane, Washington.

According to the FBI, the bomb was "a potentially deadly destructive device, likely capable of inflicting multiple casualties." In other words, as one FBI agent put it, it was an IED, an improvised explosive device, just the sort of thing that has taken so many lives, including so many American military lives, in war zones like Iraq. 

Indeed, that same agent, Frank Harrill, the head of the FBI's Spokane office, described the attempted bombing as "domestic terrorism." "Clearly, there was some political or social agenda here," he said.

Yes, clearly -- an agenda more than likely directed at those who would attend an MLK day parade.

Needless to say, with no known suspect(s) so far, it's far too early to blame anyone, though of course we can easily speculate as to the politics of the would-be bomber(s).

But I'm sure Sarah and Glenn and Rush and Sean and the rest are already planning their next move. Still trying to deflect any and all responsibility for the Arizona shooting, including for the violent right-wing culture that lies behind it, they may just tell us that liberals were behind this act of domestic terrorism and that the Democratic Party will defend the terrorists just as they do al Qaeda.

Because conservatives, of course, are peace-loving, violence-hating do-gooders who would never, ever, ever spill blood.

And MLK was a Teabagger, right?