Norway Terror Attacks a False Flag

More Than One Shooter on Island; Oslo Police Drilled Bomb Blasts; Was It NATO’s Revenge for Norway’s Decision to Stop Bombing Libya?
Webster G. Tarpley, Ph.D.
TARPLEY.net
http://tarpley.net/2011/07/24/norway-terror-attacks-a-false-flag

Washington DC, July 24, 2011 – The tragic terror attacks in Norway display a number of the telltale signs of a false flag provocation. It is reported that, although the world media are attempting to focus on Anders Behring Breivik as a lone assassin in the tradition of Lee Harvey Oswald, many eyewitnesses agree that a second shooter was active in the massacre at the Utøya summer youth camp outside of Oslo. It has also come to light that a special police unit had conducted drills or exercises near the opera house in downtown Oslo which involved the detonation of bombs during 2010– exactly what caused the bloodshed a few hundred meters away this Friday. Further research reveals that United States intelligence agencies had been conducting a large-scale program of recruiting retired Norwegian police officers with the alleged purpose of conducting surveillance inside the country. This program, known as SIMAS Surveillance Detection Units, provided a perfect vehicle for the penetration and subversion of the Norwegian police by NATO.

A motive for the attack is also present: as part of its attempt to mount an independent foreign policy, including the imminent diplomatic recognition of a Palestinian state as part of a general rapprochement with the Arab world, Norway was leading the smaller NATO states in dropping out of the imperialist aggressor coalition currently bombing Libya. Norway was scheduled to stop all bombing and other sorties against the Gaddafi forces as out of August 1 at the latest.

Finally, the CIA limited hangout operation known as Wikileaks has already furnished a prefabricated off-the-shelf case for incompetence and malfeasance against the current Norwegian government that is doing all these things – in the form of a series of real or doctored dispatches which document the alleged negligence of this government in dealing with the terrorist threat, all in the view of US State Department officials.

VG of Oslo: “Several” Eyewitnesses Say there were Two Shooters on the Island

As noted, world press and media of the Anglo-American school have immediately battened onto Breivik as an archetypal lone assassin cast in the mold of Lee Harvey Oswald, Sirhan Sirhan, and so many others. The problem for the terror mythographs is that , in most of these cases, there is credible to overwhelming evidence that these figures could not have acted alone. Among more recent loan assassins, Breivik could be compared to Major Nidal Hasan of Fort Hood, Texas, whose shooting spree dates back to November 2009. Hasan is accused of having killed seven people. At the time, it was considered remarkable that Hasan had managed to kill so many armed soldiers on the military base. But early reports suggested that there were one or two other shooters in addition to Hasan. As usually happens, these extra shooters were soon expunged from the hegemonic media narrative.1

In the Norwegian case, the evidence that Breivik was not alone in claiming his fearful toll of victims is clear and convincing. Here are some excerpts from a report published by the Oslo newspaper VG:

“Several of the youths who were at the Utøya the shooting drama, told VG that they are convinced that there must have been more than one perpetrator. Marius Helander Røset believes the same thing: – I am sure that there was shooting from two different places on the island at the same time, he said.

Witnesses: – There were two people

Police believe Anders Behring Breivik (32) is the perpetrator who was dressed as a policeman , and have charged him for two terrorist attacks. Young people interviewed by VG describe an additional perpetrator – who was not wearing a police uniform. The person was following them around was 180 centimeters tall, had thick dark hair and a Nordic appearance. He had a pistol in his right hand and a rifle on his back. – I believe that there were two people who were shooting, says Alexander Stavdal (23)….

At the press conference Saturday morning opened the police said that there could have been several perpetrators and emphasized that there is an ongoing investigation.”2

The presence of a second shooter is of course most inconvenient for the lone assassin theory, since it represents incontrovertible evidence of a criminal conspiracy, the very thing which the media coverage is usually anxious to avoid. In the Norwegian case, the reports of a second shooter seemed to be persistent enough 36 hours after the main event so as to hold out some hope that the entire official version can be brought down on this particular.

Police Had Drilled Setting off Bombs in Same Area During 2010

Another telltale critical sign of a false flag operation is the holding of drills or exercises –allegedly for counterterrorism purposes — by the police or the military at the same time as the terror attack, or shortly before the real terror attack begins. Sometimes, the terror drills or exercises are scheduled to begin slightly after the time when the actual terror attack occurs. For large-scale terror actions, which the Norway attacks were, it is not uncommon for the drills to occur well in advance – 9/11, for example, was the result of capabilities which had been built up over a period of several years, as well as of future drills stretching well into 2002. In these cases, it is often discovered that the self-styled anti-terror drill or exercise contains a simulated action or event which strongly resembles the real world terror attack, the one which actually kills people. The media will then refer to an astounding coincidence or a weird happenstance, but the reality is that the terror drill has been taken live or flipped live in the form of real killings. Once the drill has occurred, the capabilities, hardware, etc., which it has created can remain in place to be mobilized at the desired moment. The secret is that the legally sanctioned drill has been used to conduit or bootleg the actual butchery through a government bureaucracy whose resources are required to run the terror but in which there are many officials who cannot be allowed to know what is happening.

The Norway events provide a very clear illustration of this principle. In Oslo, a powerful bomb went off in or near the building which houses the office of the Prime Minister. Exactly as we would expect, special anti-terror police had been drilling setting off bombs in a nearby part of the Norwegian capital in advance, specifically during 2010. The public had not been informed in advance, but found out what was happening when they began hearing bombs in the opera house district, less than a kilometer away from the prime minister’s office which was attacked on Friday. Here is a report from the newspaper Aftenposten:

“Armed police were seen in the area around the opera house in Oslo, and violent explosions could be heard over large parts of the city. No one knew that this was all a matter of practice. The Information Section of the Oslo police deeply regrets that the public was not made aware of the seemingly dramatic exercise….It was the emergency squad, the national police special unit against terrorism, which was conducting a drill in the cordoned off area at Bjørvika pier. According to a press release from the police, nearly a day after the exercise, the drill consisted of training in the controlled detonation of explosive charges….The exercise will continue for the rest of Wednesday night and a few more explosions are expected….The exercise followed a familiar pattern for all anti-terror forces around the world: The men lowered themselves down from the ceiling and into through the window that had just been blown out, while they fired hand their weapons.”3

Peter Power of Visor Consultants told BBC Radio Five in the wake of the London subway bombings of July 7, 2005 that his firm had been conducting an exercise based on explosions going off in substantially the same stations of the London underground at the same times when the real explosions had actually occurred. The Norwegian events exhibit the same kind of strange coincidence.

A Motive: Norway Had Decided to Stop Bombing Libya August 1

The targets of the Norwegian terror attacks are all expressly political, including government offices and a summer youth camp of the ruling Labor Party, and thus point in the direction of politics. The government of Norway is currently a coalition composed of the Labor Party, the Socialist Left Party, and the Center Party. Norway has traditionally attempted to cultivate a pro-Arab foreign policy, as seen in its sponsorship of the Oslo peace accords between Israeli Prime Minister Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in the mid-1990s. The current government has announced its intention of granting diplomatic recognition to a Palestinian state in the near future. When the destabilization of Libya began last February, the Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre of the Labor Party warned Norway’s partners in the NATO alliance against getting involved.

But soon after this, Norway gave in to US pressure and agreed to participate in NATO’s bombing of Libya for an initial period of three months, sending six planes which have carried out an estimated 10% of all the bombing raids mounted by the Atlantic alliance. However, as the end of its three-month commitment had passed, Norway had reduced its contingent to four planes during the month of July, and had announced on June 10 that it was planning to withdraw altogether from the NATO bombing coalition no later than August 1.

The Norwegian decision to drop out of the NATO attack coalition was associated with a similar move by the Netherlands, which was announced on that same day of June 10. The Dutch had decided to maintain their contingent of six planes, but will no longer take part in bombing attacks on ground targets. Henceforth, the Dutch are willing only to help enforce the no-fly zone through air interdiction. There was therefore the potential that Norway’s example could trigger a general tendency by the smaller NATO states to quit the bombing coalition, in which their collective presence is highly significant.

Leading figures of the Norwegian government were among the first to undercut the supposed rationale for the NATO bombing, while urging negotiations: ‘”The solution to the problems in Libya are political, they cannot be solved by military means alone,” Norwegian Prime Minister Stoltenberg told reporters gathered for a conference in Oslo on May 13. “We are very much supporting all efforts to find a political solution to the challenges we are facing in Libya,” he added. Norway’s government …pledged to scale down its role in NATO-orchestrated air strikes on Libya after its current three-month commitment ends on June 24.4

This was the policy of the entire Norwegian government: ‘Norway will scale down its fighter jet contribution in Libya from six to four planes and withdraw completely from the NATO-led operation by Aug. 1, the government said Friday…. Defense Minister Grete Faremo said she expects understanding from NATO allies because Norway has a small air force and cannot “maintain a large fighter jet contribution during a long time.” Norway’s air force, meanwhile says its F-16 jets have carried out about 10 percent of the NATO airstrikes in Libya since March 31. The parties in Norway’s center-left coalition government had been at odds over whether to extend the country’s participation, which was scheduled to expire June 24. The most leftist faction in the government, the Socialist Left Party, opposed an extension, but a compromise was reached to stay in the operation until Aug. 1 with fewer planes. “It is wise to end the Norwegian fighter jet contribution. Now Norway should apply its efforts to find a peaceful solution in Libya,” Socialist Left Party lawmaker Baard Vegar Solhjell said.’5

State Department Complained of Norway’s “Lack of Commitment” to Libyan Adventure

The Norwegian decision to stop waging war against Libya, the first of its kind by any member of the Atlantic alliance, has attracted the attention of diplomatic observers, one of whom commented that the current government in Oslo has advocated “a distinctly more peaceful approach to global policies by the Norwegian government…. [despite] recent pressure from the US on Norway to contribute more in Libya military campaign. Norway has been resisting that pressure and pushing for a more peaceful approach to the US-led NATO attacks on Libya and refused to provide weapons to NATO, finally announcing last month that Norway would quit its military role in Libya by August 1. In March, as the US was rallying unilateral support to invade Libya, Norway’s minister of foreign affairs Jonas Gahr Støre was one of the few nations to warn the US against armed intervention in Libya. Norway initially supplied six fighter jets for Libya operations and has carried out about 10% of the Libya strikes since 19 March. However, US officials singled out Norway and Denmark for their ‘lack of commitment’ to the mission to oust Gaddafi… Other Norway-Libya links include Norway’s major oil- and fertilizer-related interests in Libya: the Norwegian state-owned Statoil, which has about 30 employees at its Tripoli offices….[Norway’s] businesses have conducted major business operations in Libya, in co-operation with Qaddafi’s regime.”6

At the present stage of the inquiry, the best estimate of a motive for the Norwegian attacks is to punish the country for its independent and pro-Arab foreign policy in general, and for its repudiation of the NATO bombing coalition arrayed against Libya in particular.

Are SIMAS Surveillance Detection Units the New Gladio for Norway?

US and NATO intelligence have been shown to possess extraordinary capabilities inside Norway, many of which may be operating outside of the control of the Norwegian government. In early November 2010, the Oslo television channel TV2 exposed the existence of an extensive network of paid assets and informants of US intelligence recruited from the ranks of retired police and other officials. The ostensible goal of this program was the surveillance of Norwegians who were taking part in demonstrations and other activities critical of the United States and its policies. One of the Norwegians recruited was the former chief of the anti-terror section of the Oslo police.7 Although the goal was supposedly merely surveillance, it is possible to imagine some other and far more sinister activities that could be carried out by such a network of retired cops, including the identification and subversion of rotten apples on the active-duty police force. Some of the capabilities of a network of this type would not be totally alien to the sort of events that have just occurred in Norway.

The official name for the type of espionage cell which the United States was creating in Norway is Surveillance Detection Unit (SDU). The SDUs in turn operate within the framework of the Security Incident Management Analysis System (SIMAS). SIMAS is known to be used for spying and surveillance by US Embassies not just in the Nordic bloc of Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, but worldwide. The terror events also raise the question of whether SIMAS has an operational dimension. Could this apparatus represents a modern version of the Cold War stay behind networks set up in all NATO countries and best-known under the name of the Italian branch, Gladio?

The Norwegian government needs to find out. Thus far Norwegian ministers have asserted that they never approved the SIMAS network of SDUs. “We never knew about it,” claimed Norway’s Justice Minister Knut Storberget and Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre in chorus. Hillary Clinton stated instead that the Norwegians had been informed.

CIA’s Wikileaks Limited Hangout Has Rationale for Toppling Norway’s Government

Thanks to document dumps by the CIA limited hangout subsidiary generally known as Wikileaks, an obvious path for using the Norwegian terror attacks as a rationale for overthrowing the current government has already been provided. Real or doctored State Department cables obligingly made available by Wikileaks portray the Norwegian government which NATO hates as a collection of bunglers and misfits, unable to take effective measures to safeguard the national security of the country.

Some of these tables have been published in the immediate wake of the terror attacks by the London Daily Telegraph, a newspaper reputedly close to NATO intelligence circles. According to this article, while ‘talking about an attempt by the Police Security Service (PST) to track one particular suspected Al Qaeda terror cell, a cable written by the US Ambassador to Norway, Barry White, describes [how Norwegian authorities] … refused the help of the UK authorities to put surveillance on a potential suspect and adds: “Not only will they not put their own resources on him…but they also just turned down the visiting UK intel service’s offer of two twelve-person surveillance teams.” The cable goes on to say the UK and US intelligence services analyzed coded conversation between terror suspects and decided it warranted surveillance. But, says the cable, “PST instead found a way to interpret the same translated coded conversation in a rosier, less threatening light, an interpretation which makes little sense to the US or UK.”’ A catalog of even the most recent failures and fiascos of the FBI and the CIA in the so-called Global War on Terror would help to put these hypocritical judgments into proper perspective, but it would also be too voluminous to be appended here.

Another damaging particular appears made to order for an attempt to blame the alleged bungling of the Norwegian government for the Oslo bomb attack: ‘The memo also reveals how, despite apparently having surveillance on the suspect, the PST lost track of bomb-making equipment which was being stored in an apartment after it was apparently removed without investigators’ noticing. The PST then failed to track one suspect for 14 days because the investigator assigned to him was called away on another job. The memo concludes: “The PST is in over its head…it simply cannot keep up.”’

Another State Department memo dished up by Wikileaks, supposedly written in 2007… adds: “The official police (PST) threat evaluation…states that international terror organizations are not a direct threat against Norway. A memo written in 2008 shows how the US felt that Norway was not awake to the possibility of a potential terrorist attack. The cable reads: “We repeatedly press Norwegian authorities to take terrorism seriously. We will seek to build on this momentum to fight the still-prevalent feeling that terrorism happens elsewhere, not in peaceful Norway.” And a cable written just last year adds: “The PST still viewed Denmark as more of a target than Norway, for reasons very specific to the cartoon controversy.” 8

The government of Norway needs to go on the offensive and establish the whole truth of what has just occurred. Otherwise, that government is likely to succumb to the internationally orchestrated campaign which the Wikileaks documents so clearly foreshadow.

References

1 http://tarpley.net/2009/11/16/nidal-malik-hasan-of-virginia-tech-bethesda-ond-fort-hood-a-major-patsy-in-a-drill-gone-live

2 See RIA Novosti, July 23, 2011, http://en.rian.ru/world/20110723/165350450.html; – From the VG website: “Flere av ungdommene som var på Utøya under skytedramaet forteller til VG at de er overbevist om at det må ha vært mer enn én gjerningsmann. Det mener også Marius Helander Røset.” “Jeg har overbevist om at det var to personer som skjøt, sier Aleksander Stavdal (23).” “Vedkommende var i følge dem rundt 180 centimeter høy, hadde tykt mørkt hår og så nordisk ut. Han hadde en pistol i høyrehånden og et gevær på ryggen.” http://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/oslobomben/artikkel.php?artid=10080627

3 “Politiet glemte å informere om øvelse: Anti-terrorpolitiet avfyrte sprengladninger under en øvelse midt i Oslo, to hundre meter fra Operaen, men glemte å gi beskjed til publikum,” Aftenposten, c. July 20, 2011, http://mobil.aftenposten.no/article.htm?articleId=3569108

4 “Libya solution more political than military-Norway,” Reuters, 13 May 2011, http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/libya-solution-more-political-than-military-norway/

5 “Norway to quit Libya operation by August,” AP, June 10, 2011, http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/jun/10/norway-to-quit-libya-operation-by-august/

6 Tragic Irony Surrounds Oslo Bombing, Phuket Word, July 23, 2011, http://www.phuketword.com/tragic-irony-surrounds-oslo-bombings

7 Thomas Borchert, “US-Geheimdienst mit Nordfiliale: USA lassen Norweger überwachen,” Deutsche Presse-Agentur, November 4, 2010.

8 Mark Hughes, “WikiLeaks files show Norway unprepared for terror attack: Norway’s intelligence service had previously been criticized for its failure to keep track of suspected terror cells and the country was felt to be complacent about the prospect of a terror attack, secret cables from the WikiLeaks files reveal,” London Daily Telegraph, July 22, 2011. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/norway/8655964/WikiLeaks-files-show-Norway-unprepared-for-terror-attack.html

Anders Behring Breivik: 'I'm surprised I wasn't stopped'

Norway gunman told lawyer he expected to be killed before he reached Utøya island
Mark Townsend in Oslo and Helen Pidd
The Guardian, Wednesday 27 July 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/26/norway-killer-breivik-surprised-stopped

The man behind Norway's terror attacks has told his lawyer he was surprised he was not stopped straight after he bombed Oslo city centre, and that he expected to be killed before he reached the island where he shot dead 68 people.

Anders Behring Breivik was a "very cold" man who had taken drugs to keep himself awake during the shootings, the lawyer, Geir Lippestad, told a press conference yesterday.

Breivik, who has confessed to killing 76 people in the atrocities in Oslo and on Utøya island, told Lippestad he was at war with the world, and that killing was justified in a war. "He was a little surprised he succeeded – in his mind succeeded," Lippestad said. "He was expecting to be stopped earlier by the police or someone else during the actual day. He was surprised that he reached the island.

"He thought he would be killed after the bombing, after the action in the island, and he also thought he would be killed at the trial. He believes someone will kill him."

Breivik also claimed that he was part of an anti-Islam network that has two cells in Norway and "several" more abroad.

Asked to explain Breivik's mindset, Lippestad said: "He says he is sorry he had to do this but it is necessary. He looks upon himself as a warrior. And he started this war, and takes some kind of pride in that.

"He believes this is the start of a war that will go on for 60 years," Lippestad said. "He believes the other cells will continue the war."

Lippestad said that after several meetings with his client, he believed Breivik was mentally ill. "This whole case indicated that he is insane," he said of the 32-year-old, who denies he is a criminal.

The lawyer, a member of Norway's Labour party whose youth wing was targeted by Breivik, said he did not know why the killer had chosen him to represent him. He added that if his client were to refuse to take psychological tests he would quit from his defence. Two psychiatric experts will now evaluate Breivik's mental state.

According to Lippestad, Breivik remains unaware of the revulsion his attacks have sparked and does not know the number of people he killed last Friday.

In isolation, a request by the suspect for a copy of the WikiLeaks files was reportedly rejected by the authorities last night.

It also emerged the Utøya Island massacre was, partly, drug-fuelled. Lippestad said the gunman had taken unspecified drugs in order "to be strong, to be efficient, to keep him awake" during the shootings.

Focus continues to intensify on links between British far-right groups and Breivik, with London the city where the suspect claimed to have launched his so-called organisation to "save Europe from Muslim takeover".

Johan Fredrikson, the chief of Oslo police, said that despite an international investigation, including involvement by British police, they still had no evidence that there was an accomplice or network behind the attacks.

Breivik's claims that he was surprised not to have been stopped earlier will add to pressure on police, who have been criticised for taking more than an hour to reach Utøya island.

It emerged on Tuesday that the nearest police helicopter available was not able to intervene because its pilots were on holiday.

Teenagers trapped on the island during the shootings last Friday claimed that they were told to stay off the line because authorities were dealing with the earlier Oslo bombing, according to relatives and local reports.

Broader questions have since emerged concerning the failure of Norwegian intelligence over the attacks. Breivik was allegedly placed on a watchlist after buying fertiliser in Poland that may have been used to build the Oslo bomb. It is thought that no further action was taken.

On Tuesday night, Norwegian police detonated a cache of explosives found at a farm leased by Breivik. "Explosives were found at the farm," police prosecutor Trine Dyngeland told Reuters. "The police carried out a controlled detonation of the explosives." She said no one was hurt in the controlled blast, at Rena, about 100 miles (160km) north of Oslo.

Officials confirmed they have opened an investigation into a Polish chemist after he admitted supplying chemicals to Breivik.

The internal security agency in Warsaw said that a Polish man faces up to eight years in prison for selling to Breivik via the internet "substances that could be potentially dangerous to the life and health of many people".

The device that exploded on Friday had a devastating ferocity. Since the blast, the justice minister, Knut Storberget, has revealed that employees from his department still remain missing in the ruins of the destroyed government building.

Anders Breivik took drugs to make himself 'strong' before shooting

Norway massacre: Anders Breivik took drugs to make himself 'strong' before shooting
Anders Behring Breivik had taken drugs to make himself "strong, efficient and awake" before he embarked on his mass killing spree, his lawyer said.
Gordon Rayner, Chief Reporter
26 Jul 2011
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/norway/8662603/Norway-massacre-Anders-Breivik-took-drugs-to-make-himself-strong-before-shooting.html

Geir Lippestad Mr Lippestad said it was “too early” to say if his client was mad, but added: “The whole case has indicated that he is insane.”

He said his client had taken drugs before going on the rampage “to be strong, efficient and awake” and was “sorry that he had to do this but it was necessary because he is in a war”.

Asked to describe Breivik, Mr Lippestad said he is “a very cold person” but “I can’t describe him because he is not like anyone else”.

The lawyer also confirmed that Breivik did make visits to Britain as he planned his “war” against Islam, and he said Breivik had referred to other “cells” outside Norway that were ready to follow his example.

“He says there are two cells in Norway and others from the Western world,” Mr Lippestad said at a press conference in Oslo.

Scotland Yard officers are trying to unravel Breivik’s links to British extremists after it emerged he had extensive contact with members of the right-wing English Defence League.

Mr Lippestad said his client had told him “he travelled to Britain” but did not say when or where.

Members of the EDL have said Breivik came to London in March 2010 when the far-right Dutch politician, Geert Wilders, visited the House of Lords. He is also reported to have been on an EDL march in Newcastle.

Mr Lippestad said his client had pleaded not guilty to murder when he appeared in court yesterday because: “He believes that he is in a war and he believes that when you are in a war you can do things like that without pleading guilty.

“He looks upon himself as a warrior who has started a war and he takes some pride in that.

“He expects this is the start of a war that will last for 60 years. He thinks the rest of the world don’t understand his point of view but in 60 years’ time we will all understand him.”

Mr Lippestad, who is a member of the Labour Party, the target of Breivik’s attacks last Friday, said his client had been “surprised” that he was not stopped sooner as he bombed Oslo and gunned down students on the island of Utoya.

Police have come in for heavy criticism for taking 90 minutes to reach the island, where Breivik shot dead 68 people.

“He was a little surprised that he succeeded,” said the solicitor. “He was expecting to be stopped earlier by the police or someone else on the actual day.”

Mr Lippestad said he did not know why Breivik had chosen him as his legal representative, and was shocked when he got a call from police on Saturday morning.

“I thought about it for 10-12 hours,” he said. “But it’s important in a democracy to hold democracy high and the legal system is an important part of a democracy.”

The BBC continue to normalise a hateful narrative

Jody McIntyre
Tuesday, 26 July 2011
http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2011/07/26/the-bbc-continue-to-normalise-a-hateful-narrative/

“The central question still remains,” Jeremy Paxman began on BBC Newsnight last night, “was this the action of a solitary, deranged individual, or do his actions reflect a wider unease both in Norway and perhaps beyond, about immigration and asylum seekers, which people like Breivik can exploit?” The third, and most obvious answer is left ignored; that Breivik was a white supremacist emboldened by the right-wing, Islamophobic rhetoric of European governments. When Muslim extremists commit atrocities, their entire ideology, beliefs and even religion are examined, analysed and condemned, but in the case of Breivik, his are real problems in society that one man took too far. Indeed, if this had been carried out by a Muslim attacker, or any person with brown skin, we would currently be witnessing a media frenzy of racist and xenophobic propaganda. Because Breivik is a white, Christian, European man, only the individual, and not those elements of his identity, is blamed.

It seemed that the “#blamethemuslims” trend, so aptly initiated by Sanum Ghafoor in the wake of the Norwegian tragedy, had died down, but BBC Newsnight continued with the myth:

“Many in Norway presumed they were being attacked by Islamic terrorists,” the report continued. How does this make sense, when the first person arrested was a Nordic man with blond hair and blue eyes? How does this make sense, when, as Gary Younge observed in his Nation column this week:

“According to Europol, between 2006 and 2008 only 0.4 percent of terrorist plots (including attempts and fully executed attacks) in Europe were from Islamists. The lion’s share (85 percent) were related to separatism.”

Nevertheless, the Newsnight reporter seemed genuinely surprised when he said, “But this wasn’t the work of al-Qa’ida,” as if that was the logical conclusion. So-called ‘experts’ reminisced of a time when “Norway was lily-white”. Never one to fail to provide an opportunity for self-glorification and pity, the BBC had once again invited the leader of the EDL, Stephen Lennon, for an extended interview.

Paxman is notorious for his harsh and confrontational interviewing style, but with Lennon, this never seems to have been the case. Lennon is not interrupted often, and allowed to repeat a hateful narrative of intolerance over and over again. Not once does Paxman raise the point that the frustration and anger of Muslims living in England may have something to do with the foreign policy of the British state, which has recently engaged in the bombing of three predominantly Muslim countries; Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.

The EDL are consistently emboldened and empowered by these much-discussed media opportunities; it legitimises their rhetoric, and provides them with the platform they thrive on. So much is their confidence growing that, throwing off the pretence of a focus on “Islamic extremism [and/or] fundamentalism”, Stephen Lennon now has no qualms with announcing, on national television, that “Islam is a threat.” I cannot begin to imagine the stream of apologies that would be emanating from BBC headquarters had an interviewee made this assertion about any other religion. At one point, Paxman and Lennon were even finishing each other’s sentences:

“No-one is denying there is great anxiety,” Paxman began.

“About Islam,” Lennon agreed.

The argument that rational-minded people will see Lennon’s racism for what it is does not hold water when one takes into account the constant attack on Muslims and immigrants by government officials and respectable media sources. With increasing frequency, the EDL are being presented as the genuine and legitimate voice of a disillusioned population. Tommy Robinson warns that a Breivik-style attack could happen in England within the next few years. If it does, then the BBC, which continues to provide the platform for right-wing leaders such as Stephen Lennon and Nick Griffin to spread their ideals without rigorous questioning, will have to recognise the role they have played.

Unanswered questions in Norway terror attack

By Susan Garth
28 July 2011
http://wsws.org/articles/2011/jul2011/norw-j28.shtml

It is now almost a week since the fascist atrocity in Norway—the blowing up of government offices in central Oslo, killing eight people, and the cold-blooded murder of 68 young people on the nearby island of Otøya.

This terrorist attack, the most deadly in post-war Norwegian history, has been consistently reported as the work of a crazed gunman who acted alone. The media and politicians are working assiduously to obscure the political motives of the killer, his connections to far-right and fascist organizations, and the political and moral responsibility borne by establishment parties and politicians in Europe and the US who have sought to appropriate the anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim program of the extreme right wing.

This is not an easy task, since the killer, Anders Behring Breivik, announced to the world that he was setting out to destroy the Norwegian Labour Party and kill as many of its officials and members as possible because he associated the party with “Marxist multiculturalism.” In a 1,500-page manifesto posted on the Internet only hours before the attack, Breivik, the son of a former Norwegian diplomat, proclaimed his bloody act to be part of a campaign to purge Muslim influence from Norway and defend “Western civilization.”

His action, he explained, should signal the start of a European civil war and serve as a rallying point for anti-Muslim fanatics. His lawyer, Geir Lippestad said on Tuesday, “He believes this is the start of a war that will go on for 60 years.”

In the rush by the media and political establishment to derail any serious discussion or examination of the facts of the attack and its political implications, a number of glaring anomalies and troubling questions are being passed over in silence.

There is the fact that it took the police 90 minutes to arrive on Otøya, 25 miles from Oslo, after they began receiving desperate telephone calls from Labour Party youth reporting that scores of people were being executed by a gunman. The official story is that no helicopters were available.

If that is true, it only demonstrates the fraud of the so-called “war on terrorism.” Norway has sent troops to Afghanistan and is supporting the US-NATO air war against Libya supposedly because such interventions are necessary to protect the people of Norway and Europe as a whole from the ever-present threat of terrorist attack. But an actual terrorist attack on Norwegian soil—not by an Islamic extremist but by a native-born middle-class Norwegian—immediately exposes the fact that no preparations have been made to protect the population.

Why? Because the Norwegian ruling class and all of its parties—social democratic as well as conservative—understand that the so-called “war on terror” is an elaborate pretext for military aggression abroad on behalf of the imperialist economic and geo-political interests of the financial elite, and an assault on democratic rights at home to prepare for state repression against working class opposition to austerity measures. It has nothing to do with defending the people against external attack.

Far from offering a serious explanation for the delayed police response, which gave Breivik all the time he needed he murder one youth after another without hindrance, Justice Minister Knut Storberget on Tuesday praised the “fantastic work” of the police.

“I would like to emphasize that the police have done a magnificent job and I do not think it is appropriate to criticise the police,” he said when journalists questioned him about the 90 minute delay. “It is important for me to congratulate all policewomen and policemen working on the streets, as well as all senior police officials,” Storberget insisted.

Nor was the performance of Norway’s Delta Force, presumably the first line of defence against terrorist attacks, any better. The head of the force, Anders Snortheimsmoen, said this week that it arrived at the same time as the local police.

According to his lawyer, Breivik himself was surprised that he was able to carry out the massacre on Otøya after exploding the bomb in Oslo. He expected to be killed immediately after the Oslo bombing. The ease and speed with which Breivik reached the island and put his terrorist plan into operation stands in marked contrast to time it took the police to make the same journey to apprehend him.

The delay in the police response is only one of many troubling unanswered questions. It is widely reported that Breivik was wearing as police uniform. How did he obtain it?

Early reports said that six people were arrested in Breivik’s apartment. They were later said to have been released because they had no connection with the case. But why were six people at the home of a man who has been described as a loner?

Breivik initially claimed to be working alone, but he later said there were two other terrorist cells in Norway, as well as others abroad. Norwegian police have been quick to deny that Breivik had any accomplices.

Janne Kristiansen, head of domestic intelligence, said it was “highly unlikely” that other cells existed, despite the fact that other security agencies worldwide are searching for links to Breivik. On what facts or evidence is Kristiansen’s conclusion based? The mainstream media do not bother to even ask.

Evidence of Breivik’s links to right-wing organisations is mounting. The English Defence League (EDL), which initially denied any connection with him, has now back-tracked and is examining the possibility, after the UK-based Searchlight magazine, which investigates right-wing groups, published material indicating that contacts existed between the EDL and Breivik.

If Breivik operated alone, it is difficult to explain how he assembled the chemicals and weapons he needed for his attack. Norwegian police blew up explosives at a farm rented by Breivik. They refused to say what quantity of explosives was involved. Some reports have suggested that he had a total of 6 tonnes of explosives sourced from different companies, some of them outside Norway.

His purchases brought him to the attention of Norwegian customs, who reported him to the security services. His name was on an Interpol and a Norwegian watch list. How, then, was he able to proceed with impunity in carrying out his murderous plan?

The attempt to separate the terrorist attack in Norway from the increasing integration of fascistic tendencies into mainstream European bourgeois politics pervades the media coverage and official commentary. Every effort is being made to portray this politically motivated crime as an isolated event that has no wider political significance.

Writing in the Guardian, British journalist Simon Jenkins declared: “The Norwegian tragedy is just that, a tragedy. It does not signify anything and should not be forced to do so. A man so insane he can see nothing wrong in shooting dead 68 young people in cold blood is so exceptional as to be of interest to criminology and brain science, but not to politics.”

Meanwhile, some spokesmen for right-wing parties that share government power are defending the political outlook of Breivik. Interviewed on a popular radio show, Francesco Speroni, a leading member of the Northern League, the junior partner in Silvio Berlusconi's conservative coalition, said, “Breivik’s ideas are in defence of Western civilization.”

Another Northern League politician, member of the European parliament Mario Borghezio, told radio Il Sole-24 Ore that he sympathised with Breivik’s ideas. “Some of the ideas he expressed are good, barring the violence. Some of them are great,” Borghezio said.

Breivik is a former member of the Norwegian Progress Party, which calls for tighter curbs on immigration. In 2009, Siv Jensen, leader of the party, identified what she called “a kind of sneak-Islamisation of this society,” for which she blamed the Labour Party. “We are going to have to stop this,” she said.

Breivik reportedly left the Progress Party because he deemed it insufficiently right-wing.

What has taken place in Norway is a fascist terror attack. Its immediate target was the Norwegian Labour Party, but there should be no mistake that the objective of the forces to which Breivik belongs is a war on the working class.

The Norwegian Labour Party, like every other social democratic party, has adapted its policies to the extreme right. The effect of last Friday’s attack will be to drive it even further to the right, and other parties, social democratic and otherwise, will follow suit.

The Norway terror attack is the outcome of a process in which fascistic elements have been nurtured over many years and are now being brought into official political life. The massacre exposes the putrefaction of the entire political system in Europe and beyond.

How a clueless "terrorism expert" set media suspicion on Muslims

How a clueless "terrorism expert" set media suspicion on Muslims after Oslo horror

Benjamin Doherty
Sat, 07/23/2011
http://electronicintifada.net/blog/benjamin-doherty/how-clueless-terrorism-expert-set-media-suspicion-muslims-after-oslo-horror

Immediately after news of the bombing of government buildings in Norway’s capital Oslo, the Internet buzzed with speculation about who might have done it and why. Most speculation focused on so-called Islamist militancy and Muslims. The urge to speculate after grave events is understandable, but the focus of speculation, its amplification through social media, its legitimization in mainstream media, and the privilege granted to so-called experts is a common pattern.

The danger of such speculation is that it adds little knowledge but causes real harm by spreading fear and loathing of Muslims, immigrants and other vulnerable and routinely demonized populations, and whether intentional or not, assigns collective guilt to them.

“Experts” who supposedly study this topic — almost always white men and very often with military or government backgrounds — direct suspicion toward Muslims by pointing to claims of responsibility on “jihadi” web sites that only they have access to. Notorious attacks invariably inspire false claims of responsibility, or false reports of claims of responsibility, but this apparently doesn’t discourage the media and experts from giving them undue attention.

From the “experts” to The New York Times to the world…
The New York Times originally reported:

A terror group, Ansar al-Jihad al-Alami, or the Helpers of the Global Jihad, issued a statement claiming responsibility for the attack, according to Will McCants, a terrorism analyst at C.N.A., a research institute that studies terrorism.

In later editions, the story was revised to read:

Initial reports focused on the possibility of Islamic militants, in particular Ansar al-Jihad al-Alami, or Helpers of the Global Jihad, cited by some analysts as claiming responsibility for the attacks. American officials said the group was previously unknown and might not even exist.

The source is Will McCants, adjunct faculty at Johns Hopkins University. On his website he describes himself as formerly “Senior Adviser for Countering Violent Extremism at the U.S. Department of State, program manager of the Minerva Initiative at the Department of Defense, and fellow at West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center.” This morning, he posted “Alleged Claim for Oslo Attacks” on his blog Jihadica:

This was posted by Abu Sulayman al-Nasir to the Arabic jihadi forum, Shmukh, around 10:30am EST (thread 118187). Shmukh is the main forum for Arabic-speaking jihadis who support al-Qaeda. Since the thread is now inaccessible (either locked or taken down), I am posting it here. I don’t have time at the moment to translate the whole thing but I translated the most important bits on twitter.

The Shmukh web site is not accessible to just anyone, so he is the primary source for this claim. McCants stated from the beginning that the claim had been removed or hidden, and on Twitter he even cast doubt on whether it was a claim of responsibility at all.

The omnipotence of Al Qaeda and meaninglessness of "Terrorism"

Glenn Greenwald Saturday, Jul 23, 2011
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/07/23/nyt/index.html

For much of the day yesterday, the featured headline on The New York Times online front page strongly suggested that Muslims were responsible for the attacks on Oslo; that led to definitive statements on the BBC and elsewhere that Muslims were the culprits. The Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin wrote a whole column based on the assertion that Muslims were responsible, one that, as James Fallows notes, remains at the Post with no corrections or updates. The morning statement issued by President Obama -- "It's a reminder that the entire international community holds a stake in preventing this kind of terror from occurring" and "we have to work cooperatively together both on intelligence and in terms of prevention of these kinds of horrible attacks" -- appeared to assume, though (to its credit) did not overtly state, that the perpetrator was an international terrorist group.

But now it turns out that the alleged perpetrator wasn't from an international Muslim extremist group at all, but was rather a right-wing Norwegian nationalist with a history of anti-Muslim commentary and an affection for Muslim-hating blogs such as Pam Geller's Atlas Shrugged, Daniel Pipes, and Robert Spencer's Jihad Watch. Despite that, The New York Times is still working hard to pin some form of blame, even ultimate blame, on Muslim radicals:

Terrorism specialists said that even if the authorities ultimately ruled out Islamic terrorism as the cause of Friday’s assaults, other kinds of groups or individuals were mimicking Al Qaeda's brutality and multiple attacks.

"If it does turn out to be someone with more political motivations, it shows these groups are learning from what they see from Al Qaeda," said Brian Fishman, a counterterrorism researcher at the New America Foundation in Washington.


Al Qaeda is always to blame, even when it isn't, even when it's allegedly the work of a Nordic, Muslim-hating, right-wing European nationalist. Of course, before Al Qaeda, nobody ever thought to detonate bombs in government buildings or go on indiscriminate, politically motivated shooting rampages. The NYT speculates that amonium nitrate fertilizer may have been used to make the bomb because the suspect, Anders Behring Breivik, owned a farming-related business and thus could have access to that material; of course nobody would have ever thought of using that substance to make a massive bomb had it not been for Al Qaeda. So all this proves once again what a menacing threat radical Islam is.

Then there's this extraordinarily revealing passage from the NYT -- first noticed by Richard Silverstein -- explaining why the paper originally reported what it did:

Initial reports focused on the possibility of Islamic militants, in particular Ansar al-Jihad al-Alami, or Helpers of the Global Jihad, cited by some analysts as claiming responsibility for the attacks. American officials said the group was previously unknown and might not even exist.

There was ample reason for concern that terrorists might be responsible.


In other words, now that we know the alleged perpetrator is not Muslim, we know -- by definition -- that Terrorists are not responsible; conversely, when we thought Muslims were responsible, that meant -- also by definition -- that it was an act of Terrorism. As Silverstein put it:

How's that again? Are the only terrorists in the world Muslim? If so, what do we call a right-wing nationalist capable of planting major bombs and mowing down scores of people for the sake of the greater glory of his cause? If even a liberal newspaper like the Times can't call this guy a terrorist, what does that say about the mindset of the western world?


What it says is what we've seen repeatedly: that Terrorism has no objective meaning and, at least in American political discourse, has come functionally to mean: violence committed by Muslims whom the West dislikes, no matter the cause or the target. Indeed, in many (though not all) media circles, discussion of the Oslo attack quickly morphed from this is Terrorism (when it was believed Muslims did it) to no, this isn't Terrorism, just extremism (once it became likely that Muslims didn't). As Maz Hussain -- whose lengthy Twitter commentary on this event yesterday was superb and well worth reading -- put it:

That Terrorism means nothing more than violence committed by Muslims whom the West dislikes has been proven repeatedly. When an airplane was flown into an IRS building in Austin, Texas, it was immediately proclaimed to be Terrorism, until it was revealed that the attacker was a white, non-Muslim, American anti-tax advocate with a series of domestic political grievances. The U.S. and its allies can, by definition, never commit Terrorism even when it is beyond question that the purpose of their violence is to terrorize civilian populations into submission. Conversely, Muslims who attack purely military targets -- even if the target is an invading army in their own countries -- are, by definition, Terrorists. That is why, as NYU's Remi Brulin has extensively documented, Terrorism is the most meaningless, and therefore the most manipulated, word in the English language. Yesterday provided yet another sterling example.

One last question: if, as preliminary evidence suggests, it turns out that Breivik was "inspired" by the extremist hatemongering rantings of Geller, Pipes and friends, will their groups be deemed Terrorist organizations such that any involvement with them could constitute the criminal offense of material support to Terrorism? Will those extremist polemicists inspiring Terrorist violence receive the Anwar Awlaki treatment of being put on an assassination hit list without due process? Will tall, blond, Nordic-looking males now receive extra scrutiny at airports and other locales, and will those having any involvement with those right-wing, Muslim-hating groups be secretly placed on no-fly lists? Or are those oppressive, extremist, lawless measures -- like the word Terrorism -- also reserved exclusively for Muslims?

The Slaughter in Norway

Robert Parry
July 24, 2011
http://consortiumnews.com/2011/07/24/the-slaughter-in-norway

A right-wing Christian fundamentalist has reportedly taken credit for the terrorist slaughter of scores of people in Norway on Friday. The alleged perpetrators’ stated goal was to spark a Christian war against Muslims, a reaction to what he saw as a growing multiculturalism, an echo of Christian Right extremism elsewhere, notes Robert Parry.

News that a Christian extremist has taken credit for the terror attacks in Norway, including the systematic slaying of scores of youth at a summer camp, may be shocking but it shouldn’t be surprising.

Over the past decade, the Christian Right and many Jewish neoconservatives have pushed the propaganda theme that Islam is a uniquely violent monotheistic religion that requires special suppression if the West is to avoid having Sharia law imposed on everyone.

Of course, in making that argument, one has to wonder if these Christian/Jewish zealots have ever read the Hebrew Torah or studied the history of Christianity.

The obvious truth is that the Torah (or Old Testament) is filled with story after story of ancient Israelites striking down their enemies with ruthless force and without remorse. Christianity, at least since its merger with the Roman Empire early in the Fourth Century, has been the world’s preeminent violent religion bathed in blood and steeped in hypocrisy.

It is certainly true that radical Muslims have misused the teachings of Islam to justify horrendous slaughter of innocents, with al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks as standing as the most outrageous example. There also have been cases over the centuries of Islamic armies acting in barbaric ways.

But those atrocities have nothing over the genocides and the massacres committed by Christian armies and Christian zealots.

When the First Crusade captured Jerusalem in 1099, the crusaders slaughtered both Muslims and Jews, leaving parts of the Holy City awash in Muslim blood. When Jews sought refuge in a synagogue, it was burned over their heads killing everyone inside as Crusaders sang songs praising Jesus.

Divisions within Christianity itself set off centuries of killing across Europe, with defenders of the Roman Catholic faith devising new and ingenious ways to torture supposed “heretics” and with European explorers carrying their righteous Christian violence across the Atlantic Ocean to where Bible-toting Christians inflicted more centuries of genocide against the native populations.

In more modern times, the anti-Semitism of some Christians, including leaders of the Catholic Church and some Protestant sects, set the stage for the Nazi Holocaust of European Jews during World War II. After the war, Jewish refugees formed Israel as a “Jewish state” and immediately began persecuting and killing Arabs whose ancestors had lived in Palestine for centuries.

During the Cold War, Christian leaders justified widespread “death squad” operations to eradicate both “godless commies” and their sympathizers, including liberal clerics known as “liberation theologists.”

Christian/Jewish-tinged violence has continued into the new millennium with anti-Islamic sentiments an underlying factor in George W. Bush’s “war on terror,” which included the occupation of Afghanistan and the unprovoked invasion of Iraq, always somehow justified by the glories of Jesus Christ or the teachings of the Torah.

In fall 2002, Bush and his team created the propaganda framework for attacking Iraq, then took the Christmas season off in honor of the Prince of Peace, before revving the war machine back up for the March 19, 2003, attack.

That sort of hypocrisy – praising Jesus for his commitment to non-violence while using the religion he inspired as a way to justify mass murder – has been central to the history of Christianity.

So, who can be truly surprised that a Norwegian man, identified as 32-year-old Anders Behring Breivik, a right-wing fundamentalist Christian, has reportedly admitted to his role in the Oslo terror attacks on Friday?

According to press reports, acquaintances describe Breivik as a gun-loving Norwegian obsessed with what he saw as the threats of multiculturalism and Muslim immigration.

Though not admitting criminal guilt, Breivik explained his actions in a detailed manifesto calling for a Christian war to defend Europe against the threat of Muslim domination.

The attacks on Friday included a bombing in central Oslo and then the shooting of young people at a camp sponsored by Norway’s ruling Labor Party.

For more on these topics, see Robert Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege and Neck Deep, now available in a two-book set for the discount price of only $19. For details, click here.

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book,Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth’ are also available there.

Seeing 'Islamic Terror' in Norway

Learning No Lessons From Oklahoma City Mistakes
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 25, 2011]
CONTACT: Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)
Steve Rendall
srendall@fair.org
Tel: 212-633-6700 x13

WASHINGTON - Right-wing terror suspect Anders Behring Breivik reportedly killed 76 people in Norway on Friday, by all accounts driven by far-right anti-immigrant politics and fervent Islamophobia. But many early media accounts assumed that the perpetrator of the attacks was Muslim.

On news of the first round of attacks--the bombs in Oslo--CNN's Tom Lister (7/22/11) didn't know who did it, but knew they were Muslims: "It could be a whole range of groups. But the point is that Al-Qaeda is not so much an organization now. It's more a spirit for these people. It's a mobilizing factor." And he speculated confidently about their motives:

You've only got to look at the target--prime minister's office, the headquarters of the major newspaper group next door. Why would that be relevant? Because the Norwegian newspapers republished the cartoons of Prophet Mohammad that caused such offense in the Muslim world.... That is an issue that still rankles amongst Islamist militants the world over.

CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank (7/22/11) took to the airwaves to declare that "Norway has been in Al-Qaeda's crosshairs for quite some time." He added that the bombing "bears all the hallmarks of the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization at the moment," before adding, almost as an afterthought, that "we don't know at this point who was responsible."

On Fox News Channel's O'Reilly Factor (7/22/11), guest host Laura Ingraham declared, "Deadly terror attacks in Norway, in what appears to be the work, once again, of Muslim extremists." Even after Norwegian authorities arrested Breivik, former Bush administration U.N. ambassador John Bolton was in disbelief. "There is a kind of political correctness that comes up when these tragic events occur," he explained on Fox's On the Record (7/22/11). "This kind of behavior is very un-Norwegian. The speculation that it is part of right-wing extremism, I think that has less of a foundation at this point than the concern that there's a broader political threat here."

Earlier in the day on Fox (7/22/11), Bolton had explained that "the odds of it coming from someone other than a native Norwegian are extremely high." While he admitted there was no evidence, Bolton concluded that "it sure looks like Islamic terrorism," adding that "there is a substantial immigrant population from the Middle East in particular in Norway."

An early Wall Street Journal editorial (7/22/11) dwelled on the "explanations furnished by jihadist groups to justify their periodic slaughters," before concluding that because of Norway's commitment to tolerance and freedom, "Norwegians have now been made to pay a terrible price."

Once the alleged perpetrator's identity did not conform to the Journal's prejudice, the editorial was modified, but it continued to argue that Al-Qaeda was an inspiration: "Coordinated terrorist attacks are an Al-Qaeda signature. But copycats with different agendas are surely capable of duplicating its methods."

Many pundits and outlets had to scramble to justify their ideological presumptions in the wake of the unexpected suspect. Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin (7/22/11) had called the Norwegian violence "a sobering reminder for those who think it's too expensive to wage a war against jihadists," citing Thomas Joscelyn of the Weekly Standard's assertion that "in all likelihood the attack was launched by part of the jihadist hydra." In a follow-up post (7/23/11), Rubin insisted that even though she was wrong, she was right, because "there are many more jihadists than blond Norwegians out to kill Americans, and we should keep our eye on the systemic and far more potent threats that stem from an ideological war with the West."

New York Times columnist Ross Douthat (7/25/11) likewise argued that we should respond to the horror in Norway by paying more attention to the alleged perpetrator's point of view:

On the big picture, Europe’s cultural conservatives are right: Mass immigration really has left the Continent more divided than enriched, Islam and liberal democracy have not yet proven natural bedfellows and the dream of a postnational, postpatriotic European Union governed by a benevolent ruling elite looks more like a folly every day.... Conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic have an obligation to acknowledge that Anders Behring Breivik is a distinctively right-wing kind of monster. But they also have an obligation to the realities that this monster’s terrible atrocity threatens to obscure.
The New York Times' July 23 report explained that while early speculation about Muslim terrorists was incorrect,

there was ample reason for concern that terrorists might be responsible. In 2004 and again in 2008, the No. 2 leader of Al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahri, who took over after the death of Osama bin Laden, threatened Norway because of its support of the American-led NATO military operation in Afghanistan.
Of course, anyone who kills scores of civilians for political motives is a "terrorist"; the language of the Times, though, suggested that a "terrorist" would have to be Islamic.

The Times went on:

Terrorism specialists said that even if the authorities ultimately ruled out Islamic terrorism as the cause of Friday’s assaults, other kinds of groups or individuals were mimicking Al-Qaeda’s brutality and multiple attacks.

"If it does turn out to be someone with more political motivations, it shows these groups are learning from what they see from Al-Qaeda," said Brian Fishman, a counterterrorism researcher at the New America Foundation in Washington.

It is unclear why any of Breivik's actions would be considered connected in any way to terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda, which certainly did not invent the idea of brutal mass murder. But the Times was able to turn up another expert the following day who saw an Islamist inspiration for Islamophobic terrorism (7/24/11):

Thomas Hegghammer, a terrorism specialist at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment, said the manifesto bears an eerie resemblance to those of Osama bin Laden and other Al-Qaeda leaders, though from a Christian rather than a Muslim point of view. Like Mr. Breivik’s manuscript, the major Qaeda declarations have detailed accounts of the Crusades, a pronounced sense of historical grievance and calls for apocalyptic warfare to defeat the religious and cultural enemy.

"It seems to be an attempt to mirror Al-Qaeda, exactly in reverse," Mr. Hegghammer said.

To the paper's credit, the Times' Scott Shane wrote a strong second-day piece (7/25/11) documenting the influence of Islamophobic bloggers on Breivik's manifesto:

His manifesto, which denounced Norwegian politicians as failing to defend the country from Islamic influence, quoted Robert Spencer, who operates the Jihad Watch website, 64 times, and cited other Western writers who shared his view that Muslim immigrants pose a grave danger to Western culture.... Mr. Breivik frequently cited another blog, Atlas Shrugs, and recommended the Gates of Vienna among websites.
(Spencer was one of the anti-Muslim pundits profiled in FAIR's 2008 report, "Meet the Smearcasters: Islamophobia's Dirty Dozen.")

Shane's piece noted that the document, rather than being an Al-Qaeda "mirror," actually copied large sections of Ted Kaczynski's 1995 Unabomber manifesto, "in which the Norwegian substituted 'multiculturalists' or 'cultural Marxists' for Mr. Kaczynski’s 'leftists' and made other small wording changes."

It is not new for media to jump to the conclusion that Muslims are responsible for any given terrorist attack; the same thing was widespread after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombings (Extra!, 7-8/95). "It has every single earmark of the Islamic car-bombers of the Middle East," syndicated columnist Georgie Anne Geyer (Chicago Tribune, 4/21/95) asserted. "Whatever we are doing to destroy Mideast terrorism, the chief terrorist threat against Americans, has not been working," wrote New York Times columnist A.M. Rosenthal (4/21/95). "Knowing that the car bomb indicates Middle Eastern terrorists at work, it's safe to assume that their goal is to promote free-floating fear," editorialized the New York Post (4/20/95). It is unfortunate that so many outlets have failed to learn any practical lessons from such mistakes--or question the beliefs that drive them.
###
FAIR, the national media watch group, has been offering well-documented criticism of media bias and censorship since 1986. We work to invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity in the press and by scrutinizing media practices that marginalize public interest, minority and dissenting viewpoints.

New polls confirm Obama's Democratic base crumbles

Andrew Malcom
July 26, 2011
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2011/07/obama-poll-jobs-democratic-base-crumbling.html

With all of the spotlights on the high-stakes debt maneuverings by President Obama and Speaker John Boehner the last few days, few people noticed what Vermont's Sen. Bernie Sanders said:

"I think it would be a good idea if President Obama faced some primary opposition."

This is political treason 469 days before a presidential election. Yes, yes, this is just a crusty old New England independent for now, albeit one who caucuses loyally with Harry Reid's Democratic posse.

But while most of the media focuses on Republican Boehner and the tea party pressures on him to raise the debt limit not one Liberty dime, Sanders' mumblings are a useful reminder that hidden in the shadows of this left-handed presidency are militant progressives like Sanders who don't want to cut one Liberty dime of non-Pentagon spending.

An Unbalanced Approach to a Balanced Approach

Using political forensics, notice any clues, perhaps telltale code words that reveal to whom he was really addressing his Monday message? Clearly, it wasn't congressional Republicans -- or Democrats, for that matter.

The nation's top talker uttered 2,264 words in those remarks. He said "balanced approach" seven times, three times in a single paragraph.

That's the giveaway. Obviously, David Plouffe and the incumbent's strategists have been polling phrases for use in this ongoing debt duel, which is more about 2012 now than 2011. "Balanced approach" is no sweet talk for old Bernie or tea sippers on the other side.

Obama is running for the center already, aiming for the independents who played such a crucial role in his victorious coalition in 2008. They were the first to start abandoning the good ship Obama back in 2009 when all the ex-state senator could do was talk about healthcare, when jobs and the economy were the peoples' priority.

Democrats lost the New Jersey and Virginia governor's offices largely as a result of that and Ted Kennedy's Senate seat in Massachusetts. And then came last November's midterms when voters chose the approach of that historic pack of House-bound Republicans.

Republicans have their own poll problems in some areas. But even without an identified GOP presidential alternative, we've had a plethora of recent polls showing Obama's fading job approval, especially on the economy.

Now, comes a new ABC News/Washington Post poll with a whole harvest of revelations, among them, strong indications that Obama's liberal base is starting to crumble. Among the nuggets:

Despite those hundreds of billions of blown stimulus dollars and almost as many upturn promises from Joe Biden, 82% of Americans still say their job market is struggling. Ninety percent rate the economy negatively, including half who give it the worst rating of "poor."

Are You Better Off Today Than Jan. 20, 2009?

A slim 15% claim to be "getting ahead financially," half what it was in 2006. Fully 27% say they're falling behind financially. That's up 6 points since February.

A significant majority (54%) says they've been forced to change their lifestyle significantly as a result of the economic times -- and 60% of them are angry, up from 44%.

To be sure, 30 months after he returned to home cooking, George W. Bush still gets majority blame for the economy.

But here's the breaking news for wishful Democrats: George W. Bush isn't running for anything but exercise.

"More than a third of Americans now believe that President Obama’s policies are hurting the economy, and confidence in his ability to create jobs is sharply eroding among his base," the Post reports.

Strong support among liberal Democrats for Obama's jobs record has plummeted 22 points from 53% down below a third. African Americans who believe the president's measures helped the economy have plunged from 77% to barely half.

Obama's overall job approval on the economy has slid below 40% for the first time, with 57% disapproving. And strong disapprovers outnumber approvers by better than two-to-one.

Bernie Sanders on Barack Obama

"My suggestion is, I think one of the reasons the president has been able to move so far to the right is that there is no primary opposition to him, and I think it would do this country a good deal of service if people started thinking about candidates out there to begin contrasting what is a progressive agenda as opposed to what Obama is doing. I think it would be a good idea if President Obama faced some primary opposition."

Sanders: Would be 'good' for Obama to face primary challenge
Michael O'Brien
07/25/11
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/173201-sanders-says-it-would-be-good-for-obama-to-face-primary-challenge

"If you’re going to cave, tell us right now..."

From NYBooks.com:
In early July, when Obama suddenly injected Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid into the deficit and debt negotiations, many, perhaps most, Democrats were dismayed. They believed that the President was offering up the poor and the needy as a negotiating gambit. (His position was that if the Republicans would give on taxes, he’d give on entitlements.) A bewildered Pelosi said after that meeting, “He calls this a Grand Bargain?” And she came down firmly against any changes in those programs that would hurt beneficiaries.

Moreover, the Democrats had their own political reasons for opposing reductions in Medicare benefits. They had had great success in campaigning against Paul Ryan’s bizarre proposal, adopted by the House (despite even Boehner’s expressed misgivings), that would turn Medicare into a voucher system. According to Ryan’s plan the government would give future eligible Medicare recipients $6,000 and let them shop for private insurance. (Good luck.)

Having made Ryan’s proposal the centerpiece of the campaign, the Democrats had recently won a special election in a New York district that had been held by the Republicans since the 1950s. The Democrats believed they were onto a good thing.

The question arises, aside from Obama’s chronically allowing the Republicans to define the agenda and even the terminology (the pejorative word “Obamacare” is now even used by news broadcasters), why did he so definitively place himself on the side of the deficit reducers at a time when growth and job creation were by far the country’s most urgent needs?

It all goes back to the “shellacking” Obama took in the 2010 elections. The President’s political advisers studied the numbers and concluded that the voters wanted the government to spend less. This was an arguable interpretation. Nevertheless, the political advisers believed that elections are decided by middle-of-the-road independent voters, and this group became the target for determining the policies of the next two years.

That explains a lot about the course the President has been taking this year. The political team’s reading of these voters was that to them, a dollar spent by government to create a job is a dollar wasted. The only thing that carries weight with such swing voters, they decided—in another arguable proposition—is cutting spending. Moreover, like Democrats—and very unlike Republicans—these voters do not consider “compromise” a dirty word.

The President proposed at least two modest plans for stimulus spending, someone familiar with all these deliberations told me, “but he’s not as Keynesian as before.” This person said, “If the political advisers had told him in 2009 that the median voter didn’t like the stimulus, he’d have told them to get lost.” By 2011, in his State of the Union address in January he moved from jobs creation (such as the stimulus program) toward longer-term investment.

The speech Obama gave on April 13 marked his conversion to fiscal centrism; to being the fiscally responsible Democrat. In that speech he stated that he wanted to reduce the debt by $4 trillion—thus aligning himself with the Republicans—but also asked for revenues to partly offset that reduction. It was all about reelection politics, designed to appeal to this same group of independents. “And that’s why,” I was told by the person familiar with the White House deliberations, “he went bigger in the deficit reduction talks; bringing in Social Security is consistent with that slice of the electorate they’re trying to reach.” This person said, “There’s a bit of bass-ackwardness to this; the deficit spending you’d want to focus on right now is the jobs issue.”

This all fits with another development in the Obama White House. According to another close observer, David Plouffe, the manager of Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, who officially joined the White House staff in January 2011, has taken over. “Everything is about the reelect,” this observer says—”where the President goes, what he does.”

Plouffe’s advice to the President defines not just Obama’s policies but also his behavior. Plouffe tells the President, according to this observer, that the target group wants him to seem the most reasonable man in the room. Plouffe is the conceptualizer, and Bill Daley, the chief of staff who shares Plouffe’s political outlook, makes things happen; Gene Sperling, the director of economic policy, and Tom Donilon, the national security adviser, are smart men but they come out of politics rather than academia or deep experience in their respective fields. Once Austan Goolsbee, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, departs later this summer, all of the President’s original economic advisers will be gone. Partly this is because the President’s emphasis on budget cutting didn’t leave them very much to do. One White House émigré told me, “It’s not a place that welcomes ideas.”

Because of the extent to which the President had allowed the Republicans to set the terms of the debate, the attitude of numerous congressional Democrats toward him became increasingly sour, even disrespectful. After Obama introduced popular entitlement programs into the budget fight, a Democratic senator described the attitude of a number of his colleagues as:

Resigned disgust at the White House: there they go again. “Mr. Halfway” keeps getting maneuvered around as Republicans move the goalposts on him.

According to a report in The Hill newspaper in late June, the tough-minded, experienced, and blunt Democratic Representative Henry Waxman of California told Obama in a White House meeting that he’d asked several Republicans about their meeting with him the day before, and, “To a person, they said the President’s going to cave.” Then the congressman said to the President of the United States, “And if you’re going to cave, tell us right now.” The President was reported to have been displeased, and responded, “I’m the President of the United States; my words carry weight.”

What Were They Thinking?
Elizabeth Drew
August 18, 2011
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/aug/18/what-were-they-thinking

Throwing the GOP a Medicare life-preserver

Democrats had a promising 2012 strategy -- and it was already working. Then Obama started talking "grand bargain"
Steve Kornacki
Monday, Jul 25, 2011
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/07/25/obama_medicare_2012/index.html

When Barack Obama used a press conference late last Friday to once again embrace cuts to Medicare and Social Security as part of a debt ceiling deal, he noted that Nancy Pelosi "sure did not like the plan that we are proposing."

Can you blame her? Forget about whatever philosophical objections she might have to reducing entitlement spending: Obama's posture these past few weeks threatens to wipe out a 2012 campaign strategy that has the potential to deliver significant gains for Pelosi's House Democrats.

Let's remember how we got here. Three months ago, House Republicans handed Democrats a gift that seemed like it would keep on giving clear through the 2012 elections, lining up in near-unanimity behind a plan that would essentially reconfigure Medicare as a voucher program.

Speaker John Boehner, it was clear, embraced the Paul Ryan-authored plan not because he wanted to but because he believed he and his conference had to. Putting the House GOP on the record in support of a truly radical overhaul of Medicare and enduring the resulting abuse from Democrats and pundits, Boehner seemed to calculate, was necessary to show good faith to the GOP's Tea Party base. That base, after all, had revolted during the 2010 midterm primary season, knocking off seemingly entrenched GOP incumbents and candidates favored by the party establishment. And it would do so again in 2012 if Republicans on Capitol Hill didn't demonstrate that they had "purified" themselves ideologically.

So Boehner made the Ryan plan a major part of the GOP's agenda and when it came for a vote in mid-April, all but a few Republicans supported it -- and every Democrat voted no.

For Democrats, this offered a chance to recycle a game plan that worked well for them back in 1995 and 1996, the last time a new Republican majority took power in the House. Then, as now, the GOP targeted Medicare and Democrats made a show of fighting them, warning seniors about potentially catastrophic benefits reductions and using the issue to portray congressional Republicans as dangerously extreme ideologues. A variation of this ad was run by Democrats in virtually every competitive congressional district in the '96 campaign.

The result: Two years after the 1994 Republican revolution, 18 Republican incumbents were defeated for reelection. It wasn't enough to win back the chamber for Democrats, but it was clearly a successful strategy -- particularly in swing districts in the Northeast and the Rust Belt and along the Pacific Coast.

Not surprisingly, then, Democrats began dusting off that '96 playbook almost as soon as the Ryan plan cleared the House in April. And thanks to the unexpected resignation of Republican Rep. Chris Lee, they soon had an opportunity to test it out, in a special election in a GOP-friendly district in Western New York -- pretty much the kind of district that flipped to the Democrats back in '96. Kathy Hochul, the Democratic nominee, made Medicare the central issue of her campaign, with ads like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EU2lHv8Jnwo

The result: A sizable victory for Hochul in the May 24 special election. Suddenly, the idea that Democrats might actually post the 25-seat gain needed to win back the House in 2012 didn't seem out of the question. At the very least, it seemed, they had found a winning issue sure to bring them within striking distance of control heading into the 2014 cycle.

But then came the "grand bargain." For the past several weeks, Obama has aggressively and publicly pursued a deficit-slashing deal with Boehner that, in exchange for relatively slight revenue increases, would make deep domestic spending cuts, even in Medicare and Social Security. The grand bargain now seems dead, but Obama has now provided an abundance of emphatic sound bites in which he makes it clear that he believes entitlement spending can and should be cut and that doing so would strengthen -- and not harm -- the programs. In other words, he has handed the GOP the tools to create the perfect response to ads like Hochul's during the '12 campaign.

The basic political logic behind Obama's move is obvious. As Ed Kilgore noted this morning, he is pursuing a reelection strategy that depends on convincing swing voters that he's a reasonable, compromise-friendly pragmatist -- and that the GOP is beholden to an irrationally ideological base. There are even those who believe Obama always knew the grand bargain wouldn't work, and that he pushed it so hard just to demonstrate how unwilling the GOP is to compromise.

Some liken this to the strategy Bill Clinton pursued in '95 and '96, making Newt Gingrich and the GOP Congress his enemy, but there's one key difference: Back then, Clinton and congressional Democrats were on the same page when it came to Medicare. Clinton refused to sign a GOP budget that cut Medicare spending by $270 billion, forcing a dramatic government shutdown instead. And congressional Democrats then used that showdown as the basis for their unrelenting Medicare attack ads. Obama, though, has now undermined his congressional party's Medicare message.

Does this mean he's destroyed his party's best chance of winning back the House next year? That's one possible interpretation. It's also possible that if Obama succeeds in defining the GOP as a fundamentally radical party and is able to win reelection on that basis that congressional Democrats will also benefit -- that an anti-GOP tide will lift in '12 even without the Ryan plan playing a big role. And, of course, it's also possible that, however the current standoff is ultimately resolved, the public's attention will quickly return to the weak economy and poor job growth and that voters in '12 won't end caring much about Medicare, the debt ceiling, or GOP extremism.

What is clear, though, is that Obama has made his party's strategy for next year's election a lot more complicated.

Steve Kornacki is Salon's news editor. Reach him by email at SKornacki@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @SteveKornacki More: Steve Kornacki

The US Constitution Makes Default Illegal

The US Constitution Makes Default Illegal
What a Real President Would Do
August 1, 2011
Webster G. Tarpley, Ph.D.
TARPLEY.net
http://tarpley.net/2011/07/27/a-real-president-would-call-default-unconstitutional

My fellow Americans:

I speak to you tonight in an hour of grave danger to our nation. As you know, within the next few hours our government is in danger of failing to make payments of interest and principal which the United States Treasury has contracted to make. In technical terms, we are not far away from beginning to default on payments associated with those US Treasury securities which represent the public debt of the United States. As part of the same crisis, there is now a threat to over 70 million checks which your government issues every month — payments which go to recipients of Social Security, to providers of health services under the Medicare program, to Medicaid beneficiaries, to our active-duty and retired military personnel, to our defense contractors, to our government employees — in short, to everyone who receives a benefit from the federal government, who works for the federal government, or who does business with the federal government.

Default Means National Bankruptcy and World Chaos

A default of this kind means nothing less than national bankruptcy. Default is the essence of chaos and anarchy. It is a peril which we have successfully avoided during our entire existence as a nation, through a terrible civil war and the two world wars of the past century.

The United States dollar continues to play the role of the world reserve currency. This means that the central banks on every continent have chosen to maintain large portions of their reserves in the form of US Treasury securities. This role has been slightly diminished in recent years, but it is substantially intact. For the US government to default on payments through the US Treasury would therefore provoke a radical devaluation of the central bank reserves of the entire globe, wiping out some central banks and leaving others critically weakened. This might lead to massive dumping of US Treasury securities, leading to a general world panic to which no asset class would remain immune. We might see a dramatic decline of the dollar. This would represent the disintegration of the current world financial system, and a breakdown crisis of economic activity of unthinkable proportions. This might happen immediately, or it might require months or even years to explode in its full fury. In any case, it would put the United States on the road to national decline.

If you recall how financial markets seized up and ceased to function in the terrible days of September and October 2008, you have some inkling of the kind of catastrophic market climate that would be unleashed by the national bankruptcy of the United States. Borrowing, credit, mortgages, car financing, credit cards, and the like would not just require astronomical interest rates; many kinds of lending would disappear altogether. Millions more jobs would be lost.

The Public Credit is an Asset for All Americans and for the World

The United States Treasury securities market, with its $1 trillion per day of turnover, represents a unique national asset for our country. It is a signal achievement of the American System of Political Economy founded by Alexander Hamilton. It is the broadest, deepest, and most liquid market in the world. It is capable of absorbing trillions of dollars of securities and turning them into cash within a few hours – a capability unique on this planet. Despite how indignant we all are about the abuses of Wall Street, it would be extremely unwise to permit the Treasury securities market to be wrecked by ideological fanatics. All the more so since the Treasury market is unique in the world, and its extinction would leave no currency whatsoever in a position to function as the reserve medium of the world. This would have terrible implications for world trade and investment.

In short, our Treasury securities are the bedrock of all economic activity in this planet, and the common interest of humanity is well served by avoiding their chaotic insolvency.

The “Tea Party Caucus”: Right-wing Anarchists Funded by Malefactors of Great Wealth

Why, many Americans may wonder, should this crisis exist today? Here it is useless to talk in euphemisms in order to appear conciliatory; it is now necessary to call things by their names. As a result of the current world economic and financial depression which began in 2007-2008, the extreme right wing of the Republican Party, now calling itself the Tea Party, has been energized and revitalized. They have also begun to receive large amounts of political funding, including from a sinister individual who is reported to be the richest man in New York City. These are the malefactors of great wealth about whom presidents of both parties have been warning you for over a century. The goal of these opulent backers of the so-called Tea Party is to eliminate taxation and regulation upon themselves and their private business interests, many of which are in direct conflict with the public good. The impact of this Tea Party on public opinion has been magnified out of all proportion by the collusion of corrupt media cartels; in reality, the supporters of the so-called Tea Party do not exceed about 15% of our population.

Neo-Feudalism

Thanks to the economic royalists who support them, a Tea Party contingent numbering almost 90 members has entered the House of Representatives. Many are political novices. Many of them sincerely believe in the strange and un-American foreign doctrines of the Austrian school, according to which government is an unnecessary evil which needs to be abolished. It is entirely proper to see them as a species of right wing anarchist. The market, by contrast, they fetishize as infallible, and deserving of unbridled free reign over all the human affairs. They want a market without a government, something which has not existed in human affairs since the transition from the Old Stone Age to the Neolithic age, when the state emerged. The free market with no role whatsoever for government went out with Alley Oop the cave man, and it is not likely to return.

And all too often, the market of which they speak turns out not to be free, but rather dominated by predatory cartels, monopolies, and oligopolies. They are devoted to the causes of deregulation, privatization, the abolition of trade unions, more privileges for the wealthy, and a race to the bottom among the states. The world for which they are striving resembles perhaps nothing so much as feudalism as seen in Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire – and, like that anarchic chaos, it can only be described as A New Dark Age.

Most especially, these right wing anarchists of the Tea Party hate the social safety net which incorporates the precious economic rights for which the struggles of the American people won recognition during the New Deal and the Great Society. I am referring of course to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, the Head Start Program, the WIC program of high-protein meals for expectant mothers and infants, and many more. I am also referring to the right to collective bargaining for wage earners in the public and private sectors alike, and other features of a humane modern society.

Their reasons for this view read like a catalogue of the seven deadly sins, with pride, greed, rage, and envy in the lead. To these we must add class hatred, and also racism, since many of them are obsessed with the idea that their taxes are being spent to help minority groups.

New Deal America Repudiates the Tea Party

The problem faced by the Tea Party Republicans is that two thirds to three quarters of the American people warmly support the social safety net created by the New Deal and the Great Society. A recent poll has also shown that fully 80% of Americans want tax rates on the super-rich to be increased. Despite so many years of radio ranting, venal professors, and merciless sloganeering by politicians, the American people continue to repudiate the ideological platform of the so-called Tea Party. There is no hope their program could ever get passed.

Out of their despair that their ideological goals could ever be met through the democratic process, these wealthy individuals and their anarchist following have evolved a diabolical strategy. Their strategy is extortion. It is an attempt to place the United States government under duress. It is an attempt to mutilate, alter, and denature our Constitution through unconstitutional means.

It is nothing short of an illegal coup d’etat.

The Tea Party cloaks themselves in public as the greatest admirers of the U.S. Constitution. But in one concrete instance after another, we find that the Tea Party is at war with the Constitution.

The Tea Party Hates the Constitution in Practice

Our Constitution speaks not once but twice about the general welfare. To the Tea Party, this is anathema, since they believe that government should serve the wealthy few.

In terms of the issue at hand, Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution specifies that the Congress shall have the power “To borrow money on the credit of the United States.”

This is once again anathema to the Tea Party. In such a fundamental provision as this, enacted in response to the bitter lessons of ungovernability taught by the Articles of Confederation interlude, the Tea Party faction sets itself above the wisdom of the founders. The Tea Party would rewrite this provision to read that the Congress shall NOT have the power to borrow money on the credit of the United States, and the framers be damned.

This is what they admit when they demand their so-called balanced budget amendment. Such an amendment would destroy the finely wrought mechanism of the separation of powers and its accompanying checks and balances, which have served us so well over the centuries. But it is also a subterfuge, since the Tea Party knows very well that this amendment has no chance of being approved by the Congress, nor by the states. Rather, it has included in their litany of cut, cap, and balance purely as a deal-breaker, to make absolutely sure that no possible settlement can be forthcoming in the time available. They are determined to make all negotiations fail.

The Tea Party Goal is to Bankrupt the United States

The goal of the Tea Party faction of Congress is nothing less than the national bankruptcy of the United States, procured by forcing our default on the contractual and legal obligations of this government. They regard default and bankruptcy as positive goods, and indeed as indispensable steps on the path to the free market utopia they fondly imagine. Their reasoning is that, once the United States has gone bankrupt, it will henceforth be either prohibitively expensive or totally impossible for the Treasury to sell its bonds on the world financial markets. Therefore, payments on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs will have to be cut – not by law, but by the brute force of having no money.

This they do in wartime, with some 160,000 troops in the field, many of them fighting determined enemies on the other side of the world.

They claim they want predictabilty to allow businesses to create jobs, yet they court the greatest chaos and instability our nation has ever faced in our financial affairs – insolvency.

These same Tea Party ideologues, still feigning a concern about the American people, have already sponsored legislation which would give foreign creditors — the Chinese, the Japanese, the Saudis, and others — top priority in payments made by the federal government, ahead of our military personnel. According to these bills, we can be sure that Americans whose lives depend on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid will be dead last when disbursements are made. We can perhaps now see the real dimensions of the sinister plan with which we are confronted. By driving this government into bankruptcy, the Tea Party hopes to roll back the Constitution by wrecking the Congressional ability to borrow money as a practical matter, while at the same time destroying the entitlement programs which the most extreme Republicans have hated since the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

And not just Tea Party fanatics endorse this strategy. Indeed, it has the sympathy of rich elitists of all political stripes, including the academic and foundation left, who welcome the effort to strip away the economic rights of the American people.

Default Spells Genocide Against the American People

This is a policy which threatens the very lives of millions of Americans. It raises the specter of genocide against our own people. And I have not become President of the United States to preside over genocide against Americans.

I am not motivated by any ambition for the aggrandizement of the powers of the presidency. I have negotiated in good faith for months. The other side has not. I have offered reasonable concessions. Indeed, I have waited until now, when the clock reads five minutes to twelve, constantly hoping that the legislative process in Congress would yield an acceptable result. But now, with the specter of national bankruptcy in full view, and no reasonable outcome forthcoming, it is my responsibility to act. Since I sit in the seat that belonged to Washington and Lincoln and Roosevelt, it is my hope that my actions may be worthy of their heritage.

In a Conflict Among Statutes, the Constitution Decides

I am faced first of all with a conflict among statutes passed by Congress. On the one hand there is the debt ceiling law, which states that the Total Public Debt Outstanding of the United States of America shall not exceed $14.294 trillion. Since our public debt reached that level on May 16, this statute could be interpreted as barring any further auctions of United States treasury bills, notes, and bonds. And if we cannot borrow money in this way, since our current income is inadequate to meet all our obligations, we are headed for default, bankruptcy, and, worst of all, social chaos.

But this is not the only statute in the US Code. There are also other statutes to which I must pay attention. All public expenditure of the United States government, as you know, is carried out by law — by a law called the federal budget, which specifies what amounts are to be spent and on what. Every expenditure has to go through the Congress not once but twice — it must be authorized, and then it must be appropriated, and each of these requires the consent of the two houses of Congress and the signature of the president. I am now confronted with a series of expenditures which the current Fiscal Year 2011 budget, passed by Congress and signed into law by me, requires me to make. This includes the entire vast array of social safety net, defense, transportation, health, regulation, inspection, government employment, and other activities which I outlined above. I am under legal compulsion to make these expenditures.

Concerning Treasury securities outstanding, each one of these is an explicit contract that the United States government will pay specific sums of interest and principal at specified dates. Respect from the sanctity of contracts also requires me to make every one of these payments, without exception.

This is therefore my situation: on the one hand, the debt ceiling forbids me to borrow. On the other hand, the federal budget and the implied contracts represented by entitlements and Treasury securities require me to pay. Since tax revenue, partly because of recent and misguided legislation, is not adequate to make all of these payments, something has to give.

It is obvious that, when two or more statutes conflict, we need to look to the Constitution itself for guidance as to which one will apply. Given the extraordinary attention which the Constitution gives the concept of the general welfare, this guiding principle needs always to be kept in mind. Beyond this, our founding document contains two especially relevant provisions. On the one hand, we find that it is Congress which has the power to borrow money. But on the other hand we also have the 14th amendment, section 4 which states:

“The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.”

In other words, this country is not allowed to default. Default is unconstitutional. Default is illegal. Default is a federal crime.

This is not an option which I can choose to exercise or ignore. It is not something I can invoke or not invoke. This is the Constitution talking. This provision binds me, and ought to bind the opposition in Congress, since they too have sworn to uphold the Constitution.

The Debt Ceiling is Unconstitutional and Must Be Disregarded

This provision places upon the President the responsibility to guarantee the timely payment of all United States debt obligations, regardless of attempts to the contrary that might come from other organs of government, including Congress or, for that matter, the courts. These words make me the ultimate guarantor of the solvency of the United States, especially under emergency conditions in which other branches of government have failed to do this. I am the last backstop. The buck stops here.

By contrast, the Constitution nowhere makes any reference to a debt limit. In fact, the first debt limit was instituted in 1917, less than a hundred years ago. Somehow we got through our first century and a quarter of national life, conquered the frontier, won the Civil War, and created the world’s greatest industrial power without any need for a debt ceiling.

In my considered judgment, and in the light of Amendment 14, Section 4, of the U.S. Constitution, a statutory debt ceiling is therefore unconstitutional. And all competent constitutional jurisprudence agrees that the president must not be bound by legislation which the courts are likely to find unconstitutional. This is all the more true in the present acute crisis.

Accordingly, I have issued an executive order directing the Secretary of the Treasury to resume Treasury auctions today, August 1, 2011, with a view to maintaining the uninterrupted ability of the United States to meet all of its financial obligations, budget and debt, foreign and domestic, without exception. The full faith and credit of our country will be maintained.

I cordially invite the Congress to approve and validate this decision ex post facto.

If your child is in Head Start, it will remain open. If you rely on Social Security, this means you will get your check. If your life depends on Medicare, you can rest assured that your doctors and hospitals will be paid on time so that they can continue their useful activity. If you are living in a nursing home and require Medicaid, those payments will also be available. If you are a member of the military, or a government employee of any kind, you will receive your salary on time. If you are a private firm doing business as a contractor with the government of the United States, you will be able to meet your payroll. If you are carrying out medical research or other scientific research funded by a US government grant, you can be assured that this support will not be interrupted. If you are a person or institution or government anywhere in the world who has purchased United States Treasury securities, you will be paid every penny, on time. If you want to buy a United States Savings Bond or cash one in, you can go ahead and do it.

Those intent on bankrupting the government of the United States and pitching our country into chaos may attempt to reverse this decision in the courts. I have directed the Solicitor General of the United States to prepare to refute their arguments. Since our constitutional position is strong, I have no doubt that we will prevail.

Some will say that the debt ceiling has been around for almost a century, and that so many precedents should not be overturned. That kind of thinking would leave us in bondage to judicial monstrosities like Plessy v. Ferguson, which validated racial segregation, or the infamous Dred Scott decision, which said that skin color was the basis for denying people rights given by God and natural law, and recognized by the Constitution. It will not be the first time we have fixed what turned out to be a terrible mistake.

Others in the House of Representatives bent on driving our nation into default have already announced their intention of impeaching me over this issue. I welcome their attack and the opportunity it will give to further clarify these great issues of the American public.

They will try to impeach me for what I am doing to save the public credit of the United States. In my view, I would truly deserve impeachment were I to refrain from taking this timely action. The President must take care that the laws be faithfully enforced, and this includes the federal budget and the commitments embodied in our entitlements programs and in the solvency of our Treasury securities.

I look forward to next year’s elections, which I expect will be largely fought over this issue and the larger questions which it raises.

Some have raised the question of the debt ratings agencies, and of their future evaluation of the United States public debt in the light of these events. I take this opportunity to announce that the Attorney General, the Department of Justice, and the FBI, acting under my direction, have initiated a comprehensive investigation of corruption and malfeasance which has been alleged against these ratings agencies in connection with their failure to provide timely warning to investors who had purchased certain toxic derivative securities in 2007-2008. We are also studying the legal means of depriving these ratings agencies of the extraordinary and quasi-governmental authority they exercise because of laws and regulations which limit certain forms of public and private investment to securities which have received favorable ratings from these agencies. To this end, we are cooperating with the authorities in Italy and other countries who have also undertaken aggressive investigations of the corruption of these ratings agencies.

The Department of Justice is also investigating reports that members of Congress have entered into criminal conspiracies with bankers and hedge fund operators for the purpose of selling Treasury securities short in the context of the current crisis, and linked this to the votes they cast. The Attorney General has promised to report on this issue at the earliest possible date.

For my part, I do not intend to sell America short. Historically, those who have bet against the United States have not prevailed, nor will they prevail today.

My great predecessor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, delivered his first inaugural address on a morning in March 1933 when every bank in our country had been forced to close its doors because of panic runs, and the economic heart of the nation had stopped beating. In the face of that emergency, the defiant rallying figure of FDR promised action with these words:

It is to be hoped that the normal balance of executive and legislative authority may be wholly adequate to meet the unprecedented task before us. But it may be that an unprecedented demand and need for undelayed action may call for temporary departure from that normal balance of public procedure. I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken nation in the midst of a stricken world may require.

Roosevelt spoke these words at a time when a new Congress had failed for almost three months to do anything meaningful to fight the Great Depression and the banking panic which were ravaging the land in those years. Some at that time had concluded that our form of government was unworkable in a modern crisis, and they were looking abroad for new models of totalitarianism. We must always realize that any system of government which cannot solve the most urgent, life and death problems of the everyday life of the people is not long for this world. It risks being swept aside. If democracy brings chaos, that may be the end of democracy. In this sense, the future our democratic representative government depends on our solvency.

It is in this spirit that I am dealing with the current crisis. I remind you all that, while avoiding national bankruptcy and default in the short-term is absolutely indispensable, this will not by itself solve the majority of our economic problems. The world will remain gripped by an economic and financial depression of incalculable proportions. We will still have some 30 million unemployed in our country. We will still witness American families thrown on the street by fraudulent foreclosures. We will require a comprehensive economic recovery program, supplemented by significant domestic reforms, and capped by a new world monetary system, to put the current world depression behind us.

It is, however, my hope that, by rebuffing those political forces seeking to drive our country into bankruptcy and chaos, we have gained the time necessary to address these issues of economic recovery and financial reform free from the climate of blackmail, extortion, and shakedown.

In the meantime, America will be open for business, today, tomorrow, and every day. Equally important, we can be confident in the ability of our constitutional system to protect the general welfare and the public interest from the machinations of small cliques of fanatics, wealthy though they may be.

I ask for your support. Thank you.