Put this one in the "terrorism-is-for-brown-people" file:
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...
Still, 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.
Did you see that? How they said that once we eliminated the Arabic terrorists and found our right-wing Christian perp, he's suddenly not a "terrorist?" There's more.
Terrorism specialists said that even if the authorities ultimately ruled out terrorism as the cause of Friday’s assaults, other kinds of groups or individuals were mimicking Al Qaeda’s signature brutality and multiple attacks.
Seriously?!
Here's the article. The suspect in the attacks, Anders Behring Breivik, is reported to be a farmer from Eastern Norway. His only public statement thus released is from the lone tweet he sent out, five days before the attacks, in which he quoted utilitarian philosopher John Stuart Mill.
One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100 000 who have only interests.
One person with a belief. Not a network of Muslim men hiding in caves. Not terror babies. Not radicalized youth. But a sick, twisted belief: that the left must be exterminated. These targets - the offices of a leftist government and a summer camp for Labor youth - were no coincidence. A belief, when coupled with a thousand pounds of ammonium nitrate and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, that lead to horrific consequences - more than eighty dead, and a nation struck with fear. This is terrorism, no doubt about it.
I'd also like to take this opportunity to call out Erik Erickson for trying to pin this on a Muslim earlier today.
Terrorist bombing in Oslo. I bet you it was not Lutherans who did it.
Judging by the fact that nearly 80% of Norwegians are Lutheran, I'm betting it was. If I win the bet, all I'm asking is that he send flowers.
UPDATE, July 23, 8:11 a.m.: Glenn Greenwald notes in his piece this morning many of the same things I do, but noting the passages where Breivik is said to be "mimicking al Qaeda" and where an expert says that people are "learning what they see from al Qaeda," he notes that the term terrorism has come to mean nothing more than "violence committed by Muslims whom the West dislikes." Worth a read.