Kos Frontpager David Waldman notes that the Norway attacker was a political Terminator
See, the "camp" event is really more akin to a political retreat and training, it seems. It's an annual event of Norway's "Worker's Youth League," (in Norwegian, the Arbeidaranes Ungdomsfylking, or AUF), which is itself essentially the youth arm of the country's ruling Labour Party.
That man picked off a substantial portion of the next generation of Norwegian political leaders. Considering that Norway's population is about 5 million, it's not a lot different from someone doing this to our young volunteers, say the Young Democrats. How many parents will support a child's attendance next time? How many young political volunteers will simply let things pass because they see the danger of this?
When I was living in Arizona in the early 00's, I helped register voters from a Democratic party booth at county fairs. One time, an armed young man approached our booth and moved his hand toward his holstered handgun and told us to "get out of town, Democrats ain't welcome here". He was not joking. My booth mate was a deputy sheriff and he sent the inebriated young man on his way. But what if he had decided to take his threat seriously?
Politics ain't beanbag, but there is a difference between political differences and mass murder. I've live a long life and am unafraid of bullies, but others may not share my outlook.
But it was the prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg, who spent childhood holidays on the island as a young Labour party member, who summed up the grief of a nation: "Utoya is my childhood paradise that yesterday was transformed into Hell."
Taking out 80+ of the people committed enough to go to the AUF's Utoya summer retreat? That's like sending a Terminator back in time to take out a future Parliamentary leadership.
The crime was unspeakably heinous to begin with. And telling Americans that the killer targeted a "summer camp," it was no doubt imagined, would only make it sound worse.
It did. But it didn't really describe the magnitude of the loss for Norway. Nor did it convey the calculated sickness-and the very, very intensely political nature-of what the gunman undertook to do. |
