Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Political Fallout from Utøya

More than a year ago the Norwegian government established the July 22 commission to investigate the causes of Anders Behring Breivik’s massacre in downtown Oslo and on the island of Utøya. The commission was tasked with finding out why the government, the security services, and the police were unable to prevent the Butcher of Utøya from carrying out his murders, or stop him before he killed 77 people.

As reported here last week, the commission’s report was leaked to the press in advance. Yesterday it was released officially, and for the past twenty-four hours the political fallout from the report has been settling over Oslo.

There have been numerous calls for Prime Minister Stoltenberg to resign, given the responsibility the report assigned to him and his government for their gross incompetence and general negligence in their failure to prevent the massacre from reaching such a gruesome magnitude.

Our Norwegian correspondent The Observer has translated an editorial from a major Norwegian daily calling for the prime minister’s resignation. The translator includes this note:

After the July 22 commission’s report was released on Monday there have been a number of people, some of them politicians, suggesting that Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg should step down as a result of the failure of… well, pretty much everyone in a position of power who should have prevented such an attack.

Unfortunately, however, I don’t think it’s going to happen. From when he was quite young Jens Stoltenberg has been groomed to become the leader of the Labour Party and prime minister of Norway. He comes from a powerful political family, and they have powerful friends. The fact that AUF (the Labour Party youth organisation) was involved in fraud under his leadership and the fact that in his younger day he was a radical lefty who threw rocks at the American embassy in Oslo didn’t prevent him from achieving his goal. The right connections get you a long way in Norway.

Another thing to remember is that Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg is a weak person. He’s not a natural leader, and he dislikes direct confrontation, which is probably one of the reasons for the mess that Norway is in at the moment. Stoltenberg is incapable of making pragmatic and unpopular decisions. He doesn’t like to step on people’s toes. But, to be fair, there are hundreds of others just like him in the corridors of power in Oslo.

Norway would probably be better off if our government were randomly selected from the telephone directory. It certainly couldn’t be any worse off.

The translated editorial from VG.no:

VG says: Stoltenberg should resign

The report delivered by the July 22 Commission is unambiguous. The bomb explosion at Government Square could have been prevented. The killer at Utøya could have been stopped.

The institutions that were meant to protected the country and its citizens failed. The government could not have been handed a more damning verdict. They failed. They failed us all.

The perpetrator who caused the death and suffering last summer bears sole responsibility for the violence and the pain that he inflicted on all hose innocent human beings. No one else but the child-killer is to blame.

The task of the July 22 Commission has been to look at how the terrorist was able to plan and carry out the bloody campaign without running into any significant obstacles.

Why wasn’t he apprehended by the PST? Why was he able to park a van full of explosives in the heart of the political centre of Norway? Why wasn’t he stopped en route to Utøya, and why was he able to continue executing children long after the alarm had been sounded?

The report goes through all the events of Friday July 22, 2011, trying to determine if anything could or should have been done differently. The conclusion of the report is shocking.

The report finds that there has been no shortage of plans and procedures to deal with a terrorist scenario, but that there has been a lack of ability to implement these recommendations. A lack of ability and a general unwillingness to do so. There are people in important positions in Norway who do not understand the responsibility that has been entrusted to them. A more frightening diagnosis of the state of the kingdom than the July 22 Commission’s report has never been given.

Our authorities have not been able to protect us, due to incompetence, insufficient implementation of explicit recommendations, and by ignoring specific contingency plans. Add to the equation that the police are equipped with outdated technology, are afflicted with poor communication routines and characterized by poor internal discipline and are rife with inter departmental rivalry.

Add it all up and it reeks of incompetence, and what’s more is that it’s completely intolerable if this doesn’t have consequences for those in authority with formal responsibility.

Yesterday we witnessed an increasingly pressured Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg squirm in obvious discomfort when the questions of responsibility and trust became too direct. He has stated that he recognizes the responsibility for the consequences of 22 July. Stoltenberg is prime minister of a majority government and thus has the power to remain in power, but he should have the decency to resign.

He has said he recognizes the responsibility for the consequences of 22 July.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Of course the multicultists don't have it in them to deal properly with the threat of terrorist attacks. Right after this attack everyone assumed that it was one more Islamic terrorist atrocity, because that's where the most obvious threat came from, and that remains the situation today. But the multicultists don't want to acknowledge that, let alone take steps to deal with that threat. If they did, maybe things would have been different.

Anonymous said...

As for the armed response unit, they were a pathetic bunch. Took ages to get there because it was raining (oh dearie me) and then the whole squadron boarded an inflatable and of course it couldn't, and didn't make it across the bay. Shocking incompetence on their part. Can't drive in the wet, can't operate a boat. And they give these people guns? What a joke.

Nemesis said...

The current political spectrum throughout the West is full of Stoltenbergs!

Anonymous said...

Eunuchs.

The good thing about Islam is that it will force real men back into the leadership of Euro Nations...if the women's vote can be overcome, that is. And I do think that will be the case, eventually.

The Feminization of the West, has dire consequences, but those women will eventually turn to strong men to save them from rape and subjugation.

Everything old is new again.

EV

oldschooltwentysix said...

Time in Norway taught me that many of the intelligentsia and elite believe they are cutting edge, when the singularity of view causes average results.

Norway would be nothing without its riches.

Anonymous said...

No surprise that "Stoltenberg" (Proud hill in norwegian) is not taking ANY responsibiity here.

This man was born wth silver spoon and had an entitled right to become PM since his teens.

The ony thing the socialist party has done in response is to blame the progress party for the shootings and otherwise run a gigantic dairy farm in order to milk as much sympathy off this as possible.



Chutzpah may be more known as an old Yiddish phrase but in these days it is becoming a Norwegian term and 500 years from now it will liey be listed as a Norwegian term in most etymology books.

Anonymous said...

During Breivik's attack, the pathetic leader of the AUF made off on his party's ferry, leaving their teenage followers stranded. Those on board the ferry switched off their phones, so they would not have to listen to the voices of the terrified teenagers. These leaders had just taken part in war games where they stormed the beaches of Gaza, but as soon as a real threat appeared, the brave soldiers of the revolution turned tail and fled.

The pathetic armed response unit were shilly-shallying to confront the gunfire. Meanwhile two lesbians heard the shots, and got into their boat, rescuing 40 of the teenagers, with little concern for their own safety.

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2011/08/03/lesbian-couple-saved-40-teenagers-in-norway-massacre/

The cowardice of those political leaders on their ferry is in direct contrast to the bravery to two women, who risked their lives whilst the ridiculous police couldn't even find a boat to get across the water.

If Norwegians allow Quislings like Stoltenberg and Pedersen to remain as leaders, then the country deserves to go down the toilet.

Anonymous said...

It strikes me that the only real men left in Britain are either criminals i.e. bad masculinity or in the army i.e. good masculinity. I don't think there are any real men left in the police any more. Our only hope would be if the army took over I think. People have been saying that for 30 years and things just get worse. Unthinkable in the 1950s or even 1960s that anybody would propose such a thing for Britain; but that was in pre-Marxist revolutionary days.

Anonymous said...

- That was tough
Reading that Breivik could have been stopped before

Thinks Jens Stoltenberg, climbing a mountain in Tromsø, with Dagbladet, so as to paint a positive picture of the "one of the people, real typical active Norwegian making an effort breathing fresh air" PM

- The worst of all, is realizing that it would have been possible for the police to get to Utøya earlier, Stoltenberg says


The mountain, Tromsdalstinden, was
bought by three locals in 2007, for 1 million dollars. The motive was to keep it untouched, the new owners explain.

Did they really buy it because some Saudi prince businessman had intended to buy it, like there was talk about?

One of the new owners of the Tinden didn't want to look at the mountain knowing that it would be on Arab hands, so he thought locals should get there first and e-mailed friends who replied that he should stop drinking during work hours. Others were positive to the idea.

Tinden is regarded holy, not only by the Samis, but by all local Tromsø people.

(Still "No" to Saudi financing mosques in Norway?)

Anonymous said...

@EV
"The good thing about Islam is that it will force real men back into the leadership of Euro Nations...if the women's vote can be overcome, that is. And I do think that will be the case, eventually."

- Once the real men show up, the women too, will vote for them.

Anonymous said...

"Armed revolution!"

This was their slogan, the AKP ml, communist mls.

Were they really training exercises on weapons? So claims book published in 2005 about the raise and fall of the Norwegian AKP ml.




Anonymous said...

- We sure knew we were going to shoot one day

We knew that WW3 would come. But at the same time we were so naive, says former ml Lotte Sandberg, commentator/critic of arts and architecture at Aftenposten.

Sandberg is one of the interviewees in the 2005 book about AKP ml.


Anonymous said...

Police
ignored order to follow Breivik's car
They were instead occypied by picking up and transporting a prisoner to Oslo

Anonymous said...

What may Jens Stoltenberg have learnt from "The Sopranos", his favorite series?

"The Sopranos is an American television drama series created by David Chase that revolves around the New Jersey-based Italian-American mobster Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) and the difficulties he faces as he tries to balance the conflicting requirements of his home life and the criminal organization he heads.

The series also features Tony's family members and Mafia associates in prominent roles and storylines, most notably his wife Carmela (Edie Falco) and cousin and protégé Christopher Moltisanti (Michael Imperioli). A central theme is his professional relationship with his psychiatrist, Dr. Jennifer Melfi (Lorraine Bracco)." (Wiki)

- Any parallels here?