As for a climactic conflict between a once-Christian West and an Islamic world that is growing in numbers and advancing inexorably into Europe for the third time in 14 centuries, on this one, Breivik may be right.
Patrick Buchanan
The emerging faces and the stories of the victims from the massacre at Oslo highlight how this tragedy has robbed Norway, and the world, a part of its future. Blame is being assigned broadly and, sadly, is being used for political posturing.
When I read Pat Buchanan's essay "A fire bell in the night for Norway," I was profoundly disappointed and then outraged. His commentary can be insightful at times but this is a stark example of provocative rhetoric for some inscrutable purpose - or is it all too apparent?
Here's some excerpts from Mr. Buchanan's essay:
Breivik is evil - a cold-blooded, calculating killer - though a deluded man of some intelligence, who in his 1,500-page manifesto reveals a knowledge of the history, culture and politics of Europe.
...But, awful as this atrocity was, native-born and homegrown terrorism is not the macro-threat to the continent.
That threat comes from a burgeoning Muslim presence in a Europe that has never known mass immigration, its failure to assimilate, its growing alienation, and its sometime sympathy for Islamic militants and terrorists.
With her native-born populations aging, shrinking and dying, Europe's nations have not discovered how to maintain their prosperity without immigrants. Yet the immigrants who have come - from the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia - have been slow to learn the language and have failed to attain the educational and occupational levels of Europeans. And the welfare states of Europe are breaking under the burden.
Then he concludes:
As for a climactic conflict between a once-Christian West and an Islamic world that is growing in numbers and advancing inexorably into Europe for the third time in 14 centuries, on this one, Breivik may be right.
Pat Buchanan was twice a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination and the Reform Party's candidate in 2000. He is also a founder and editor of The American Conservative. Now a political analyst for MSNBC and a syndicated columnist, he served three presidents in the White House, was a founding panelist of three national TV shows, and is the author of seven books.
Watch the brief video here describing some of the victim's stories.
Details have begun to emerge of some of the 68 victims who were killed by Anders Breivik during his shooting spree on the Norwegian Island of Utoya.
The names of the dead were revealed as an estimated 150,000 people gathered to mourn them and the eight others who died in the Oslo bombing.
- Log in to post comments
Bullshit. His obsession with these matters is certainly far above average, but that doesn't mean he knows what he's talking about. He isn't. From what I've read of it so far (urgh), it's at best a collection of half-truths and ugly distortions of reality.
To quote a Twitter message responding to Buchanan's essay, "Terrorists are NEVER right."
My respect for Mr Buchanan matches that for Mr Breivik. If Buchanan is ever 'insightful', I'm sure it's unintentional.
You know who else believed that hordes of non-quite human Semitic people were destroying Europe?
Hint - its one of Pat Buchanan's idols who wasn't in any way responsible for WW II (according to Pat).
"When I read Pat Buchanan's essay . . .I was profoundly disappointed and then outraged."
And you had reason to expect a different result? Really?
Yes. Having watched his numerous commentaries on "Hardball with Chris Matthews" he can present reasoned arguments; whether you agree with them or not is another matter. This example does not qualify.
Not only in Italy were there is still a strong fascist group we could find some reactions to think of.A politician in a party in Italy's governing coalition called some of Norway massacre suspect Anders Behring Breivik's ideas "great" while the leader of a British far-right group to which Breivik claims links called the attacks a sign of "growing anger" in Europe against Muslim immigrants.Mario Borghezio, a European parliamentarian who belongs to Italy's right-wing Northern League party, told a mainstream Italian radio station that he sympathized with some of Breivik's ideas. "Some of the ideas he expressed are good, barring the violence, some of them are great," he told Il Sole-24 Ore radio station. The Northern League, the junior partner in Premier Silvio Berlusconi's government, has caused a stir with its increasingly virulent anti-immigrant, anti-Islamic rhetoric. Meanwhile, Stephen Lennon, leader of the English Defense League, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he does not condone Breivik's rampage but "the fact that so many people are scared - people have to listen to that." "People should look at what happened in Oslo and understand that there is growing anger in Europe," said Lennon, 28. "You suppress people's rights you suppress people's voices and people will just continue to go underground - but that doesn't make the problem go away."Also Patrick Buchanan gives us something to look out for, as he wrote:"Breivik is evil - a cold-blooded, calculating killer - though a deluded man of some intelligence, who in his 1,500-page manifesto reveals a knowledge of the history, culture and politics of Europe. ... But, awful as this atrocity was, native-born and homegrown terrorism is not the macro-threat to the continent. That threat comes from a burgeoning Muslim presence in a Europe that has never known mass immigration, its failure to assimilate, its growing alienation, and its sometime sympathy for Islamic militants and terrorists. With her native-born populations aging, shrinking and dying, Europe's nations have not discovered how to maintain their prosperity without immigrants. Yet the immigrants who have come - from the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia - have been slow to learn the language and have failed to attain the educational and occupational levels of Europeans. And the welfare states of Europe are breaking under the burden. "*Mr.Buchanan's writing is the biased idea of the predisposed general people opposing a growing cultural amalgam and a danger and prevention to cultural diversity. It are those ideas which are also a threat for the evolution of a inter-cultural global societyHe is clearly creating a soil for anger against something which can only be attributed to a few fundamentalist groups which sickens all the rest.Others should look out and also be careful for the extreme right wing ideas.+Read more: Christian fundamentalism as dangerous as Muslim fundamentalism+ Breivik geen enkeling
I really don't quite get what your point is. Buchanan's piece is only offensive if you buy into the PC multiculturalist delusions it critiques. No one, much less Buchanan, is denying that Breivik was a monster.
Look at it this way: if supporters of multiculturalism get to make political hay out of what this lone-nut did and tar their political opponents with such actions, it's only fair if those of anti-multicult persuasion get to tell their side of the story, too.
I agree with Tyler. What's the problem with what Buchanan said? Answer: It's only a problem if you're a liberal who thinks multiculturalism is a good thing. What did Buchanan say that was factually incorrect? Answer: Nothing. That's why folks who often criticize him just make ad-hominem attacks against him without offering any counter arguments to his substance. And man, can that Buchanan write!! A prolific writer indeed!
Your points are well taken. I certainly am not using ad hominem attacks. I take exception to referring to Breivik as "right" as terrorists are never right. To me, his use of such provocative language was unnecessary and did not add to his arguments.
Here's the thing I've never got with regard to the issue of multiculturalism: what is the alternative? Can you seriously be supporting the idea of legislating what people can and can't eat, think, believe, etc? If I want to eat aloo gobi, speak Punjabi, go to a gurdwara, and listen to bhangra pop, then I'm going to do those things, and only evil, authoritarian legislation can stop me. And where would you draw the line, anyway? Are only 'Western' clothes okay? And what counts as 'Western' clothing - cyberpunk-inspired skimpy outfits and ripped jeans, or just business suits of a certain official kind?
And as for belief, which is surely the main point of contention: again, can anyone seriously suggest that regulating what beliefs people can hold is in any way legitimate? All people have different beliefs, and it is the hallmark of freedom to allow this. It is probably not possible to eradicate beliefs without eradicating freedom of speech or the means of dissemination of that speech - books and so forth.
Needless to say, trying to find ways of halting multiculturalism would be much worse than anything terrorism could achieve, so Buchanan is factually incorrect with regard to this - the biggest threat may not be Islamic terrorism at all, but Europeans who will use Islam like right-wingers used to use the Jews. I'd also like to point out that in terms of individuals killed by terrorism, European terrorism over the past half-century has killed far more than Islamic terrorism in Europe. Breivik's attack alone killed more people than the July 2005 London bombs, although somewhat less than the Madrid bombings. Buchanan's position is predicated on a baseless assertion: that Muslims coming into Europe will be terrorists, and will screw it up. This is not a justified belief.
I see this outburst by Buchanan as just another example of his crazy views. He's sort of like a Carlist or a legitimist or some other nineteenth or twentieth century European Catholic right-winger in terms of what he actually believes, and I expect he would support illiberal legislation to prohibit thoughtcrime and the wearing of skimpy or foreign clothes. I also suspect that his position is largely racial, as is the entire movement against multiculturalism. It's less about people thinking and doing different things and more about scary brown people thinking and doing their foreign things.
The issue is not about "Multi-culti", as Ms Merkel described it. The issue is that Mr Buchanan has produced a statement of such mind-blowing stupidity that brain cells shrivel and die when any reasonably well-informed person tries to make sense of it.
Basically, the man is completely ignorant. He has no idea about the situation in Europe, apart from the alarmist rubbish which is produced in such huge quantities in the USA.
His initial premises are that Europe(however defined) is being washed away by an organised flood of Muslims from the Islamic World, who are breeding like rabbits. The native population is apparently en route to extinction, because we hate sex and babies, and there has never been any major immigration to our doomed conntinent.
First, where does he think us Europeans came from? We migrated to here, starting with the move out of Africa. Between then and the Roman Empire, there were huge movements of people, mostly moving out of the east and heading west. There was the Indo-European movement, the Celtic expansion, and the influx of Slavic and Germanic tribes, toname but a few.
During and after WW2, there were huge movements of people again, while the expansion of the EU to the New Ten countries produced a flood of Poles and Czechs/Slovaks who went to Britain and Ireland, while large numbers of Bulgarians and Romanians headed for Spain, Italy and France.
Currently, the Muslim population of Europe is about 6% of the total. Estimates place it at possibly 8% in 2030. The Muslim birth rate is trending towards that of the main population. This is mainly due to increased female education. The same trend can be seen in some of the Maghreb Arab countries, like Tunisia. This is emphatically NOT a population which is "burgeoning". Sorry to disappoint Mr Buchanan, and the rest of his sad cohorts, but Eurabia is NOT going to happen.
There is NO organised plan to swamp Europe, just people who decided to move to get a better life for themselves and their children. The idea that these people all set out with the express purpose of destroying that which attracted them in the first place is, sadly, only tenable in a mind fuelled by paranoia and conspiracy theories. That would sum up Mr Buchanan quite well, no?
There is no Islamic World, except in the fevered "brains" of people like Buchanan, bin Laden, Beck and all the other noisy fools who have accepted the idiotic thesis of Mr Samuel P. Huntington' badly written and boring screed, aka "The Clash of Civilizations". Islam is no more monolithic, as an institution, than xtianity is. Arguably, it is less so.
There is no single office which could direct, or make policy for the Islamic World. Neither is there any institution which could organise either the inexorable advance of Muslims on Europe claimed by Mr Buchanan, or the "climactic conflict" that he is slavering over. There will not be any such conflict. In the first place, the Islamic World could neither organise nor equip the forces needed. In the second place, the Islamic World has not produced an original weapon since the Middle Ages. Their current weaponry all originates in Russia or the West.
Yes, there have been coded and not so coded expressions of support for the murderous, delusional narcissist(Breivik) and his turgid, sleep inducing justification. However, these have been few and far between, and feature the usual suspects in any case.
The macro-threat to Europe is lack of growth, and the damage caused by the financial crisis. The presence of a small minority of Muslims is not a threat. It is a problem. And it will be dealt with, probably in different ways in defferent countries.
Most of his article is an exercise in using the slaughter of some 80 young Norwegians to score points in the ongoing American "Culture Wars". This stinks, to put it mildly.
Mr Buchanan should really keep his mouth shut, especially when he is so spectacularly uninformed on this issue.
I truly wish people would ignore Pat Buchanan. Any response to his inane and often insane comments is fueling his dim flame. Stop feeding this feeble racist, bigoted flame. Let him cry into the wilderness. Any ninnies who take his ramblings as some shinning torch of truth are too stupid for redemption anyways.
I have to believe (because otherwise it would be too sad) that his actual "loyal" Kool-aid drinkers are a microscopic group of brainwashed flat-earthers. Surely most of Americans aren't that dumb?
Pat Buchanan is a sad, old racist. Pity him, but please don't give him publicity.
Pat Buchanan has a tall pulpit in his role as TV commentator. I'm sure the network has done research into exactly what viewer percentage he will attract. His presence onscreen suggests something very damning about the society that television reflects.
"Most of his article is an exercise in using the slaughter of some 80 young Norwegians to score points in the ongoing American "Culture Wars". This stinks, to put it mildly."
THIS.