Norway Terrorist Attack, Giffords Shooting, Bring Out The Worst In The Left

The same Left that jumped to blame the shooting of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords on terrorist groups such as Fox News, Right wing bloggers and Tea Party activists--now demands an apology from the Right Wing for daring to consider that those nice Islamist Jihadists had anything to do with the Norway terrorist attack.

Elder of Ziyon detects A bit of hypocrisy by Glenn Greenwald, who praises one particular article that:

expertly traces and sets forth exactly how the "Muslims-did-it" myth was manufactured and then disseminated yesterday to the worldwide media, which predictably repeated it with little skepticism.

That article is from The Electronic Intifada, known for defending Muslim terrorist attacks against Israeli civilian targets.

Elder of Ziyon notes that despite the fact that Greenwald decries the haste with which the Right assumed that Muslims were involved--Greenwald himself assumed Muslims were behind the attack:

The perpetrators of these attacks are unknown, as is their motives, though one self-described "jihadi" group claimed responsibility. 

It is, however, worth commenting on both the prevailing descriptions of Norway as well as the reaction to these attacks, as they reveal some important points. Most media accounts express bafflement that Norway would be the target of such an attack given how peaceful it is; The New York Times, for instance, said "the attacks appeared to be part of a coordinated assault on the ordinarily peaceful Scandinavian nation." This is simply inaccurate. Norway is a nation at war -- in more than just one country. 

The NATO force of which Norway is a part has explicitly declared Libyan leader Moammar Gadaffi to be a "legitimate target" and has repeatedly attempted to kill him; one attempt on Gadaffi's life -- a bombing attack on his son's residence -- resulted in the death of the dictator's son and three grandchildren. In response, Gadaffi "vowed to attack 'homes, offices and families' in Europe in revenge for NATO airstrikes," adding that "your homes, your offices and your families, which will become military targets just as you have transformed our offices, headquarters, houses and children into what you regards as legitimate military targets."

Meanwhile, Michelle Malking responds to the editor of the Atlantic, No, James Fallows, the Washington Post doesn’t owe “the world” an apology:

Over at the Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin yesterday afternoon published a blog post mentioning some of the same information I brought to light yesterday morning as the news of the terrifying attacks broke — namely, that bloodthirsty Norwegian-based Muslim cleric Mullah Krekar was founder of Ansar Al-Islam and that jihadists have implanted themselves in every corner of the globe. She goes on to argue for continued, vigilant war against the global jihadists who remain at centuries-old, systemic war with us. 

Atlantic editor James Fallows — in a prominent rant — is now clamoring for the Post to “apologize to the world” for Rubin’s post and fumes that the post has not been updated.

Michelle Malkin responds, especially to clarify the difference between this case and the Giffords shooting:

In the muddled liberal mind, there is no difference between how Democrats behaved during and after the Arizona/Giffords shooting (and umpteenth other cases to be noted in a moment) versus how bloggers covered breaking news of the Norway massacre. 

Let me patiently explain. 

In the Giffords shooting, the Binghamton NY immigration cemter shooting, the Kentucky Census worker death/insurance hoax, Amy Bishop campus shooting spree, and Rep. Russ Carnahan bombing, and Faisal Shahzad Times Square bombing attempt, among others, liberal politicians and activists specifically libeled individual talk show hosts, Fox News, bloggers, and Tea Party activists as murderers. They went after the peaceful political free speech of their enemies and criminalized their policy positions without an iota of proof that such speech had any influence or impact on the real perpetrators of the crime. Even after the suspects were shown to have psychiatric problems, undecipherable political views, or views anathema to the conservative public officials and public figures bearing undue blame, leftist exploiters clung to their tar brushes. 

In the Norway massacre, I illuminated explicit death threats and plots by specific jihadi individuals and organizations. It is the Left’s position that these explicitly homicidal signs and realities should be ignored in the immediate aftermath of a terror spree, but that every bullseye image and innocuous reference to “sticking to your guns” is an incitement to murder. 

As always, moments like these are truly clarifying.

Along similar lines, The Unreligious Right notes The Shameless Hypocrisy of James Fallows:

Liberal hack James Fallows of the Atlantic is all upset that some people jumped to conclusions in the wake of the Norway attack, assuming that it had to be radical Muslim terrorism.

this is a sobering reminder for those who think it's too tedious to reserve judgment about horrifying events rather than instantly turning them into talking points for pre-conceived views.

But here's Fallows right after the shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords, pushing the leftist smear that it had something to do with right-wing rhetoric in general, and Sarah Palin in particular.

"We don't know why the killer did what he did. If he is like Sirhan, we'll never 'understand.' But we know that it has been a time of extreme, implicitly violent political rhetoric and imagery, including SarahPac's famous bulls-eye map of 20 Congressional targets to be removed -- including Rep. Giffords. It is legitimate to discuss whether there is a connection between that tone and actual outbursts of violence, whatever the motivations of this killer turn out to be.

Finally, There is Jeffrey Goldberg, who raises the most interesting point of all:

The question arises, then, why did Jennifer Rubin make this outrageous assertion about jihadism and Norway?

Well, perhaps it was because she was reading the Atlantic. Shortly after the bombing in Oslo, the Atlantic re-posted on its home page a very interesting piece from last year by Thomas Hegghammer and Dominic Tierney entitled "Why Does al Qaeda Have a Problem With Norway?" You can read it here. In the piece, Hegghammer and Tierney discuss why Norway, against all odds, has become a favored target of al Qaeda. They give several reasons, among them fallout from the Danish cartoon crisis, and Norway's participation in the war in Afghanistan. And then they bring up a third possibility: The presence in Norway of the aforementioned Mullah Krekar [emphasis added]

We now know that Muslim extremists were not behind the horrendous terrorist attack in Norway.

Still, the focus should be on the actual terrorist--not on those who reported on it in good faithy

Technorati Tag: Noway and Media Bias.