Why Anders Behring Breivik Doesn't Matter in the War on Terror

Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik is a monster. He is a mass murderer. But he's also the psychopathic equivalent of a one-hit wonder. There is zero chance that he will be a threat to anyone ever again. He has no mass following. And there are so far no indications that a wave of terror attacks inspired by Breivik's crimes are in the offing.

Many critics from the far left to the center have been quick to liken Breivik's terrorism -- and there is no question that is what it was, even if he had no formal business card stating his terrorist status -- to other famous monsters like the Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh or Unabomber Ted Kaczynski. Almost in the same breath, many of these observers will suggest that this is symptomatic of a coming wave of right-wing extremism, allegedly intellectually backed by conservative thinking that is at its heart racist and intolerant (even where none of the conservatives quoted has ever said anything advocating racism, intolerance or terrorist violence).

It's all very weird.

We remember McVeigh and Kaczynski precisely because they were monstrous one-hit wonders, themselves. The American right-wing "militia movement" had little going for it even before the Oklahoma bombing. It pretty well fell apart afterward, precisely because no one wanted to be associated with terrorism. As for Kaczynski -- well, there's really no question that this freak of nature was acting alone.

There is no pattern of behavior here, except in the historical sense. McVeigh's attack occured in 1995 and he was executed in 2001, leaving no mourners. Kaczynski was arrested in 1996 at a remote cabin, again with no supporters shouting their intention to avenge him.

So, we have an example of precisely three terrorists -- McVeigh, Kaczynski and now Breivik. Monsters, all. But is there a real imminent threat of a wave of "right-wing extremist terror"? It doesn't seem that way.

To be sure, there is arguably a wave of right wing terrorism happening around the world right now, but not of the kind that the mainsteam media or most politicians would define as "right wing". These terrorists hate feminists, homosexuals, all other religious minorities -- and majorities, as well --and liberals (supposedly features of "right-wing" extremism). They are religious supremacists and often racial supremacists to boot, very often quoting from the books and speeches of the most notorious far-right racist in modern history, Adolf Hitler. And the members of this group are not collectively one-hit wonders -- their numbers are legion. Counting only the terror attacks of the past decade which have been reported elsewhere by mainstream media outlets, this group has committed over 17,000 separate attacks around the world, almost entirely against defenseless civilians, in pursuit of their ambitious aim to overthrow most of the world's governments and usher in a new era of medievalism.

Make no mistake. This wave of terrorism by jihad-mad Islamists -- and their very worrying levels of support abroad and in certain communities in the West -- is the real threat to our modern societies, not single killers like Breivik. The narrowly-defined "extreme right" in Europe, North America or elsewhere simply has no comparable potential for violence. We will remember Breivik's name because there are so few others to clutter our brains that belong in the same category. In contrast, how does one begin to remember the names of the perpetrators of even the past 100 attacks by Islamists? How many of us even remember the names of all of the 9/11 hijackers?

The reason we don't remember isn't because the names are "so foreign sounding" or "difficult to pronounce". We don't remember because the human brain's survival instincts are good at picking up the information that really matters. When the threat is a single predator, there's a reason to know their name, physical description and other details so as to avoid this person in the unlikely scenario that you might see them roaming the streets. When the threat comes from tens of thousands of killers (effectively supported by millions of sympathizers), distinguishable only in the basic tenets of their ideological belief system, the brain can't even begin to categorize all of the information, much less give you any survival advantage.

We have perversely become so used to the daily catalogue of atrocities by jihadits since 9/11 that Breivik's terrorism is seen for more than it really is. This is not the opening salvo in a long war by neo-fascists against European civilization -- far more likely, it is the isolated crime of a politically-motivated lone wolf.

When the violence in Norway erupted, I uncharacteristically jumped the gun and published my assumption that the attack was by yet another group of jihadists. I was not alone in my error. Indeed, jihadist terror groups were the only ones that enthusiastically jumped to take credit for the attack. Tellingly, no "right-wing extremist" group tried to do so.

One consequence of Breivik's terrorism has been to starkly contrast the comparatively rare number of barbarities perpetrated by non-Islamists with the casual ordinariness of Islamist terror attacks. We were wrong about Breivik, but as this week's latest terrorism operations (completed or foiled) have piled up from Pakistan and Thailand to Fort Hood, Texas (again), we can easily see where the threat really lies.

Jonathon Narvey is the Editor of The Propagandist

Bonus Video. This is what we're talking about when we say the far left is engaged in a smear campaign against their ideological enemies.