From mass-murderer Anders Breivik’s “manifesto“:
I had the privilege of meeting one of the greatest living war heroes of Europe at the time, a Serbian crusader and war hero who had killed many Muslims in battle. Due to EU persecution for alleged crimes against Muslims he was living at one point in Liberia. I visited him in Monrovia once, just before the founding session in London, 2002.
As has been widely discussed, Breivik claims to have been part of a wider anti-Islam “resistance” movement, and to have had a “mentor” in the UK using the name “Richard the Lionhearted”.
I’ve treated these stories sceptically, but the the NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation) has now reported that, according to police, Breivik’s passport shows that he did indeed visit Liberia for a week in April 2002, and left via the Ivory Coast. The NRK notes that Serbian mercenaries were present in Liberia in 2002; it’s also worth noting that weapons were being smuggled from Serbia to Liberia during this period.
Of course, the fact that Breivik may have met some troubling individuals in Liberia ten years ago is still a long way from showing that his massacre was some sort of conspiracy. However, the presence of a 23-year-old Norwegian civilian in the middle of an African civil war is an odd enough story in itself – and suggests that there are people out there who could fill in some gaps about Breivik’s past.
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Norway killer Breivik is ‘not psychotic’, say experts.
As the original psychiatrists mistakenly concluded that Breivik lived in a delusional universe possibly due to their ignorance of the politics and their own social conditioning, so too the possibility of a wider network maybe being missed due to ignorance of the politics and its intricacies.
Various psychiatrists spoke to him every day for a few months after his arrest and combined their expertise to produce a 243 page report on his behaviour, declaring him to be insane.
Therefore I am at a loss to find, Mutual Nodus, substantiation for your opinion that the psychiatrists “mistakenly concluded that Breivik lived in a delusional universe,” and certainly no evidence whatsoever to claim: that this was “possibly due to their ignorance of the politics and their own social conditioning.”
It seems that the psychiatrists took a lot of care to substantiate their professional assessment that Breivik was insane.
Why – and upon what grounds – would you assert that they “mistakenly concluded that Breivik lived in a delusional universe.”
Because a person may be insane and delusional does not invalidate every single thing that person states – he said he went to Monrovia and that comment has been subsequently substantiated.
It does not invalidate the conclusions of psychiatrists’ report – i.e. that Breivik is both insane and delusional.
Sorry – I missed your link.
Interesting – only two psychiatrists had seen him on only 13 occasions.
The media gave the impression that Breivik was visited by several psychiatrists on a near-daily basis.
Apologies.
However, Breivik was on a speed-including combination of drugs when he killed the young people on Utoya – and drugs like amphetamine are notorious for triggering psychosis.
Psychosis for many individuals with mental illness (hypermania for some bipolar – formerly called “manic depressive” – patients, for example) tends to express itself in episodes, following known or unknown triggers.
It is theoretically possible that Breivik is not currently displaying psychosis.
But that is from monitoring his behaviour in a prison cell and not – from what I read – trying to talk to him and question him about his beliefs, ambitions, etc.
Psychosis is only a measure of outward manifestation of psychiatric illness and in many individuals goes through distinct episodes, interspersed with periods of quiescence.
I dislike the way that the report claims that the prison psychiatric people were “experts” as of those who interviewed him after the terror attacks were NOT experts.
There certainly needs to be more examination of Breivik by numerous psychiatrists, from various fields, over a long period.
I am shocked that only 2 people examined him for only 13 sessions. Did these people have experience of people who killed 70 people for a professed “political” motive?
And for that matter, have those “experts” in the prison have “experience” of someone who acted as Breivik had done?
Owing to the uniqueness of his actions, I suspect the answer would be a resounding “NO.”
Adrian Morgan,
I am guessing you have an interest or some knowledge of psychology if so maybe you could give an opinion.
On the limited information available and on the assumption that Breivik had/has a psychiatric illness (which I doubt). In the first instance would that have made him a positive or negative asset/candidate for such an operation.
The empirical evidence points to the positive.
That is an interesting question – one I have often posited with relation to people who commit suicide attacks. To wish to slaughter innocent civilians on a mass scale (whether one slaughters oneself in the process or not) would have to be the work of someone either pathologically full of hatred, and certainly on the furthest parameters or beyond of sanity.
Someone who does so believing that their kith or kin (fellow “oppressed people”) would benefit by their actions could be acting in an entirely sane manner – following the “preservation of genes or species” imperative.
Someone who slaughters others expecting to have their afterlife sexual needs fulfilled by virgins (not the best sexual partners, I would have thought) would be seriously delusional. But indoctrination, obsession to the exclusion of all else, could make a person seriously deluded without falling into the category of “insane.”
I think – personally – that Breivik has a form of narcissistic personality disorder. He is delusional; his manifesto (which I had the misfortune to have to read) is indeed a severely warped expression of “vanitas.”
Whether he is insane, I do not know.He is certainly evil beyond words.
But on the issue of being a positive asset/candidate for a terror campaign – most people in suicide bombings have a network that pushes them forward to do the bombings while their sponsors remain alive.
Someone with Breivik’s gargantuan ego trip would be a liability for such a “traditional” suicide attack. In Iraq, Palestinian areas and Afghanistan, children and poor kids have been conned into acting as suicide bombers (in Palestinian regions, they have a guarantee their families would receive funds) and in the case of Afghanistan, two women with Down’s syndrome were sent out to suicide-bomb a market.
It is easier to send out the gullible.
I think Breivik could have only struck out alone – he gives an entirely rational argument in the manifesto of telling terrorists not to speak to anyone about their planned acts as “Knights Templar” (i.e. terrorist atrocities).
He certainly must have associated with other arrogant, delusional and narcissistic individuals who imagined they were on a “cultural crusade” – but I cannot believe – having read his appallingly tedious and self-congratulatory manifesto – that his terror attacks were the actions of a group.
Therefore as he – in my opinion – acted alone as a terrorist, following the dictates for a terrorist laid out in his manifesto, the question doesn’t really apply.
He is the narcissistic “architect, philosopher, enabler, perpetrator and martyr/hero” of this venture and thus, on his own terms, he is the most “positive asset/candidate.”
I believe he is psychiatrically ill, in that he has a psychiatric condition. To consciously slaughter kids, high on drugs that he chose and mentioned in his manifesto as helping in such a venture, and even smiling as he killed, is way off the scale of what could be construed as “normal” behaviour.
But whether it is sane or insane is not really a matter of whether he has a psychiatric condition. His actions could have been conscious and rational, and indeed they were planned methodically.
A person with a psychiatric condition does not need to be “insane” – is Stephen Fry insane? Perhaps once every few years he has an “insane” few days, but for 99 percent of the time he is totally sane despite being bipolar.
Even though Breivik was delusional in his expectations of what such an atrocity would achieve, is hard to tell. One can be delusional in one’s beliefs but still act and plan rationally.
I had hoped a large team of psychiatrists, with separate/combined expertise on serial killers, mass murderers and terrorists, had examined him and it now transpires that this patently was not the case.
There are now calls for a re-examination of his sanity. But 67 victims’ relatives disagree. Not because of the real need to get to grips with what motivated him (to prevent or identify future perpetrators of such atrocities) but because a reevaluation at this point in time would delay a trial and prolong the victims’ relatives’ anguish:
http://www.thelocal.no/page/view/plaintiffs-want-new-psychiatric-evaluation-of-breivik
Adrian Morgan,
Thanks for taking the time to reply.
One last question if I may, would Breivik have been prone to mimicking?
Hi MN
Yes, I believe he could, but only mimicking those he deemed to be “heroic.”
With his narcissism, literally thinking his manifesto and terror atrocity would bring on a total change of society/politics throughout the Western world, I think that he would consider no-one alive today worthy of mimicry.
Those he would have attempted to mimick would have been heroic opponents of Islam from the past – Charles Martel or Jean Parisot de Valette.
He would – I believe – have chosen figures whose presence left a mark upon history because he genuinely believed he would be making “epoch-defining” history.
Adrian Morgan,
Breivik noticeable lives in the moments of his time, heroic opponents of Islam from the past such as Charles Martel or Jean Parisot de Valette are to historically distant as role models, like how a person looks at an old photograph of themselves and can not instantly connect with their distant sense of fashion. Thus how Breivik vainly attempted to create and craft a new image e.g. the uniforms of the manfesto.
I do not think Breivik can overall be compared to suicide bombers of the MME nor do I think this will be a single event phenomena in short Breivik was one toxic ingredient of a real world political recipe – not the recipe.
In the west as the politcal disconnect and social rift between the nation as state and the nation as people widens the likelihood of “autonomous” acts such as Breivik’s may increase.
“In the west as the politcal disconnect and social rift between the nation as state and the nation as people widens the likelihood of “autonomous” acts such as Breivik’s may increase.”
I agree – but such has always been the case where vigilantists arise. But sometimes the state should be against what the people may want – lynchings in the US reflected the will of many, but fortunately the US as a state did not stoop to their level.
You may be right about Breivik being of his time (he certainly exploited new media to achieve his self-promotion) but I also see that he modelled his actions upon the Knights Templar and a large part of his own words (excluding the copy/pastes from Fjordman et alia) did deal with how to recreate Knights Templar rituals and groups.