In Defence of Anders Breivik

According to BBC News, Anders Behring Breivik told court, “I have carried out the most spectacular and sophisticated attack on Europe since World War II.” He’s got a point. 9/11 had a far greater kill count but ultimately it was only a few steps up from a ram raid — vehicle, meet building. Now let carnage ensue. There was no subtlety. Breivik was smart. Real smart.

Surprisingly not a single Bieber-related one.
(image courtesy of secretlondon123)

I find much to admire in Breivik. Here’s a guy who knows exactly what he wants to do, meticulously plans a sequence of events, and goes through with it. I can’t even get out of bed at a designated time. “Just five more minutes,” I tell myself for the twelfth time. “Okay, I’ll do one more drawing on Draw Something, then I’ll get up… Hmm, best check Twitter again. Trends might’ve changed.”

I don’t want to do this, but I know what people are like: people can’t take a joke, so I need to point out: No, I don’t find killing 77 people, including children, admirable, especially not when you have scoped weaponry and preparation time. If he’d given everyone on that island a week’s notice and a choice of rifle, tactical grenades, and a few Killstreaks, then maybe, just maybe, I might start thinking he wasn’t quite so cowardly. But that doesn’t detract from the fact that he knew what he wanted to do and followed it out to the letter. Anyone who isn’t impressed by that is both jealous and a fucking liar.

I wrote yesterday about being honest about how you feel but Anders Breivik is the perfect counter example. He claims that telling people you played World of Warcraft for 16 hours a day is good for making yourself look like a harmless, tragic recluse (although, hello, according to the media every psychopath was a “troubled loner” at some point) and providing good cover for making plans so fiendish they’d make Dick Dastardly look like Penelope Pitstop. He really thought about his appearance, covered his tracks, and even in court he’s still carefully thought about everything he’s saying and the headlines it’s generating.

Devising fiendish plans since 1968.
(image courtesy of thievingjoker)

Maybe I’m still a 14-year-old adolescent at heart, but I love a good evil genius. Sure, I’ll admit that maybe I’d feel differently if the whole thing had happened in London and I’d had friends killed, but even in the looting chaos of last summer I was glued to various news streams and Twitter getting positively gleeful at reports of fresh violence. I wouldn’t join in for fear of the repercussions, but I did think about going to have a look-see and take some photos.

The big question is whether Breivik is insane. Thinking playing Modern Warfare is good training for actually shooting people in cold blood is so ridiculous it’s laughable. He probably killed five people and wondered where the hell his Care Package was.

And anyone with political views so extreme to think that killing regular Norwegians to defend Norway from those bad foreign types is clearly not with it. But I’ll be disappointed if he does end up in a mental institution somewhere. I want my supervillains to be of sound mind, damn it. It’s such a cop out if the story ends with, “oh, yeah, I forgot to say. He’s certifiably insane.” Just imagine if Hans Gruber had been caught and put into a strait jacket. Doesn’t bear thinking about does it?

If he does end up being deemed insane, I’ll console myself by thinking that maybe, just maybe, it’s all part of his plan – he’ll convince everyone he’s fucking nuts, spend ten years getting pumped full of meds and getting abused by burly nurses, all while devising new ways to kill everyone – has anyone actually tried poisoning a water supply in real life yet?

I can already taste death in the air.
(image courtesy of brx0)

Unfortunately the guy will probably never see the light of day again. I couldn’t believe something I read the other day that said he’ll serve, “at least 21 years.” No shit? He needs his ultra-nationalist friends in London and Liberia to pull their fingers out their asses and organise a prison break already, or do that thing where they hijack the armoured car driving him from Point A to Point B. Come on guys, get on with it.

Whether you agree with what he did or not – and if I am read by some ultra-nationalist freaks, hi there! – you can’t escape the fact that he was fully committed and, indeed, remains committed. I can’t even commit myself to writing this stupid media essay on a topic I’m interested in. For that, I respect Anders Breivik. That said, he could’ve achieved so much more than he did. If he’d devoted 16 hours a day to working in an animal shelter instead of playing World of Warcraft he could’ve helped lives instead of destroying poor them lives. Not cool Anders, not cool.