Testimony to Virulent Lunacy

He shudders and abhors the very idea that he can be considered unhinged.  But how else can someone be thought of who goes out of his way, deliberately and with malice aforethought to rid himself of normal human inhibitions against taking the lives of innocent beings.  Who submits himself to deadening hour after hour of repetitive motions designed to remove from his consciousness the fixed idea that murder is an unforgivable transgression.

And who carefully plans to acquire weapons, learn and practise how to use them expertly, lays out a scenario where he views himself as a warrior for justice for his community, his country, his culture and heritage and sets out to slaughter young people whom he perceives as representing an ideology prepared to surrender that culture, heritage and country to an foreign force preparing to submerge it into an alien culture and heritage.

His "gruesome" actions, according to Anders Behring Breivik, during his testimony in Oslo, were completely necessary.  Nothing less would alert and awaken his countrymen to the dire threat they were submitting to, in committing national suicide.  His protest against the inundation of Muslims emigrating in great numbers from their source countries to Europe, sounds the death knell of Europe; the mournful bells of regret ring in his brain.

Turning his mind to a solution.  He was a modern Knight Templar, jousting for the spirit and the soul of Europe.  First, his own country, Norway.  His was an act of courage, of desperate courage, seeking to rescue his country before it was too late.  If to do so he would become the servant of the Angel of Death, so be it.  He had as example, the martyrdom-fanaticism of Islamist jihadists.  If they could do it, so could he.

His cause was noble, theirs ignoble.

He used a fake police uniform to initially give confidence of his harmless, protective presence to his victims, before turning his weapons on them, in a horrible display of vengeance against those whom he blamed for his country's approaching demise.  His uniformed presence encouraged those whom he targeted to reveal themselves, before being cold-bloodedly shot.

And the real police, they were nowhere to be found, though desperate calls were being conveyed to alert authorities to the catastrophe that was occurring.  Breivik himself called police with the intention of surrendering, but there was no response.  He left a message.  "I said 'call me back when you got the right person'", he testified.

For Norway, the tragedy of one sole madman whose careful planning was able to visit upon its society an unforgettable misery.  For the authorities and the security establishment, a day of shameful regret at their lack of perception and reaction.