The WorldNetDaily Manifesto, By Anders Breivik

Even though WorldNetDaily published the 1,500-page manifesto Anders Behring Breivik -- accused in the terrorist explosion and shootings in Norway that killed dozens -- it has yet to inform its readers that Breivik's manifesto cites WND six times:

• a 2004 article headlined "Muslim kids stage mock beheading";
• a 2003 article headlined "Islamists burn to death Christian pastor, family";
• a 2008 article headlined "Government paints bull’s-eye on Christians";
• a 2002 article headlined "Punishment includes Islam indoctrination";
• a 2001 column by editor Joseph Farah headlined "The Bible and self-defense," in which he explains that "The Bible couldn't be clearer on the right – even the duty – we have as believers to self-defense";
• and a 2002 article that appears to have originated at the now-defunct, Unification Church-owned magazine Insight on the News, with whom WND had a content-sharing agreement in the early 2000s. That article is no longer in the WND database, if it ever was.

In fact, several of the subjects Breivik covers in his manifesto are similarly popular at WND. Let's examine a few of them.

Muslim-bashing

Sarah Posner at Religion Dispatches notes that "Breivik sought to reconstitute a former crusades military force, one that would rescue a 'pure' race from incursions by Muslims," describing "Islamic conquest" of Europe as "demographic warfare." Not only is Muslim-bashing a staple of WND, Breivik's manifesto cites several anti-Muslim writers whom WND has lavished praise upon.

Chief among them is Pamela Geller, who is cited by Breivik more than a dozen times. Not only is Geller a regular WND columnist, WND is publishing her new book, "Stop the Islamization of America." Geller has a long history of anti-Muslim hostility.

Another WND favorite is Walid Shoebat, who is cited more than 15 times by Breivik. Only last month, WND was trying to deflect a CNN report that he may not be the ex-Muslim terrorist he claims to be. Farah wrote a fawning profile of him in 2004 and last month called him, along with Geller, "friends" and "freedom fighters" he's "proud to keep company with."

WND is also a big fan of self-proclaimed prophet Joel Richardson, publishing his book "The Islamic Antichrist," in which he argues that the biblical Antichrist is one and the same as the Quran's Mahdi and declares that "Islam is indeed the primary vehicle that will be used by Satan to fulfill the prophecies of the Bible about the future political/religious/military system of the Antichrist that will overwhelm the entire world just prior to the second coming of Jesus Christ." WND published a column by Richardson in which he agrees with Quran-burning pastor Terry Jones that "Islam is of the Devil"; a few months later, Richardson walked it back, conceding that "many devout Muslims embrace an imperialistic and violent form of Islam."

Additionally, WND is chockablock with attacks on Islam. For instance:

• Farah lamented that "Islam is now taught as a religion of peace in our schools, despite 1,300 years of history to the contrary," called Islamophobia an "imaginary bigotry," and declared that "we have the Christian duty to evangelize" Muslims into Christianity. Farah then laughably denied that all of this was an "anti-Muslim screed": "I do not condemn all Muslims. In fact, I have sympathy and compassion for those trapped in their 7th century worldview."
• WND managing editor David Kupelian attempted to diagnose the cause of "America's politically correct 'love' of Islam," declaring that anyone who says anything nice about Islam is suffering from Stockholm syndrome: "Being intimidated by Islam (or by anything, for that matter) actually causes some of us to mysteriously grow sympathetic toward it, to defend it, to side with it, even to convert to it." In case that was too subtle for his readers, Kupelian restated his argument: "Bottom line: We're intimidated, bullied, threatened, terrorized – and so we capitulate, not just in word and deed, but in thought. Get it?"
• WND columnist Mychal Massie conceded that Breivik isn't a Muslim, but he ranted anyway about Muslim terrorism and "systemic animalism that is endemic to Islam" and how "we must take them as serious threats that warrant thorough watching and investigation."
• Marylou Barry offered condescending guidance for new immigrants to America, though they all seem to be directed at one particular religious group. Among them: "You cannot own people here"; "You cannot kill people here"; "You get only one wife"; and "You need to ask questions before you accept employment. If your belief system requires a special place to bathe your feet or time off to pray at work, tell your employer before you hire on."

WND loves to smear anyone who has shown even the slightest Muslim leanings as an Islamic extremist. One notorious example is the guilt-by-association smears reporter Aaron Klein hurled at Vartan Gregorian -- former president of Brown University and the New York Public Lbriary, current head of the Carnegie Corporation, and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Bush -- declaring that was "closely tied to the Muslim leaders behind a proposed controversial Islamic cultural center to be built near the site of the 9/11 attacks" by serving on the board of the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. Of course, by that affiliation Gregorian is in league with all four living former presidents, Rudy Giuliani, George Pataki, and 9/11 widow Debra Burlingame. Klein also quoted from a review of a book Gregorian (Klein showed no evidence of actually reading the book) wrote to falsely portray him as an extremist.

Multiculturalism

Posner states that the Muslims from whom Breivik is trying to save Europe are being aided by his enemy, the "multiculturalists," or "cultural Marxists," or proponents of "political correctness." WND too has long railed against multiculturalism and what it perceives to be political correctness.

A search for "multiculutralism" in WND's article archive returns 430 results at this writing. A few examples:

• WND columnist Ilana Mercer wrote about Japan: "For to grasp the reason this homogenous society's culture has endured, one would have to juxtapose it with balkanized America, a country riven by feuds and factions courtesy of state-imposed tribalism (multiculturalism and mass immigration). Far better to crank things up by pursuing the partial meltdown, full meltdown or core meltdown angles."
• Columnist Andy Logar listed "multiculturalism" and "political correctness" as among "liberalism's ruinous policies and ideologies" to which "we have been assaulted and benumbed," resulting in the election of President Obama.
• Tom Tancredo declared that "what seems to be happening in U.S. politics is a three-party merger of leftist ideology, one-world multiculturalism and Islamist interests."
• Dave Welch ranted: "The stealth attack of moral relativism, feminism, multiculturalism, etc., that have been allowed to creep into our military like the poisonous cloud of chemical weapons is only exacerbated by forcing – and I mean forcing – sexual diversity in the face of our men and women in uniform."
• WND managing editor David Kupelian asserted: "However, ever since the 1960s we've lived in a blur. Although we remember the long hair, the 'British invasion' and the obsession with psychedelic drugs, the really important, consequential things were happening on America's college campuses. Unbeknownst to almost everyone at the time, our nation was being assaulted by radical revolutionary movements: women's liberation, black liberation, sexual liberation, gay liberation, animal liberation, multiculturalism, political correctness and so on."
• WND editor Joseph Farah wrote two columns about a case in which a Muslim man was accused of decapitating his wife. The headlines he put on them: "Losing our heads over multiculturalism" and "More carnage from multiculturalism."

At least one WND columnist is quite down with Breivik's opinions on multiculturalism. From Vox Day's July 24 column:

The frightening reality is that Breivik is probably correct in anticipating violence of this magnitude in the future. Indeed, it may well be that he is erring on the conservative side. Just as the depression of the 1930s set the stage for large-scale military conflict, the even larger global depression that began in 2008 is likely to build upon the dreadful foundation that was foolishly imposed upon the West by the multiculturalists. What the eventual outcome will be is uncertain. It may be the global government of progressive dreams, but based on the pendulum principle of history, it will more likely mark a return to the pre-World War I state of balanced and ethnically homogenous powers.

On Saturday, Matt Drudge reported a shooting in Seattle that was rather less covered than the Utoya one. Ten people were shot, none fatally, and no one was arrested. But the gunfire at the La Raza car show was every bit as significant as the more lethal shots fired in Norway, because it represents the other side of the coming immigration conflict. According to the statistics, more Americans will die in the next eight days at the hands of immigrants than were murdered in Oslo and Utoya.

Thus far, Americans have proven to be more tolerant of the ethnic vibrancy in their midst, despite the Sept. 11 attacks and 4,380 annual murders by immigrants. But, as the Norway attacks show, apathy and tolerance will not last forever. And when the separatist conflict comes to America, as history tends to suggests it eventually will, it should not be forgotten that primary responsibility for the bloodshed will lie with short-sighted immigration advocates such as Rep. Emanuel Cellar, Sen. Philip Hart, Sen. Edward Kennedy and former President Lyndon Johnson.

WND also published a syndicated column by Pat Buchanan in which he stated that several European leaders "have all declared multiculturalism a failure," adding: "As for a climactic conflict between a once-Christian West and an Islamic world that is growing in numbers and advancing inexorably into Europe for the third time in 14 centuries, on this one, Breivik may be right."

Anti-feminism

Michelle Goldberg at The Daily Beast points out that Breivik's manifesto shows that the author's "hatred of women rivals his hatred of Islam, and is intimately linked to it. Some reports have suggested that during his rampage on Utoya, he targeted the most beautiful girl first." Goldberg adds, "Conservatives worried about the Islamization of Europe often blame feminism for weakening Western societies and opening them up to a Muslim demographic invasion." Breivik writes that "The female manipulation of males has been institutionalised during the last decades and is a partial cause of the feminisation of men in Europe,” and he blames empowered women for his own isolation, saying that he recoils from the “destructive and suicidal Sex and the City lifestyle (modern feminism, sexual revolution) ... In that setting, men are not men anymore, but metro sexual and emotional beings that are there to serve the purpose as a never-criticising soul mate to the new age feminist woman goddess.”

Related articles on ConWebWatch: WorldNetDaily's Downward Spiral Shoebat's Story Pamela Geller's Pretty Hate Machine

Such anti-feminism is a staple of WND, as most prominently exhibited by the presence of anti-feminist conservative Phyllis Schlafly as a weekly columnist, where she regularly rails against the Violence Against Women Act as "feminist pork" that she claims was "written and implemented to oppose the abuse of women and to punish men." WND also published Schlafly's latest book, "The Flipside of Feminism," which declares that "It's time to liberate America from feminism's dead-end road. Cast off the ideology that preaches faux empowerment and liberation from men and marriage."

In a similar vein, WND has promoted so-called "men's rights" issues such as paternity fraud, such as in this 2006 article claiming that "one state that examined the problem found as many as 30 percent of those paying child support were, indeed, not the biological fathers of the children being supported." In fact, as ConWebBlog detailed at the time, the report in question didn't study paternity fraud, merely referencing claims made by other groups without verifying them. Further, such paternity tests are presumably conducted only when paternity has become an issue, which is likely to bring significant number of negative results; it's dishonest to apply those findings to all child custody and support cases.

WND's Whistleblower magazine devoted one 2006 issue to "The War on Fathers," which complained that "America's family court system is scandalously biased in favor of the mother in child custody disputes" and that "this loss by children of their fathers' influence is directly responsible – far more than any other cause – for the modern national scourges of gang life, crime and much more." WND managing editor David Kupelian is quoted as asserting that the problem "is that misguided feminists, intent on advancing a radically different worldview than the one on which this nation was founded, have succeeded in fomenting a revolution. And that revolution amounts to a powerful and pervasive campaign against masculinity, maleness, boys, men and patriarchy."

Kupelian, meanwhile, has a creepy obsession with female teachers -- and only female teachers -- who have sex with their students, Kupelian devoted a section of his 2009 book "How Evil Works" to the subject. Kupelian's obsession is such that WND has been compiling a running list of teacher-student sex incidents compiled over the past five years. By contrast, WND has essentially ignored male teachers who have sex with students. Also by contrast, WND has praised a man who, according to court records, "has a long history of physically abusing [his] children" and exhibited controlling behavior to the point that his wife "does not make even tentative decisions in dependency matters but rather defers issues until father can make decisions on them" -- all because the man claimed to be a Christian and he homeschooled his (terrified) children, an "education" the court found to be horribly inadequate.

Breivik's argument that feminism has weakened men finds an echo in WND writings such as a 2008 column by Tristan Emmanuel, in which he complains that "Men don't feel welcomed in churches anymore because Christianity has been feminized," adding:

No doubt feminism is a force of evil in North American society. It is evil not because it has tried to establish equality. Rather it is precisely because it hasn't established equality that it is guilty of perpetrating a fraud. What feminism has succeeded in doing is to convince both sexes that the only masculine identity that is valuable is an effeminate male. That in fact, the only way for equality to exist is for men to be like women, or simply not to exist.

Taking WND's anti-feminist attitude to the limit is columnist Vox Day. He has claimed that the Founding Fathers "knew perfectly well what they were doing" when they denied women the vote, he considers women's rights "a disease that should be eradicated," and he has warned young men not to marry "career" women because they have a bad habit of having their own thoughts: "Marriage to a stay-at-home wife rather than one with a full-time job reduces the risk of divorce by nearly one-third. Just the simple act of avoiding romantic involvement with working women is nearly enough on its own to again make marriage a viable option for young men."

The only suitable woman for Day, apparently, is one who lives only through her children and husband and has no independent thoughts of her own.

Misdirection and deflecting blame

Not only is WND not eager to tell readers it's cited in Breivik's manifesto -- or how closely its editorial agenda is aligned with it -- WND is trying to spin the manifesto to lay blame away from itself and its friends:

• A July 24 article took pains to point out that "the media's quick characterization of the Norwegian terrorist as a 'Christian' may be as incorrect as it was to call Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh one." WND highlights that Breivik has called himself "not an excessively religious man," though it also notes that he considers himself "a supporter of a monocultural Christian Europe." WND also thinks that Breivik's claim that he's "100-percent Christian" is somehow countered by his also expressing "pride in his genealogical roots."
• Another July 24 article highlighted one tiny part of the manifesto in which Breivik "considered a plan to obtain a weapon of mass destruction through a truce with extreme Islamists, despite his online anti-Muslim rants."
• WND also posted a video from the pseudonymous PPSimmons attempting to deny that Breivik is a right-wing Christian.
• Farah himself was eager to distance his brand of Christianity from Breivik, playing the "No True Scotsman" fallacy in his July 28 column by insisting that Breivik could not possibly be a Christian because Christians don't kill people like that, further declaring that "Breivik demonstrates his lack of understanding of the most basic Christian principles."

In fact, Breivik describes himself as a cultural Christian who sought by his terrorism to restore a Christian-dominated Europe.

WND also gave space to Michael Savage to conspiracy-monger that Breivik's arrest has "all the appearances of a cover-up":

"They created their Reichstag fire. They found their Timothy McVeigh. They created their Jack Ruby. How could one man have blown up the downtown and then raced to the island to kill the teens?

"This is likely a fabrication of the Labour Party, who needs to hold onto power to enforce their multi-culturalist, Muslim-favoring, anti-nationalist views," he continued, "especially in light of the earlier 'credit' for this atrocity claimed by the radical Muslim group whose leader they were threatening to deport.

"The official story defies logic in the following sense as well," he continued, "if this lone right-winger hated Muslims, as the New York Times is reporting, then why did he slaughter his own people and not Muslims?"

[...]

"They open Norway's doors to massive immigration from the Middle East," he said. "They spew hatred against the state of Israel. And today's tragic massacres are the inevitable result."

Savage said "Norway's 9/11" could have been stopped, "but it grew far too long, nourished by the bile of Eurosocialism."

"I hoped that incidents like this," he said, "will lead Europeans to come to the defense of their own civilizations and clamp down on the hate and intolerance that takes perverse advantage of European tolerance and openness."

WND reporter F. Michael Maloof then took it further in a July 25 article, citing unnamed "security officials" as claiming that "Breivik's manifesto resembles one by al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, although from a Christian rather than a Muslim standpoint." But if Breivik isn't a real Christian, doesn't that analogy mean that bin Laden isn't a real Muslim -- and, thus, attempts by WND and its fellow right-wingers to portray bin Laden as emblematic of mainstream Islam are false and dishonest? Maloof doesn't seem interested in exploring that.

A July 28 column by David Solway strangely sought to blame liberals for the terrorism, even though liberals were ostensibly the target of Anders Breivik's campaign of terror: "In failing to meet the threat of cultural subversion, the European left has facilitated the emergence of the illiberal and xenophobic branch of the far right."

But even at WND, actual reporting slips through the demogoguery on occasions. A July 26 article, taken from WND's G2 Bulletin and carrying the headline "'Radical' nationalists rising up in Europe," states that "The slaughter in Norway last week – allegedly by Anders Behring Breivik – appears to have unleashed a number of latent far-right activist groups throughout Europe whose members are beginning public protests over their worries regarding immigration, multiculturalism, globalization and the rise of Islam in Europe." It continued:

Now, following his alleged attack and the publication of his manifesto, ultra-nationalist groups throughout Europe are becoming more vocal, hoping to instill their concept of a more homogeneous society as a political mainstream viewpoint.

One of those groups, the English Defense League, or EDL, is to stage a rally in the town of Luton in Bedfordshire in the United Kingdom. Draped in the flag of the United Kingdom, demonstrators, many of whom are hooded, will be wearing white hockey masks with a red Crusader cross painted on it.

The demonstrators in Luton will be joined by so-called defense leagues from Norway where the recent attack occurred, Sweden and the Netherlands as well as supporters from other far-right groups from France, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Scandinavia and the United Kingdom.

[...]

Observers increasingly are concerned that members of ultra-right movements and demonstrations consist mostly of young people.

But the English Defense League is a favorite group of WND columnist Pamela Geller. Earlier this summer, after the head of the EDL's Jewish Division, Roberta Moore, resigned from the group complaining of "Nazis" in the EDL ranks, Geller first declared that she was withdrawing her support from the EDL, then flip-flopped the next day, insisting that "There is a struggle for the soul of the EDL" and that she still believes the EDL is "noble and true."

The first Geller column at WND to reference the Norway terrorism was, of course, largely devoted to ranting about Muslims. She complained that "the mainstream media demonize the right for the Norway murders," making no mention of why that might be the case -- namely, that Breivik cited her, her friends, and the website that publishes her column to back up his philosophy.

WND and its allies, it seems, have too much Muslim-bashing to do to take time out to do anything so mundane as soul-searching over the fact that a terrorist found refuge in their views.