Charles Manson thought he heard instructions to kill in the Beatles song "Helter Skelter," and committed mass murder. There were no instructions to kill in the song. In the video below, Bono says, "This song Charles Manson stole from the Beatles. We're stealing it back."
The Breivik murders are being used to discredit all resistance to the global jihad and Islamic supremacism. But we're stealing it back.
This morning I received this email:
Dear Robert Spencer I am a staff writer at the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet. You have probably heard about the tragic terrorist attack in Norway this Friday. Just before the attack took place, the perpetrator published a manifest he has called-"A European Declaration of Independence ".In the manifest he uses text from your work and also lists you as one of the leading intellectuals he has been inspired by.
Have you ever been in contact with Anders Behring Breivik?
What do you think about being listed as an inspiration for his work?
Best regards
Gunnar Thorenfeldt
I responded:
I have never been in contact with Anders Behring Breivik.If I was indeed an inspiration for his work, I feel the way the Beatles must have felt when they learned that Charles Manson had committed murder after being inspired by messages he thought he heard in their song lyrics. There were no such messages. Nor is there, for any sane person, any inspiration for harming anyone in my work, which has been consistently dedicated to defending human rights for all people.
Meanwhile, on Twitter, renowned poet Reza Aslan graced us with another masterpiece. He wrote this to me on Twitter:
According to logic used by Robert Spencer and @jihadwatchRS to blame muslims for all terror he is personally responsibility for #Oslo
Yes, it's incoherent, but give the man a break: he's a poet. Here, try it this way:
and @jihadwatchRS
Genius!
In any case, seriously, I know what he means. But he is wrong, of course. The difference is this: Islamic texts and teachings, and frequently imams, directly exhort their followers to commit acts of violence. I do not. Nor does anyone else in the counterjihad. There is nothing Breivik could conceivably have read here as a justification for killing anyone. There is plenty in the Qur'an and Sunnah that jihadists can and do use as justification for murder.
