Opinion Forum

Sometimes You Die Anyway

July 14th, 2010

“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.” — Sir Winston Churchill

In yet another lesson why appeasement is futile, Molly Norris, the Seattle cartoonist who accidentally started the “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” phenomenon, just got marked for death in an Al-Qaeda magazine by Islamic extremist Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born ideological influencer of multiple terrorists who was targeted for assassination by the Obama administration.

“A cartoonist out of Seattle, Washington, named Molly Norris started the ‘Everyone Draw Mohammed Day,'” the article attributed to the radical Yemeni cleric says.

“She should be taken as a prime target of assassination, along with others who participated in her campaign.

“The large number of participants makes it easier for us because there are many targets to choose from,” reads the article in the magazine of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP.

The killings should not, however, be limited to “Draw Mohammed” participants, the article says.

“Because (participants) are practising a ‘right’ that is defended by the law, they have the backing of the entire Western political system. This would make… attacking any Western target legal from an Islamic viewpoint.”

“We will fight” to defend Mohammed, the article says. “We will instigate, we will bomb, and we will assassinate, and may our mothers be bereaved of us if we do not rise in his defence.”

Molly Norris was, of course, the Seattle cartoonist who accidentally sparked the “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” with a stray cartoon, only to frantically take it all back a few days later with the reassurance that she never meant to offend anyone and can’t everybody please just get along?

Note however, that it is not just Ms. Norris who is going to be targeted for this little piece of insubordination against Islam. Anyone who dared draw a picture of Mohammed in support of this day is fair game. Anyone who did not draw a picture is also fair game so long as they live in the West, as it was the Western legal system which permitted and protected this bit of insubordination against the “religion of peace.”

We hear repeatedly that Islam does not condemn the killing of innocents, but we hear rather less frequently the caveat that Islam does not consider the infidel, or even the moderate Muslim living in the West, to be innocent. If there is one good thing about this fatwa, it is that the explicit targeting of Westerners who didn’t even participate in the event makes the issue crystal clear. The West needs to wake up and realize that this is not just a misunderstanding, not just the work of a few fringe Islamic radicals. It is a war, a fight for control of the only arenas in which Islam is actually equipped to fight and perhaps win: the culture and the information battlespace. Going back to the words of Winston Churchill:

“If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may be even a worse fate. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.”

Right now, the U.S. is still able to “easily win without bloodshed”… on the culture front, at least. But if we do not “fight for right” now, it will only get worse. For everyone who enjoys the freedoms and liberties of Western civilization is a target of radical Islam, whether they like it or not. Al-Awlaki is far from the first to say so, and the actions of his protégées Major Nidal Hassan and the underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab speak louder than words. Should anyone be tempted to take the easy way out of appeasement, remember the example of Molly Norris and how much good her apologies did her in the eyes of Islam.

During the Cold War, the prevailing sentiment was, “Better dead than Red.” Lately, this sentiment seems to have been turned on its head by general society into “Better Red than dead,” since like Ms. Norris, much of society seems determined to twist itself into a politically correct knot rather than run the risk of offending anybody.

But sometimes, as Ms. Norris is now finding out, you die anyway.

Articles written by Brianna Aubin
Tags: al-Awlaki, appeasement, death, Draw Mohammed Day, fatwa, terrorism
Categories: News, Politics | Comments (10) | Home

10 Responses to “Sometimes You Die Anyway”

Tom Carter | July 16th, 2010 at 10:41 pm

This is a great article, Brianna. Everyone should read it. It very effectively illustrates the fact that we can’t deal with islamist terrorism from the perspective of Western cultural understandings. People like this can’t be reasoned with, and they certainly can’t be appeased. As bad as it sounds, the only way to deal with them is to find them and take them out. Al-Awlaki makes the point as clearly as it could be made.

d | July 20th, 2010 at 5:45 pm

I am sure this Al-Awlaki speaks for all of Islam, and of course,all Muslims,as you suggest. Yes,just as anyone speaks for all of any religion and people. Not even Jesus, did that,or Mohamed or Buddha. Scare tactics like this end in genocide.

Brianna | July 21st, 2010 at 3:21 am

Unfortunately, it only takes one suicide bomber to kill you, and al-Awlaki has already been tagged as a serious ideological influence to more than one suicide bomber.

d | July 21st, 2010 at 9:02 am

That still does not mean all Muslims and all of Islam are terrorists or terrioristic threats. It only took one redneck to blow achieve the Oklahoma City bombing. Does that mean all rednecks are now on our radar as terrorists? Not hardly.

Brianna | July 21st, 2010 at 10:29 am

Rednecks are not a religious group, and anyone can go nuts. If you’re referring to Christians, then as I pointed out in an earlier comment, on the rare occasion a christian decides to go nuts, he is immediatley condemned by mainstream christianity. Mainstream Islam has yet to rise up and condemn acts of terrorism, and so long as that majority remains silent, the only voices that will be heard are voices such as al-Awlaki’s.

Brian | July 21st, 2010 at 2:47 pm

Doris said “Scare tactics like this end in genocide.

Unfortunately, I think that is the only way we are going to achieve peace – for one or the other of us to utterly annihilate the other. Most in the West are happy to live and let live. Not so with many in the Islamic world, which stretches from Morocco to Indonesia. You cannot possibly even begin to grasp the mindset from that part of the world by knowing 1 Muslim. Until you’ve spent time over there, you just cannot comprehend it.

If you won’t listen to me, listen to your brother, and if you won’t listen to him, talk to returning troops, or to guys that work the oil patch in the ME. We will never peacefully coexist with them because there are enough of them that don’t want peace, even if it is not a majority.

Perhaps the Muslim world will undergo the same convulsions that the Christian world did during and following the Renaissance. But it won’t happen in our lifetimes, and just as the Christian change took centuries, so too would it take the Muslims centuries. Unfortunately, WMDs exist now that did not back then. One side or the other will put them to use before such a change can take place.

d | July 22nd, 2010 at 8:16 am

You made my point,Brian. I will not believe that we need to annihilate one or the other,we have co-existed for centuries,and guess what,we probably always will. WMDs aside,we are the aggressor. We are over there.

Brian | July 22nd, 2010 at 1:09 pm

You made my point,Brian. I will not believe that we need to annihilate one or the other,we have co-existed for centuries,and guess what,we probably always will. WMDs aside,we are the aggressor. We are over there.

As far as who started what, there’s plenty of blame to go around on both sides.

Your assertion that we have “coexisted” for centuries displays an appalling lack of historical knowledge. Ever heard of King Darius or King Xerxes of Persia? Granted, they were both long before Islam, as was Hannibal of Carthage. Since Islam, we’ve had 4 crusades into Palestine, and the Moors (they were Muslims) invaded and controlled much of southern Europe. As I recall, the Moors didn’t look very kindly on Christians or Jews.

I’d say also that you aren’t really aware that most Americans would be happy to live and let live. I know I would be. But I’ve been over there, and I know much better than you do the sentiment of Muslims regarding the West. While not a majority, there are enough fundamentalists all across the Muslim world that wish us ill that we could pull up stakes today and they’d still come after us. Believe what you will, but that is the truth.

Today, the excuse is that we are stealing their oil and corrupting their culture. If we pulled out, the excuse would be that we were starving them to death by depriving them of oil revenues. Oil doesn’t get itself out of the ground, and without American and Canadian oil workers, there aren’t enough oil workers in Europe to fill the void that would be left.

Do yourself a favor and gather knowledge on the ME from sources other than CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, and CBS. Try reading books written by people that have been there. Try reading articles and essays by people that have been there.

Better yet, why don’t you read some English translated articles from the Europeans that are sick of the violence that the Muslims are bringing to such uber-tolerant countries like France, The Netherlands, Sweden, the UK, and Germany. Even the liberals/socialists over there are finally starting to see that there is no peace to be had with the Muslims.

d | July 23rd, 2010 at 10:23 am

But,we are both still in existance,my point,again. We are still Christians,they are still Muslims,Islamic,maybe don’t like each other,but no one has wiped out the other. That was what you were illuding to. Do not need to reasd up to know that I will never believe all of any people are bad and need to be eliminated,my only point, is that we can both exist and do not have to eliminate the other or hate each other. It must start somewhere,even with a handful of people. No more lectures on how illiterate I am,I already acknowledged how brilliant all you guys are,but that will not make me a hater of any,entire culture or peoples. I do not agree with you,or Brianna or Tom,no amount of history will change that,or propaganda. I am,like Brianna, done arguing this,maybe I am niave,but just can’t invoke all that hatred of Muslims or Islam,that you seem to have,never will.

Brian Bagent | July 23rd, 2010 at 12:29 pm

I don’t hate anybody. I am simply cognizant of the fact that there will be no lasting peace until one or the other of us is wiped out (or the West is converted to Islam – fat chance).

If the Crusaders of the 12-14th centuries had had WMDs, I expect that they would have used them on the Muslims. If the Moors of the 15th and 16th centuries had had WMDs, I expect they, too, would have used them on the Christians and Jews.

We in the West have them now. The Arabs/Muslims don’t. Yet. But when they do, and when they can figure out a way to deliver them, you can rest assured (or not) that they will use them. And when they do it, we will reciprocate.

I would say that it’s MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) all over again, but the Muslim leaders do not have the same fear of using them that the Soviets did.

You can avoid reality all you want, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.