Clifford D. May, the president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on terrorism and Islamism, wrote this piece about Molly Norris, the former cartoonist for the Seattle Weekly, today on National Review Online.
Molly Norris Goes Ghost - Clifford D. May - National Review Online
You might remember this previous post about Molly's idea, which was “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day.” She backed off as soon as her idea went viral on the internet, because she was concerned for her safety. She was right to be concerned: "Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born cleric — once touted by the New York Times as a moderate but in fact an al-Qaeda commander who is currently hiding out in Yemen — issued a fatwa calling for Norris to be murdered by any Muslim willing and able."
You might recall two of the former pupils of this holy man, Anwar al-Awaki: Nidal Malik Hasan, the U. S. Army Muslim doctor who killed 13 people and wounded 30 others at Ft. Hood in the name of Allah, on November 5, 2009, and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab , the so-called Christmas Day Bomber, who tried to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253, en route from Amsterdam to Detroit, Michigan, on December 25, 2009.
Who can blame young Molly for "going ghost," which means, according to her former employer, she will be "moving, changing her name, and essentially wiping away her identity. She will no longer be publishing cartoons in our paper or in City Arts magazine, where she has been a regular contributor. She is, in effect, being put into a witness-protection program — except, as she notes, without the government picking up the tab. . ."
So is anyone upset about what has happened to Molly? According to the Clifford May piece: "The saga of Molly Norris has elicited hardly any notice from political leaders, elite journalists, and celebrities. Nor has it stirred to action those who claim to represent America’s Islamic community. Nor have I seen anything from Human Rights Watch. The ACLU is actually defending al-Awlaki. At the U.N., Muslim-majority countries are pushing to ban criticism of Islam under international law."
We all have to excuse Molly Norris if she has a hard time believing that "Islam means Peace."
