Molly Norris, American Cartoonist and Victim of Terror, and Glenn Greenwald. [View all]

[msanthrope]

Anybody remember Molly Norris? She's the woman who started Everybody Draw Mohammed Day.

It was a brilliant, creative idea designed to strike back against censorship. In response, a terrorist piece of shit issued a fatwa against her, calling her "a prime target of assassination." In 2013, she appeared on AlQaeda's latest Most Wanted list, along with Stephane Charbonnier, Editor of Charlie Hedbo. Stephane Charbonnier is dead today.

What happened to Molly Norris? She's gone....a ghost. She changed her name, went off the grid, and went into hiding on the advice of the FBI, and she stopped drawing her cartoons.

What happened to the terrorist? We drone struck his ass. We were trying to drone strike him long before he threatened Molly Norris, since he had a bad habit of fomenting terror in the US.

Now---whose "free speech" rights was Glenn Greenwald concerned with?

Glenn Greenwald, defended Awlaki, wondering what the US did that turned this "moderate" into a radical. He made the amazing, and demonstrably false claim that Awlaki was targeted for his exercise of free speech---specifically, for his "anti-American sermons."

Now, think about that for a second. Mr. Greenwald accused the President of the United States of targeting a cleric for exercising his free speech. Not for Awlaki's involvement with Rajib Karim in the British Airways bomb plot. Not for his involvement with sending PETN bombs to Chicago synagogues. Not for his involvement in the Christmas Underwear Plot, or Fort Hood, or any of the other acts of terror Awlaki either had a direct hand in, or supported and encouraged. And not for the murder that Awlaki was convicted of, and was fugitive from.

Awlaki was targeted by President Obama for his free speech, according to Greenwald. Now, to buttress this claim, Greenwald and his supporters have continually pushed the myth that Awlaki was a moderate in 2001 who was later radicalized by the actions of America. Nothing could be further from the truth. Anwar Awlaki was a massive intelligence failure on the part of the Bush/Cheney administration. It is no coincidence that four 9/11 hijackers associated with him, or that the Fort Hood shooter's family went to his mosque. Awlaki was no "moderate." What he was, was an operative. And Bush/Cheney, trying to find WMDs in Iraq, were too preoccupied to clean up actual AlQaeda in either Afghanistan, or here. Hell.....they missed twenty hijackers all going to flight school. You think they couldn't have missed an operative disguising himself as a "moderate" cleric?

Think about it for a second....Greenwald's claim that Awlaki was moderate rests on the idea that the Bush/Cheney intelligence community was competent in 2001. Alternatively, he claims that Awlaki's association with the Washington Post well, proves something. I defy any person here to watch Awlaki's October 2001 sermon and not feel precisely the same way Ray Suarez felt....

While talking of his feelings of grievance, he chose his words carefully. Very carefully. One could walk away from the Friday sermon, or from the interview, struck by how in his rhetoric he could dance right up to the edge of condoning violence, taking the side of anti-American forces in the Muslim world, and then, just as carefully, reel it back in, pulling the punch, softening the context, covering the sharp-edged scalpel of his words in a reassuring sheath.

So why would Greenwald push the meme that Awlaki was killed for his free speech by President Obama? Why would anyone push the meme that Awlaki was a "moderate" at any time? Why would anyone claim that the Bush/Cheney intelligence community was competent? Why would anyone conveniently forget Awlaki's acts of terror, including the fatwa against a fellow member of the media?

I cannot figure out why someone who presents himself as a Progressive would do these things.

But I do know this.....if I had the choice to write about the free speech rights of anyone and have lots of people read that article, I would write about how a cartoonist from Seattle had to go into hiding--and is still there--all because a terrorist in a cave in Yemen got het up over a frickin' cartoon. I would call her a patriot---for she might die for simply expressing one of the fundamentals of our democracy. Molly Norris stood up for free speech and will never get her old life back. I hope she has a new, good, and peaceful life.

I wouldn't waste a fucking line writing apologia for a piece of shit terrorist who thought that a cartoon merited death.