Andrew C. McCarthy:
If constitutional constraints and Western tradition won’t abide laws that bar speaking against Islam, then we’ll just have to rely on extortion. On that, Hillary Clinton and Anjem Choudary could not have been clearer, or more in sync.
Mr. Choudary argued the case as an Islamic-supremacist imam from Britain — one who makes no bones about his desire that sharia, Islam’s repressive legal code, be imposed throughout the West, very much including America.
Mrs. Clinton argued the case as America’s secretary of state.
Against that backdrop, we consider this week’s carnage in Paris: A savage exercise in extortion for the precise purpose of suppressing free speech derisive of Islam — not just silencing Charlie Hebdo with extreme prejudice but making the satirical magazine a chilling example of what happens when Islamic supremacists are crossed.
By happenstance, our consideration brings us right back to where we were just two weeks ago: apportioning blame for a murderous atrocity. Then, it was the cold-blooded killing of two New York City police officers. Yes, it was freely conceded here, the principal culprit is the thug who pulled the trigger. But also bearing a share of responsibility were (a) the rabble-rousers who brazenly encouraged violence against police officers; and (b) the public officials who flouted their sworn duty to enforce the law faithfully, contributing to the climate of violence by conveying sympathy for the rabble-rousers.
So what of the mass-murders in Paris? A dozen innocent people were slaughtered at the Charlie Hebdo offices by a pair of French jihadists, the brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi, at least one of whom was trained by al-Qaeda in Yemen. (The popular See No Islam Lexicon may need some editing: These “lone wolves” seem to have come as a pack, and while Europe was home to the “homegrown” terrorism, the growing appears to have happened on the Arabian Peninsula.) Of the twelve casualties, ten are dead because their magazine had the temerity to lampoon the “Religion of Peace”; two are dead because they were unarmed police officers dispatched by bicycle to confront al-Qaeda-trained, Kalashnikov-wielding jihadists — and they thus had about as much chance as a hashtag to prevail.
Later, the Kouachis’ apparent accomplice, Amedy Coulibaly, with what is suspected to be the assistance of his girlfriend, Hayat Boumediene, carried out the assassination-style murder of Paris police officer Clarissa Jean-Philippe, whose uniform made her a target — unless responding to a routine traffic accident is now considered an offense against Islam. Like Western police, Jews are also jihad targets: Coulibaly took several people hostage at the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket in Paris while the Kouachis held a hostage at a printing plant 25 miles away, in Dammartin-en-Goele. On Friday, finally treating the situation as the act of war it was, French forces stormed the two locations, killing the three terrorists . . . but not before Coulibaly murdered four of his hostages and wounded several others. (That, at least, is the information as we go to press.)
Again, we may freely concede, the terrorists are the principal culprits. But is there other blame to be apportioned?
Imam Choudary is a valuable exponent of the repressive sharia in which he specializes. Echoing Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, he exploited USA Today’s offer of its editorial pages to explain, without apology, that “Islam” means submission, not peace; it is about the imposition of Allah’s law by any means necessary, including conquest and intimidation.
There is no greater offense against Allah’s law than blasphemy, which sharia deems to be any aspersion, no matter how slight, and punishes by death. It matters not that free speech is a core Western principle protected by law, nor even that murder is a grievous statutory offense throughout the civilized world. As Choudary elaborated in an exchange with Sean Hannity that was as chilling as it was remarkable, the murders in Paris should stand as a lesson in the severe consequences apt to follow from insults to Islam’s prophet — therefore . . . accept sharia blasphemy laws and don’t dare insult Islam’s prophet.
The warning from Islamic supremacists is blunt: Forfeit your liberty because your laws cannot protect you — we have extra-legal ways of coercing your submission.
The main problem with the idea that we can paint ourselves into a tiny enough corner so as not to offend some murderous-but-sensitive Muslims is that some of our ”crimes” that are worthy of death (in their eyes) are status crimes rather than behavior crimes.
That means we cannot stop doing them.
They are a part of our state of being, like having blue eye or brown skin is.
Fact is, if we are IN the USA we are ”guilty.”
Even if we are NOT in the USA but are FROM the USA we are still ”guilty.”
In other words, there is no appeasement plan that will ever work.
In a video message ISIS spokesman, Abu Mohammed al Adnani, is seen saying that followers should “rise up and kill intelligence officers, police officers, soldiers, and civilians,” specifically naming the United States, France, Australia and Canada as targets….
Hate based on status, not on behavior.
Hillary and Choudary are arguing about how small our corner should be, not whether we will continue to be targeted.