Originally published by ANewDomain.net:
Supporters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) are plotting to assassinate Australian and American cartoonists, Foreign Policy magazine is reporting.
As an American cartoonist who prefers not to get assassinated, I believe this is an extremely worrisome story.
As you can probably imagine, I have been giving a lot of thought to the possibility that Australian and American cartoonists might get blown away à la Charlie Hebdo, and even more consideration to the possibility that I might be one of them.
As a result of said thinking, I have this to say: If some ISIS asshole kills me, it’s totally Obama’s fault.
Since at least a year ago, the Obama Administration has pulled out all the stops to stop wannabe jihadi American citizens and residents from traveling to Syria, typically via Turkey, to join the Islamic State.
In October, the FBI arrested Mohammed Hamzah Khan, 19, at Chicago’s O’Hare airport. He faces 15 years in prison for trying to go to Syria to join ISIS. They grabbed Adam Dandach, 20, at Orange County California’s John Wayne airport, of all places, for the same thing. This past February, it was three guys from Brooklyn of Central Asian ethnic descent, this time at JFK. In April, four Somali-Americans in Minneapolis. Scores of Americans have been arrested by federal authorities while trying to join ISIS.
To which I, possible future dead cartoonist, ask: WTF?
Why not let them leave?
As I wrote recently, the legal basis for these arrests is skimpy. But never mind the morals or the law. What about common sense?
I thought the idea was to fight them over there so we wouldn’t have to fight them here, right? So, about these self-radicalized guys — why not let them go to Syria?
The word is already getting out among ISIS fans that it’s getting hard to travel from the U.S. to Syria, and that you might get slammed with a “material support to a terrorist organization” charge if the feds learn about your plans. Those who are stuck here in the States will naturally turn to Plan B: carrying out attacks here in the — yuck on this word — “homeland.”
Before he was accidentally blown up by an American drone this past January, Al Qaeda spokesperson Adam Yahiye Gadahn, a.k.a. Azzam the American, advised English-speaking would-be terrorists to think globally, kill locally:
“America is absolutely awash with easily obtainable firearms. You can go down to a gun show at the local convention center and come away with a fully automatic assault rifle without a background check and most likely without having to show an identification card. So what are you waiting for?”
I’ve followed politics and U.S. foreign policy my whole life, yet I can’t imagine the rationale for this policy of apprehending Americans for wanting to join ISIS. If they want to go, let them — hell, give them a first-class plane ticket.
2 Comments.
Nervous, Ted? No need to be, it’s the RW cartoonists who’ve been dissing Islam the most. Have you ever drawn Mohamed? I don’t recall, but wouldn’t put it past you. (err, I mean that in a good way…)
Remember, you’ve been published in Al Jazeera and even Al Qaeda [purportedly] wants to hire you.
Nah, you’ve got more chance of being popped by a Tea Partier than by IS(IS). Now, doesn’t that make you feel safer?
It’s not like they’re stopping these terrorists who look like they might be Arabs (whether Muslim or not) or Muslims (whether Arab or not) or Sikhs (just for good measure) and saying, ‘No, you can’t fly to Syria, you must go back to your own home in the US of A.’ They have the good sense to sentence them to life without the possibility of parole for the heinous offence of buying an aeroplane ticket.
This was a necessary correction to the primitive, barbaric system of justice that allowed the terrorists to kill about 70% as many Americans as Bush, jr and Obama had to send to their deaths in response (we do not, of course, count any of the million or so foreign terrorists–men, women, and small children–that our brave troops managed to kill to keep us safe with no thought for their own safety).
Today, we know that it is much better to sentence 1,000 innocents either to life in prison without the possibility of parole (if the jury is excessively squeamish) or to death (just to keep the rest of us safe) than to let one possibly guilty person escape punishment.