CBS News reports a familiar name was on the list of beheading victims for Boston jihadi Usaama Abdullah Rahim and his accomplices: Pamela Geller, whose Mohammed Art Exhibit in Garland, Texas was attacked by heavily armed terrorists.
Rahim was shot and killed by an FBI agent and Boston cop on Tuesday, on the cusp of what authorities say was an imminent operation to murder and behead police officers.
“I’m the number one target for ISIS right now,” Geller told CBS News, which reports she has “increased her security, but has yet to discuss the threat with the FBI.”
“It won’t end with me or the cops,” Geller continued. “The one thing that’s came out of Garland is ISIS is here. Islamic terrorism is here on the home soil on a weekly, sometimes a daily basis.”
According to the CBS report, it is not clear how seriously Geller’s murder was contemplated by Rahim and his accomplice David Wright before they shifted targets to what they described as “the boys in blue,” but they definitely discussed it via email, including the use of the disgusting euphemism “thinking with your head on your chest” for decapitation. ISIS has a penchant for posing its murder victims with their severed heads on their chests.
CNN‘s review of the FBI affidavit suggests the jihadis gave up on trying to kill Geller because they thought it would take too long to get a shot at her. “I can’t wait that long,” said Rahim, concluding that police officers made “the easiest target.” Evidently the police have records of these email exchanges because Wright failed in his effort to destroy Rahim’s cell phone, for which he will now face charges of obstructing justice.
“They targeted me for violating Sharia blasphemy laws. They mean to kill everyone who doesn’t do their bidding and abide by their law voluntarily,” Geller said in an interview with Erin Burnett of CNN. “This is a showdown for American freedom. Will we stand against this savagery or bow down to them and silence ourselves?”
She ruefully noted that something was terribly wrong in America when safely displaying a cartoon required an army of security guards. “It’s striking. It’s devastating, and people need to understand what’s at stake,” Geller said. “I mean, if we surrender on this point, what will we surrender next?”
Those who have taken to very tepidly acknowledging Geller’s theoretical right to free speech, followed by a gigantic “BUT…” and a list of reasons why she shouldn’t use it, need to face their responsibility for creating an environment in which jihadis think they have a good chance of imposing Islamic law by murdering a few specific individuals.
It is a problem the faint-hearted Western world has been grappling with since Salman Rushdie wrote The Satanic Verses, and it’s getting worse, not better. Rushdie at least got some unconditional support from the intelligentsia, which must have been a comfort as he proceeded to spend the next few decades in hiding. One way we can all pitch in to help protect people like Pamela Geller is to make it clear their courage is not rare, and their murder would satisfy no important totalitarian objective.
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