The suits at Comedy Central have aided and abetted terrorism by censoring an episode of South Park to remove all references to Mohammed. They followed in the courageous footsteps of the Yale University Press, which, before publishing a book about the Danish cartoon controversy last year, deleted the actual cartoons from the manuscript.

South Park is just a cartoon show, right?  What’s the big deal?  My hero, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, appeared on CNN to explain why it’s a big deal. An excerpt:

“The South Park episode wasn’t just funny… it also addressed an essential piece in the times that we are living.  There is one group of people, one religion that is claiming to be above criticism. … This is an assault on freedom of expression. And we have to defend it tooth and nail.”

She’s walked the walk, having lived under threat of death since she and Theo Van Gogh made the movie Submission, which got Van Gogh killed in 2004.  Now, in an effort to “water down the pool of targets,” blogger Dan Savage has published a declaration of May 20 as “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day.”  (Hat tip: Reason.com, via Mark Steyn.)

My drawing skills are nonexistent, but I figure the least I can do is republish the Mohammed turban-bomb drawing, above — the most iconic of the cartoons that touched off riots that killed more than 100 people in 2005.

I’m sensitive to the argument that nobody’s religion should be mocked.  But radical Muslims have made Islam a target by substituting violence for evangelism.  Ridicule is a non-violent way of fighting back.

Let’s let Ayaan have the last word:

“If the entertainment business were to take this on and just show how ridiculous this is, there’ll be too many people to threaten, and then I won’t need protection, and the gentlemen who made South Park also will not need protection.”