The cartoon features a bearded, turban-wearing man reclining on a couch supported by clouds. In the background a stereotyped psychiatrist sits, pen poised over his notepad. The patient, inferentially Mohammad, is saying, "Other prophets have followers with a sense of humor."
Doesn't seem like enough to get worked up over, does it? But, there are Muslims who can and have--even over a satire as mild and accurate as this one. At least so far Those Of Outraged Religious Sensitivities have limited their expressions to threatening phone calls, refusing, at least for the nonce, to enlist the aid of government or seek Justice Through Bombing.
For this South Africans can be thankful. They are already having enough problems with the Koran-thumping-suicide-bomber bunch given the credible threats directed by al-Qaeda and others at the upcoming World Cup match.
Elsewhere, the easily inflamed members of Islam continue to prove that the late humanitarian leader, the Ayatollah Khomeini, was right when he averred that in Islam there is no place for humor. As the anger-driven, rage-filled faces of the Pakistani mobs in the streets of Islamabad, Lahore, and Karachi show clearly, these people cannot take a joke.
On second thought, perhaps this is too harsh a judgement. It is possible that Muslims of the Islamist, jihadist persuasion have a sense of humor. A warped one from the outside view, but one none the less. Consider the latest wrinkle in the mode of execution applied by Pakistani Taliban to those "suspected" of being American spies.
The other day instead of the old, tried and true means of shooting or decapitation, the Fearless Warriors of True Islam paraded a couple of unfortunate men in blindfolds and handcuffs before a bunch of locals in North Waziristan. At the parade's end, the Men Of Allah's Righteous Fury strapped explosives to the bodies of their victims-to-be and pushed the clicker. The resulting explosion represented a good joke on the Legion of Traitorous Apostates.
On the It-Really-Isn't-Funny front, Secretary of State Clinton is in China. Part of her job there is gaining at least some modicum of support from the Trolls of Beijing for doing something about the North Korean sinking of the South Korean corvette Cheonan. The Secretary is of the view that acts of "provocation" must result in "consequences" for whomsoever does the provoking.
Well, yeah, fer sure, Madam Secretary. We're in tandem on that, no doubt.
There is one itty-bitty problem in sending "a message" to the Great Provocateurs of Pyongyang. There isn't any really, really credible and convincing "message" or "consequence" which the US or that Great Guardian of International Peace and Goodwill, the UN, can send with any effect other than the spewing of words, the spilling of ink, and the waste of electrons.
War or any sort of armed retaliation is out of the question, off the table, beyond the pale, totally unthinkable for a variety of reasons, most of which are good. And, the Hermit Kingdom of the North generally and Dear Leader in particular are very well aware of this ground truth.
North Korea is already under more and more stringent economic and related UN imposed sanctions than any other country on Earth. In theory more can be piled on top of those already in force. In practice this would be just one more piece of UN junk mail.
Given its national interest, China will allow nothing more. When one considers that the most Beijing has been willing to grant over the sinking of the Cheonan is that it was "unfortunate," it is unrealistic that China might concur in the application of meaningful, painful pressure on its neighbor.
The UN Security Council is unlikely to do more than issue a statement of condemnation. Wow! That will really make Dear Leader and the NKPA high command sit up and take notice!
That leaves the US. The Obama administration might be willing to return North Korea to its place on the old terrorism list. The Hermit Kingdom pretended it was shocked and outraged by its inclusion on that list and demanded removal in 2008 as a price for (temporarily) shutting down its plutonium producing nuclear reactor.
Beyond putting North Korea back on the State Department list of really horrible and ever-so-nasty states there isn't much that we can do. Or, want to do. The other day the administration made its unwillingness to do more than issue declarations of disgust when Secretary of Defense Gates and JCS Chairman Mullen refused to characterize the Cheonan sinking as "an act of war."
If the firing of a torpedo at a warship by a submarine of a state still officially at war with the owner of the target vessel is not an "act of war" it is hard to know what might be. In our own history back during the undeclared naval war with Germany in 1940-41, a German U-boat fired at the USS Reuben James with the result that the American destroyer went down along with the majority of its crew. We thought it was an "act of war" but refrained from acting because the correlation of forces was not yet favorable for doing so.
And so it is today. No more than South Korea can we afford (quite literally) to go to war over the Cheonan incident, but it does us no honor not to call the matter what it was--an act of war, of unprovoked aggression by a hostile state for reasons of state. Those reasons having been alluded to yesterday there is no need to rehearse them now.
The take away is simple. There is nothing that either the US or the UN can do other than issue purely symbolic "messages" with no practical effect upon their recipient. This is the only "consequence" which Pyongyang will suffer for its action. They know it. We know it. There is no need to pretend otherwise.
The only player in the game which matters is China. We can be sure that China will do nothing which has the slightest possibility of resulting in turbulence on its doorstep. This means that the "calm" which Beijing has urged will ensue of necessity--the necessity provided by the absence of viable alternatives.
This, in turn, implies that the South Koreans and the rest of us can look forward to more "provocations" from the North Korean regime. The best we can hope for is that those of the future will be no worse in death and destruction than that of the Cheonan.
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