Meanwhile back in the big bad world

It is hard to imagine but the rest of the world continues to function despite not participating in the British local elections.

One who is doing rather well is the Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who has brushed off any problems that the War of the Cartoons might have created for his country. Police in Pakistan might be registering cases of blasphemy against the editor and publisher of Jyllands-Posten and anyone else who may have published those cartoons but that bothers Mr Rasmussen not at all.

A lawyer who bears the unlikely but suggestive name Iqbal Haider, who runs Awami Himayat Tehrik or People’s Support Movement, even wants Interpol to find the guilty parties and for the Pakistani government to extradite them. Something makes me think he doesn’t really understand how extradition laws work. Maybe he should petition for Pakistan to sign up to the European Arrest Warrant.

Michelle Malking transmits a report (based on a single source) that a dozen young jihadists are supposedly travelling to Denmark to kill the cartoonists. (Keeps them off the streets, I suppose, and gives them some employment.)

Meanwhile, Mr Rasmussen has told the Washington Times that there was no intention to pull Danish troops out of Iraq.

“It is clearly our intention to stay in Iraq as long as we are requested by the Iraqi government, as long as our presence is based on a U.N. mandate, and as long as we believe we can make a positive difference on the ground.”

Mr Rasmussen is about to visit Washington for talks about Iraq and other matters and has been invited, together with his wife, to Camp David.

The American ambassador to Denmark, James P. Cain said quite reasonably:

“I think if some of our other allies -- France, Germany and Italy for example -- could do on a pro rata basis what the Danes have done, let's just say the world might be a safer place than it is now.”

Opinion polls in Denmark have shown that the government has not suffered at all for its defiant attitude in support of freedom of speech.

“Peter Viggo Jakobsen, a senior researcher at the Copenhagen-based Danish Institute for International Studies, said the remarkable thing about the cartoon incident was how little impact it has had on Danish foreign policy, despite images of burning Danish flags and violent anti-Denmark riots in Muslim capitals around the globe.

"There was a high consensus before the cartoons to be active and carry a high profile in the world, and there is still a high consensus on that point," Mr. Jakobsen said.”

So small countries have no influence in the modern world?

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