SIGNS OF DENMARK WEAKENING

THE JUNE 2 SUICIDE BOMBING outside the Danish embassy in Islamabad, which killed six people, has caused a bout of soul-searching in the land of Kierkegaard and Hamlet. More than ever, Danes are asking what price their country can afford to pay for its increasingly entrenched reputation as a forthright critic of Islam.

It all began with the celebrated 2005 publication of 12 political cartoons cartoons under the rubric "Muhammad's face" in the daily Jyllands-Posten. The images were meant as a bold assertion of free speech, but were seen by many Muslims as blaspheming Muhammad. The cartoons' republication throughout the West barely dimmed the focus of Muslim ire on the small Scandinavian country, magnified by its military presence in Afghanistan and, until last year, in Iraq.

Since then the fallout has come in fits and starts. There were deadly protests at Danish embassies abroad, boycotts and counter-boycotts; earlier this year Denmark expelled two Tunisian nationals for death threats against one of the cartoonists. In recent weeks the anti-immigrant and often openly anti-Muslim Danish People's Party, headed by Pia Kjaersgaard, has spearheaded a campaign against Muslim headscarves. The government, which needs the DPP's support to form a majority in parliament, was maneuvered into a ban on judges wearing religious symbols—a solution to a virtually non-existent problem.

Now that the ultimate terror weapon—a suicide bomber—has been deployed against a Danish target, the DPP is sounding the trumpets and calling for special troops to defend Denmark's diplomatic missions; its foreign policy spokesman, Soren Espersen, compared the country's exposure to that of the U.S. and Israel. But others aren't so sure that Denmark ought to be engaged in a battle this big. "We have moved from being a small insignificant and neutral country without any military importance to being considered an extremely active participant in a more militant western world," says Islam expert Jorgen Baek Simonsen of the University of Copenhagen.

What was in 2005 a general Danish consensus to stand firm is crumbling as the stakes rise. Margrethe Vestager, leader of the opposition Social Liberal Party, said Denmark should look towards "dialogue rather than conflict." Referring to "the government's xenophobic agenda," Holger K. Nielsen of the Socialist People's Party said, "Things have gotten out of control. We must discuss whether we have to constantly get involved in places where we are most hated."

If the Danes' spirited defense of free speech in 2005 was a matter of principle, they now face a sobering balancing act: how to back off without seeming to back down. "The government knows that we are driving on the edge and will have to slow down," says Hans Mouritzen of the Danish Institute of International Studies. "They will deny it in public, but you will see a government beginning to conduct a less activist foreign policy." If so, the Islamabad bombing will have marked a key moment in the ongoing calibration over how loudly any small country can afford to roar.

DENMARK EVACUATES TWO EMBASSIES

THE DANISH FOREIGN MINISTRY announced today that it has evacuated its staff from embassies in Algeria and Afghanistan due to violent threats from the so-called Religion of Peace after newspapers reprinted a cartoon depicting the Muslim prophet Muhammed. Embassy employees have been moved to secret locations in both countries' capitals but continue to work, Foreign Ministry spokesman Erik Laursen said.

The announcement comes after Danish intelligence officials warned of an "aggravated" terror threat against Denmark since newspapers in the country in February of a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

The warning specifically singled out North Africa, the Middle East, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The threat "is so concrete that we had to take this decision," Laursen told The Associated Press. "The decision is based on intelligence," he said, declining to elaborate....

It occurs to us here at The Bellicose Augur that if a host government cannot guarantee the security of an embassy in its capital city it should be shut down and its people evacuated until such time as there is a functioning government. Perhaps if all Western governments wised up and took similar action in Islamic countries this strength of conscience might gain their attention. It is an abomination to world peace that Muslim governments continue to coddle the street radicals while pretending to be on the side of law and order.

By the way, check out the riveting cartoonist whose work is posted above and below.

Let's clarify why we believe all communication with Arab supremists falls short, and should be abandoned, as communication perpetually lost in translation. Here are the words of Bassam Tibi, Muslim scholar of jihad:

‘At its core, Islam is a religious mission to all humanity. Muslims are religiously obliged to disseminate the Islamic faith throughout the world. "We have sent you forth to all mankind" (Q. 34:28). If non-Muslims submit to conversion or subjugation, this call (da’wa) can be pursued peacefully. If they do not, Muslims are obliged to wage war against them. In Islam, peace requires that non-Muslims submit to the call of Islam, either by converting or by accepting the status of a religious minority (dhimmi) and paying the imposed poll tax, jizya. World peace, the final stage of the da’wa, is reached only with the conversion or submission of all mankind to Islam…Muslims believe that expansion through war is not aggression but a fulfillment of the Qur’anic command to spread Islam as a way of peace. The resort to force to disseminate Islam is not war (harb), a word that is used only to describe the use of force by non-Muslims. Islamic wars are not hurab (the plural of harb) but rather futuhat, acts of “opening” the world to Islam and expressing Islamic jihad. Relations between dar al-Islam, the home of peace, and dar al-harb, the world of unbelievers, nevertheless take place in a state of war, according to the Qur’an and to the authoritative commentaries of Islamic jurists. Unbelievers who stand in the way, creating obstacles for the da’wa, are blamed for this state of war, for the da’wa can be pursued peacefully if others submit to it."

Wow! The Qu'ran and its loathsome Arabic—dualistic language device in dealing with the tragically dhimmi West that would send shudders down the formidable British spine of George Orwell.