It stopped being a joke a while ago

The cartoon jihad has taken another step away from farce and toward further tragedy:

A Pakistani Muslim cleric and his followers offered rewards amounting to over $1 million for anyone who killed Danish cartoonists who drew caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad that have enraged Muslims worldwide.

The cleric offered the bounty during Friday prayers as Muslim anger against the cartoons flared anew in parts of Asia.

Weeks of global protests over the cartoons have triggered fears of a clash of civilizations between the West and Islam, and have led to calls on all sides for calm.

In a civilized country, wouldn't putting a private bounty on someone's head be a fairly serious crime?

The Danish foreign ministry also issued a travel warning for Pakistan, urging any Danes to leave as soon as possible.

In the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, cleric Maulana Yousef Qureshi said he had personally offered to pay a bounty of 500,000 rupees ($8,400) to anyone who killed a Danish cartoonist, and two of his congregation put up additional rewards of $1 million and one million rupees plus a car.

"If the West can place a bounty on Osama bin Laden and Zawahri we can also announce reward for killing the man who has caused this sacrilege of the holy Prophet," Qureshi told Reuters, referring to the al Qaeda leader and his deputy Ayman al Zawahri.

Oh, I guess that answers my question, doesn't it? "We" have already abandoned the moral high ground because "we" offered a bounty for the mastermind whose organization killed more than 3,000 civilians in just one attack, therefore we have no moral standing to object to killing cartoonists.

Of course, even if a bounty hadn't been offered for Zahahri or bin Laden, there'd be all sorts of pseudo-historical justifications that could be dredged up (or manufactured) anyway.

Update: More information from another report:

Mohammed Yousaf Qureshi, prayer leader at the historic Mohabat Khan mosque in the northwestern city of Peshawar, announced the mosque and the Jamia Ashrafia religious school he leads would give a 1.5 million rupee ($25,000) reward and a car for killing the cartoonist of the prophet pictures that appeared first in a Danish newspaper in September.

He also said a local jewellers' association would give $1 million. No representative of the association was available to confirm it had made the offer.

"Whoever has done this despicable and shameful act, he has challenged the honour of Muslims. Whoever will kill this cursed man, he will get $1 million dollars from the association of the jewellers bazaar, one million rupees from Masjid Mohabat Khan and 500,000 rupees and a car from Jamia Ashrafia as a reward," Qureshi said.

"This is a unanimous decision of by all imams (prayer leaders) of Islam that whoever insults the prophet deserves to be killed and whoever will take this insulting man to his end, will get this prize," Qureshi said.