“Perdicaris Alive or Raisuli Dead! ” was the thundering response of Teddy Roosevelt 103 years ago when an American national was seized by a Berber bandit chief in Morocco, for ransom.

Mrs. Gillian Gibbons, 54, a British teacher who came to Khartoum, a first class hellhole, to teach young children, has been seized and imprisoned for the crime of allowing her students to name a teddy bear “Mohammed.” This grave insult to Islam was initially going to be punished with 40 lashes and prison time. Because she is innocent the punishment is a mere 15 days in a hellish prison.

And what ringing objection has been made by the British government? Foreign Secretary David Miliband is “extremely disappointed.”

Teddy Roosevelt, (after whom the “teddy bear” is named), would cry if he knew.