Understanding extremism

It's common on the Left to toss around warnings regarding Christian extremists, an amorphous group of people that wants to do something very, very bad to us, such as uh, uh . . . well, something very bad. That's for sure. They might even take us back to a world Beaver Cleaver would find familiar, and what could be worse than that, right?

Okay, now that we've taken care of America's cadres of Christian extremists, let's talk about real extremists:

A piece in London’s Sunday Telegraph traces the bizarre contours of Islamic extremism. Amid Baghdad’s 122-degree temperatures, Sunni fundamentalists have declared a “war on ice.”

Because the Prophet Mohammed had no ice cubes, neither should today’s Iraqis, Sunni totalitarians declared as they threatened ice merchants with death. Al-Dora ice dealer Akram al-Zidawi, 19, shrugged off these warnings.

“Two weeks ago he came back home saying he had been threatened by terrorists,” al-Zidawi’s brother, Gassan, told the Telegraph. “My mother begged him to quit the job, but he laughed. He thought it was impossible they would kill him. But they came back two days later and shot him dead, along with three other ice sellers nearby.”

Falafel dealers also have enraged Islamists.

“They came telling us, ‘You have 14 days to end this job.’ I asked them what was the problem,’’ Abu Zeinab, 32, said on June 3 as he permanently shuttered his al-Dora stand.

“I said I was just feeding the people, but they said there were no falafels in Mohammed the Prophet’s time, so we shouldn’t have them either. I felt like telling them there were no Kalashnikovs in Mohammed’s time either, but I wanted to keep my life.’’

Sunni fanatics recently promised to murder those who wear goatees, which they consider a Jewish fashion. The goatee of Mustapha Jawad, 17, cost him his life. Local zealots prohibit mayonnaise, which they believe is Israeli. They forbid women from riding buses with men or driving cars. They also ban T-shirts with English slogans, as well as shorts.

“Wearing shorts by youth is prohibited because it violates the principles of Islamic religion when showing forbidden parts of the body,” read a leaflet distributed in Baghdad’s Sunni-dominated Saidiyah and Ghazaliyah districts, the AP’s Kim Gamel reported May 28. Four days earlier, extremist murderers killed an Iraqi tennis coach and two of his players for wearing shorts.

Now that's extremism, and it's a very frightening ideology. This real fear factor exists, not only on Islamofacism's home turf of the already-Muslim world, but is also scary here when one considers that Islamic jihadists are working their little heinies off (by the way, "heinie" is an Americanization of a Yiddish world) to export their doctrine around the world. (I've already noted, below, Mark Steyn's observations about the export of decapitation.)

Everyone, of course, thinks it can't happen here. I think somehow the Lefties believe that their fervent support for this third world multiculturalist ideology will insulate them when they greet the Muslim invaders wearing their shorts, pink triangles, little goatees, and eating ice creams. They don't seem to understand that the true fanatic, a person I distinguish from, say, the religious American parent wishing she could raise her child in a more wholesome world — say, a world without a lesbian Batwoman — has no forgiveness for fellow travelers who haven't embraced the core doctrines that animate the revolution. (Just take a sweep through history for this fact, not forgetting to stop and visit either the French or Russian Revolutions, each of which was notable for the savagery with which the revolution destroyed its own.)

The American MSM is skirting this problem right now by ignoring these disturbing stories. Why talk about them when you can opine endlessly about Haditha or get more mileage out of those old standbys, Abu Ghraib and Gitmo? It's just so much more satisfying for perky little Couric to criticize an American soldier for speaking disrespectfully of the Koran than to inform people about those who die for dealing in ice. After all, as we all know, the likelihood of an American soldier gunning for Couric because of her attacks against the military is slim to nil, while Katie, although she'd never acknowledge it, has something real to fear from the anti-ice contingent.

UPDATE:  Regarding where the Left's heart lies in the "extremist" debate, don't miss this NY Times editorial.  Please be sure to get out the hankie.  You'll be able to tell where you fall on the political spectrum by how you use that hankie — to wipe tears or to control any outcome from an uncontrolled gag response.