TOWNHALL.COM: The Washington Post's E.J. Dionne Jr. thinks there's "something peculiar" about conservatives who turn "Islamic extremism into a mighty ideological force with the power to overrun the world."
In a way, he's right. There is indeed something peculiar about portraying "extremism," Islamic or otherwise, as an ideological movement of sufficient mass and might to capture the world. After all, "extremism" is something "extreme" practiced by, well, "extremists." You know -- a few far-out kooks on the margins. Why worry? There's always that disclaimer that we, as a post-9/11 society, invoke when we talk about "Islamic extremism" (or, plain "extremism," as President Bush now prefers): Namely, that such extremism has nothing doctrinally or traditionally to do with Islam as practiced by the rest of the world's billion-plus Muslims. So much more reassuring to see things this way, at least as long as no one notes that Sharia (Islamic law) is advanced by "extremism" and Islam alike.
Of course, if Western society understands "extremism" merely as a marginal phenomenon, little wonder Dionne thinks it's odd that so many conservatives take it seriously -- specifically, he writes, "Osama bin Laden's lunatic claims that he will build a new caliphate." Isn't Bin Laden just an extremist fruitcake on Islam's fringe, who, naturally, makes "lunatic claims"? It should take not a war to subdue him, but a warden. Ignoring Sharia's Advance Extremely Stupid >>> By Diana West
Mark Alexander (Paperback)
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