Western intellectuals and Islamic terror.

Flanking the international insurgency of Muslim extremists is a global insurgency of frustrated intellectuals. Western civilization's rise to power shamed the failed cultures of the Middle East, while America's exposure of communism and socialism as deadly, incompetent systems robbed the intelligentsia of its dearest fantasy.

Global intellectuals and Islamist terrorists share common enemies — the United States, Israel and the West in general. They're unified by a disdain for freedom, capitalism and democracy — especially the latter. Religious extremists and the international intelligentsia alike distrust the will of the people at the ballot box.

Islamist fanatics are willing to kill millions to fortify and purify their religion — just as intellectuals excused Stalin's purges and Mao's mass slaughters in the name of building communist utopias.

Whether the standards are taken from the Koran or the Politburo, there's always someone with an impure faith who needs killing.

"Cheering Terror." By Ralph Peters, New York Post (?), 11/7/05 <-- FrontPageMagazine.com.