It's True! Vegetables Have Sex!

Ann Althouse isn't crazy after all.

In an excellent Weekly Standard piece by Fred Kagan (remember him?) on al Qaeda's strategy --

The terrorists have been mounting a slow-motion Tet offensive of spectacular attacks on markets, bridges, and mosques, knowing that the media report each such attack as an American defeat. The fact is that al Qaeda is steadily losing its grip in Iraq, and these attacks are alienating its erstwhile Iraqi supporters. But the terrorists are counting on sapping our will as the VC did, and persuading America to choose to lose a war it could win.

-- matched by a companion piece, or really an opposing piece (black king, white king), on General Petraeus' strategy --

Political progress is something that follows the establishment of security, not something that causes it. [...] This new approach focuses on establishing security in Baghdad and its immediate environs as the prerequisite for political progress. [...I]t would be a very grave error indeed to rush now to abandon the first strategy that offers some real prospect for success . . .

-- an arresting detail caught my eye, embedded in the middle of this paragraph:

It has long been clear that most Iraqis want nothing to do with al Qaeda's religious and political views. They do not find the intolerant and occasionally ludicrous al Qaeda program appealing: Being required to segregate vegetables in a market by sex, as al Qaeda fighters have apparently demanded, appalls Iraqis just as it would Americans. Yet whenever al Qaeda makes itself comfortable in an Iraqi neighborhood, it begins to enforce its absurd and intolerant version of Islam. Locals resist, and al Qaeda begins to "punish" them with an increasing scale of atrocities. Just that sort of escalation led to al Qaeda's loss of control in Anbar and to the growth of the various anti-al Qaeda movements in Iraq's Sunni community.

Waitaminnit.  Segregate vegetables by sex?

When I Googled it the first page that came up was all Kagan, reprints and repeats and quotes of this same piece  Finally I found this:

According to the Associated Press, after the Sunni tribes realized that Al Qaeda expected vegetable vendors in their areas to segregate their tomatoes from their cucumbers - because of the their gender differences - it finally dawned on the Sunni leaders that life under Al Qaeda wouldn't exactly be, well, free.

A tomato and a cucumber?!  Why, it's as obvious as a carrot and an onion ring.  Worse yet, the tomato could be thought to be in a state of uncleanness and therefore really threatening to pollute that nice crisp cucumber.  Analyze that the next time you toss a salad. 

Sharon Chadha continues:

While admittedly I don't have a clear sense of what the mentality might be over there, it does still strike me as odd that this was a reason cited - as opposed to say, the fact that Al Qaeda is now reportedly forcing children to carry out its deadly missions.

The link to the AP has expired.

Well, sometimes the absurd is the last straw.  Angry, incredulous laughter breaks the paralysis of horror.  It goes, wait, maybe these people aren't the monsters they want us to cower and quail before.  Maybe they're just nutcases:  fanatics, fools, and idiots.

Comments

[Internet Ronin]

Gotta keep an eye on those bananas!

[ThinkItThroughNow...]

It's not so much the deep "fruit analysis", but when you ladies try to combine your trenchant cultural analysis with political discourse...

Somehow I suspect the troops aren't "winning" so much as you'd like to see here, and it's not just the media and good majority of the population calling this out. This is not Vietnam, amba. The "insurgents" or al-Quaeda, or whatever you're calling those conducting guerilla warfare in the MidEast these days, are not packing it in. Giving "we're just about to turn the corner!" false hope has gotten us in thus far... it's drawing to a close though, that blind-faith blank-check no-real-results-except-failures-to-anticipate. Even the serious, some say honest, Republicans are starting to come out and say it. You're sadly in the wrong camp here again, amba, for some reason. Middle-age reckoning for post-Vietnam hippie guilt? (I won't suggest an alternate reason why you might prefer to cling to hope and good buzz for that reason; such honest wondering got me called a "bigot" here before, but to me it's noteworthy that so many who share your (seemingly false) hope and optimism for easily bettering the region, also share an ancestral tie to that particular reason... 'nough said...

Stick to talking the fruit salads... this kind of combining just doesn't mix, isn't digestable, and offers no real sustenance. Of course, it probably makes you move your (mental) bowels and at some ages, that's good enough, eh?

[GN]

Puts a whole new slant on putting the weekly groceries in the back of the 57 Chevy! Especially if the fruits and vegetables are not fully matured. Can't stop at the drive-in on the way home either.
Damned Al Quaeda won't "lettuce" enjoy anything.

[amba]

I can't wait . . . I was just waiting for someone to say, "How can you say Althouse is not crazy for suggesting that vegetables have sex, and then say al Qaeda is crazy for the same thing?" But I can't wait ...

It's not crazy to point out that vegetables have sex -- it's crazy to try to stop them!

[Ruth Anne]

So vegetables have a gender. That's not the same as they 'have sex' unless you have a hidden a-gender.

[amba]

But, Ruth Anne, why would you want to separate them if not on the suspicion that they'd be having sex if you left them alone together?

[Ruth Anne]

Some cultures separate men from women for worship. Not every instance of commingling leads to sexual intercourse.

[amba]

Yeah, but why do they separate them for worship? So that irresistible thoughts of the women's sex a-peel won't distract the men from their focus on the Divine, and they will stay cool as cucumbers. (Trying out an homage to your style ... you're better at it.)

[Kevin Fleming]

But isn't it, er, gay to have the cucumbers all together like that?

I say stone the vegetables and end thier mockery of God's laws.

[wj]

So, Kevin, there's nothing else for it: solitary confinement! And here I thought all those posh grocery places which individually wrap every piece of fruit were just being silly. It never occurred to me that they were actually run by religions fundamentalists. ;-)

[Mr.Murder]

We're comparing Apples to orange alert(tm).

[amba]

That wrapper on the solo cucumber (note -- only the Italian kind) -- that's just for safe sex.

[Susan]

Oh my, what would they do with poor Rick
Lee?

[amba]

Oh, man, slap an XXX on it quick! Squeez-Eez! That wee green pepper overwhelmed by its harem of tomatoes! (You knew the WWII generation used "tomato" for a broad, right?) The California-blond pubic hair of cornsilk!

[Matt B]

Was the "toss a salad" line an intentional double entendre?

[Jeff]

I feel really bad for leftoids like ThinkItThrough up above, so obsessed with politics that they can't just enjoy a hilarious story without launching into a whiny, multi-paragraph rant about a vaguely related topic. Seriously: get a life.

And on topic, what about Chiquita Bananas? Obvious phallic symbol, but the label has a scantily clad harlot on it! Al Q would go mad trying to decide which side of the market it goes on.

[amba]

Was the "toss a salad" line an intentional double entendre?

Subconsciously.

[amba]

Jeff: here's a deep thought for you:

In quite a few languages, the word for "penis" is feminine.

[Kev]

So I guess AQ wouldn't like VeggieTales even if it weren't overtly Christian. (The two stars of the show are Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber, which seems in conflict with the "gender" theory.)

[amba]

Bob the Tomato?! How can they instill gender confusion in children like that -- and good Christians, too! I'm shocked.

Well, the letters L, G, and T are all in "veggie tales," and all the letters of GLBT are in "vegetable"! Along with V, no less!

It's all code . . .

[The Unknown Professor]

Thanks a pant load -- I'll never look at Veggie Tales the same way again. But does this mean that Junior Asparagus has two fathers (or mothers as the case may be)?

[Al Bee]

My aren't we superior! Everyone else is enjoying a giggle or two and Stinkitupnow goes off the deep end. Hope he has ankle weights.