"Remember Allah inspired the angels: I am with you. Give firmness to the believers. I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers: you smite them above their necks and smite all their fingertips off of them." (Koran, 8:12) For newcomers, smite means chop off.
Do you have trouble interpreting those commandments? Is ther any way a person can be a Muslim and repudiate those commandments? Have I heard an authoritative repudiation of these and a hundred other such commandments?
Yes, this captures the essence of "fundamentalist" Islam. But some fundamentalist Christians handle snakes as well. This only proves that radicals take their book very seriously.
2:190. Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you, but do not transgress limits; for Allah does not love transgressors.
2:191. And slay them wherever you catch them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out; for tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter; but do not fight them at the Sacred Mosque, unless they first fight you there; but if they fight you, slay them. Such is the reward of those who supress faith.
Read in context, they're talking about a defensive war against non-Muslims who had oppressed them and expelled them from Mecca.
As for Surah 8:12, Allah is talking to the angels, not Muslims.