The silver lining

If you've been distressed at the thought of your daughter wearing a burka in the Muslim dream of Eurabia and Amerabia, Daniel Pipes says that there is a silver lining to the cloud of Islamist terrorism: by focusing a strong spotlight on the extreme Islam -- its goals and its tactics -- the terrorists have put a spanner in the works of nonviolent Islamic organizations that have, so far, been working very successfully towards the imposition of a radical worldwide caliphate:

terrorism obstructs the quiet work of political Islamism. In tranquil times, organizations like the Muslim Council of Britain and the Council on American-Islamic Relations effectively go about their business, promoting their agenda to make Islam "dominant" and imposing dhimmitude (whereby non-Muslims accept Islamic superiority and Muslim privilege). Westerners generally respond like slowly boiled frogs are supposed to, not noticing a thing. Thus does the Muslim Council of Britain delight in a knighthood from the queen, enthusiastic support from Prime Minister Blair, influence within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and £250,000 in taxpayer money from the Department of Trade and Industry. Across the Atlantic, CAIR insinuates itself into an array of important North American institutions, including the FBI, NASA, and Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper. It has won endorsements from high-ranking politicians, both Republican (Florida's governor, Jeb Bush) and Democrat (the House Democratic leader, Rep. Nancy Pelosi). It has organized a meeting of Muslims with Canada's prime minister Paul Martin. It has gotten a Hollywood studio to change a feature film plot and a television network to run a public service announcement. It has goaded a radio station to fire a talk-show host. Terrorism impedes these advances, stimulating hostility to Islam and Muslims. It brings Islamic organizations under unwanted scrutiny by the media, the government, and law enforcement. CAIR and MCB then have to fight rearguard battles. The July 7 bombings dramatically (if temporarily) disrupted the progress of "Londonistan," Britain's decline into multicultural lassitude and counterterrorist ineptitude. Some Islamists recognize this problem. One British writer admonished fellow Muslims on a Web site: "Don't you know that Islam is growing in Europe??? What the heck are you doing mingling things up???" Likewise, a Muslim watch repairer in London observed, "We don't need to fight. We are taking over!" Soumayya Ghannoushi of the University of London bitterly points out that Al-Qaeda's major achievements consist of shedding innocent blood and "fanning the flames of hostility to Islam and Muslims." Things are not as they seem. Terrorism hurts radical Islam and helps its opponents. The violence and victims' agony make this hard to see, but without education by murder, the lawful Islamist movement would make greater gains. [Emphasis mine.]

I should note that the Pipes' article is heavily peppered with hyperlinks, which I've been too lazy to reproduce here. If you'd like to see all of Pipes' sources, you'll have to go to his website, where you'll get to read the whole article from which this quotation is drawn.