From a reader:

Jonah,
I agree with you concerning the oversensitivity of the public face of Islam, but I am curious just what you mean by this sentence:
“But these are the images even the moderate Muslims let loose upon the world without much objection”
So how are mobs in the street burning things “images let loose upon the world by moderates”? That doesn’t even make sense. Do you expect that every time a mob gathers in anger at some pseudo-insult those Muslims who aren’t really offended need to assemble a counter demonstration so that CNN and, by extension, you can see that not all Muslims are burning the Pope in effigy? Moderate Muslims are people with better things to do than hang around and demonstrate. They are people with jobs, families, and lives to preserve. They are people that live next door to the ever-present reality of violent Islam. They are people who don’t want to call attention to themselves because they live in a dangerous world. It angers me to see someone as intelligent as yourself jump both feet forward into the event-driven-news-media portrayal of the Muslim world and take a cheap shot at a large number of non-violent Muslims while you are at it.

ME: I might have phrased it poorly, but yeah that’s basically what I’m saying. Globally, Muslim leaders seem to all operate on the CAIR model, mumble stuff about how extremism is bad, but shout from the rooftops about how insulting Islam is outrageous and creates an atmosphere where the religion of peace becomes violent. In the meanwhile, moderates let the extremists speak for them by doing nothing. We have seen nigh upon infinite examples of Muslims saying, doing and hoping for horrible, evil and violent things in the name of Islam. I am of the opinion that these examples come from a minority of Muslims (but a significant number of them in absolute terms). These people are insulting Islam, it seems to me, far more than the Pope allegedly did.

This is an old argument now but it seems that Burke’s line still applies: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing”