Joe Katzman at Winds of Change expresses his admiration for Irshad Manji, who is quoted as saying: “I subscribe to Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s point that ‘Islamic terrorism, both in the Netherlands and abroad, is able to thrive because it is embedded in a wider circle of fellow Muslims’. This is a reality that most Western security experts have yet to grasp.”

Winds of Change, 28 April 2005

For the full Aspen Institute interview, see here.

So, in circumstances where right-wingers are claiming that Islamic terrorists are not a small isolated minority but have roots in the wider Muslim community, Manji announces that this view is essentially correct. And at a time when many of her fellow Muslims are campaigning against increased state repression directed at people with no record of supporting terrorism, Manji suggests that the West’s security services have underestimated the true extent of the terrorist threat. Just brilliant.