Are protests against the building of the Islamic cultural center in New York inflaming Islamic radicals overseas?

(Source for above photo)

From the Wall Street Journal:

Islamic radicals are seizing on protests against a planned Islamic community center near Manhattan's Ground Zero and anti-Muslim rhetoric elsewhere as a propaganda opportunity and are stepping up anti-U.S. chatter and threats on their websites.

One jihadist site vowed to conduct suicide bombings in Florida to avenge a threatened Koran burning, while others predicted an increase in terrorist recruits as a result of such actions.

"By Allah, the wars are heated and you Americans are the ones who…enflamed it," says one such posting. "By Allah you will be the first to taste its flames."

A U.S. official on Sunday said the administration was taking the upswing in anti-U.S. chatter seriously. "Terrorists like al-Qaeda and its violent allies are motivated already to try to attack the United States, but when it comes to propaganda, extremists are pure opportunists. They'll use whatever they can," the official said.

Many opponents of the planned Muslim community center say they have no bias against Muslims but that putting the building so close to Ground Zero shows an insensitivity toward the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Jarret Brachman, director of Cronus Global, a security consulting firm, and author of the book Global Jihadism, said al Qaeda and other groups have long used imagery from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to recruit new members. But the U.S. position has been that those wars are not against Islam and that the U.S. has Muslim allies in the fight.

Anti-Muslim rhetoric in the U.S is different, since jihadists can use Americans' words to make the case that the U.S. is indeed at war with Islam. The violent postings are not just on al Qaeda-linked websites but on prominent, mainstream Muslim chat forums, Mr. Brachman said.

The most violent threats stem not from the debate over the Islamic center but more fringe issues, such as a declaration by Terry Jones, pastor at the Dove World Outreach Center, a mega-church in Gainesville, Fla., that Sept. 11 be an "International Burn a Koran Day."

As cynical as this sounds I am becoming more, and more convinced that if this protest were to result in an actual terrorist plot being carried out in this country by somebody calling themselves a Muslim it would play right into the hands of the conservative right.

If there IS an attack the radical right wing will get what they want by creating a religious war that will satisfy their desire to use America's military might to force democracy down the throats of Islamic countries, and the radical Islamics will get what they want by provoking the United States into attacking their people and proving once adn for all that Christians want to stamp out their religious beliefs.

The losers are the military families caught in the middle who are forced to, once again, risk the sacrifice of their loved ones because of the intolerance and hateful rhetoric of a few on the fringe in BOTH religions.