I work with a bunch of Muslim grad students who are all excellent people, and I have no doubt that the vast majority of Muslims are this way. The guy in the article was correct when he said the violent fringe is a minority and is rejected by the Muslim mainstream.
All religions -- in fact all large groupings of people -- seem to have a violent fringe. The question, though, is the size of the fringe. Is it a few parts-per-million or is it 2 or 3 percent? A good analogy would be the acceptable level of contamination in drinking water. A few ppm of arsenic is harmless but a few percent is toxic.
So, while I think it's true that the violent part of Islam is a small minority, it might not be a small enough minority to be acceptable.
I was working with a US born møøselimb on 9/11. I thought he was an 'excellent people' too. But then he bitterly complained about me putting a Flag and 'God Bless America' sign in my cubicle, on 9/11...
I too have worked with muslims, and privately they are against these terrorist tactics. It is not these guys I want to see action from. I want the religious leadership who now seem to be willing to condemn terrorism openly to disenfranchise and excommunicate the terrorists one at a time when sufficient evidence exists to show they participated in or verbally supported others who did terrorist acts. I am trying to differentiate between talk and action, since I believe a terrorist mentality allows duplicitious talk as long as the actions are not affected. (Remember the talk of surrender that allowed Osama to escape?)
Now as far as an acceptible minority who continue to commit terrorism, If they have been removed from Islam, bannished if you will from their "cause", then they are acceptible in the same way that serial murderers are acceptable. They can exist until they are caught and punished. But there is no small amount of terrorism that will ever be acceptable.