America's Most Prominent Muslim Group Silent on Latest Muslim Terror Plot
It is now nearly twenty-four hours since the FBI arrested an illegal immigrant from Morocco on charges that he was planning — indeed, on the way — to bomb the U.S. Capitol, as well as to shoot at any innocent bystanders who happened to be in the vicinity. And so far, the Council on American-Muslim Relations, which calls itself the voice of the American Muslim community, has failed to issue a single statement.
Indeed, rather than condemn 29-year-old Amine el Khalifi, who was charged with “attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction,” CAIR’s web site contains not a single reference to the event. Rather, it features a call to “empower American Muslims,” and a demand that Tennessee abandon plans for an anti-terrorism training module that includes information on Islamic extremism. What’s more, check its “press center,” and you’ll find a statement showing “CAIR Concerned About FBI’s Use of ‘Outreach’ To Spy on Muslims’ — precisely the strategy that yesterday kept the US safe from yet another terrorist attack that could have killed an unknowable number of innocent men, women, and children. But about “concern” regarding the Muslim planning that attack? Not one word.
(Is it worth noting, too, that the New York Times, which – at CAIR’s urging – criticized the incorporation of the film “Third Jihad” in counter-terrorism training for the NYPD, did not even issue a “breaking news” report on the arrest, nor include the story in its e-mailed digest this morning?)
And yet, here are the facts:
- The number of “lone-wolf” terrorist-wannabes is rapidly increasing, not just in the US but worldwide. And Anders Breivik notwithstanding, most of those “wolves” are Muslims. That’s not a discriminatory statement. It’s statistical fact.
- The number of such attackers who have spent time in North Virginia is intriguingly large, and likely related to the number of Saudi-sponsored Islamic schools and mosques located there — including Dar Al-Hijrah, the mosque at which Anwar al-Awlaki, once second only to Osama bin Laden in the intensity of the threat he posed to America, served as imam. Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hassan attended that mosque. And so, too, did Amine El Khalifi. Yet to my knowledge, CAIR — which eagerly and loudly condemns the FBI and its investigations of Muslim extremists – has yet to denounce the Dar Al-Hijra mosque or any members of its leadership.
- Recent reports from Dutch Intelligence (AIVD) confirm previous American studies that show the rising influence of jihadist outreach over the Internet, and Internet forums and sites that seek to recruit Western Muslims for jihad. As CNN puts it, “The proliferation of extremist websites in English or other European languages and the emergence of charismatic clerics such as Anwar al Awlaki has spread al Qaeda’s message more widely than ever before.” I have yet to see a statement from CAIR that impugns these clerics, nor have I encountered any effort from CAIR to counteract their propaganda with a campaign of moderate views that confirm Western ideals — the kinds of things one sees, say, from M. Zuhdi Jasser’s American Islamic Forum for Democracy.
- Additional reports both by European and American intelligence and think-tanks also continue to demonstrate ongoing recruitment in the prisons, often aided by Saudi-sponsored imams and education programs. Yet CAIR has spoken out against government hearings aimed at investigating those programs.
So what I want to know is: why, in the face of this most recent arrest of yet another Muslim extremist seeking to commit mass murder on American soil and to destroy one of the great symbols of its democracy, is the organization that claims to condemn terrorism, to speak for America as much as for its Muslim populations, now silent? Why is there no expression of outrage among the moderate Muslim community of America at large, condemning those who use their religion to perpetrate evil? Why are they more outspoken about a headscarf worn in violation of the rules at an amusement park in the suburbs of New York than they are about the 36 homegrown terrorist plots perpetrated over the past two years, almost all by Muslims, aimed against the American people?
We are listening. We are waiting. Tell us what we need to hear.
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