Time for tough questions about enemy within

Here we go again. A Muslim is arrested and suspected of involvement in the planning and/or execution of acts of murderous terror in America. Suddenly, a number of organizations that purport to represent Muslims in the United States warn that the episode might produce a racist and bigoted reaction against their co-religionists.

The Bush administration and law enforcement officers shouldn’t be intimidated.

Indeed, it’s way past time for police and investigators to go places and ask tough questions that Wahhabist- and other terrorist-connected groups and apologists will assail as racist or bigoted.

Lawmen will have to get inside the mosques and Islamic centers where Beltway Sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad hung out, and conduct a thorough investigation of the imam and others who mentored his conversion. Nationally, investigators – everyone, for that matter – will have to stand up to apologists for terrorist organizations and their operatives who claim to represent Muslims in the United States as they work to impede law enforcement efforts to protect all Americans.

On the other hand, American officials doing such work should be able to count on the help of those who really do represent mainstream Muslims who love our country. Even for non-Americans, those Muslims who are trying to resist Wahhabist efforts to hijack and radicalize their religion have as great an interest as the rest of us in figuring out how the Saudis and others are advancing their subversive agenda. The place to start would be for such Muslims to denounce and work to end terrorism, in stark contrast to their co-religionists and their Washington-based front groups who quietly support jihad while impugning their critics as racists and bigots.

Center for Security Policy President Frank Gaffney writes more about this subject in National Review Online. To read his column, click here.