Top US Muslim groups want it both ways

Top American Muslim groups want it both ways on the terrorism issue.

On the one hand, some of them, as voiced by their founders and leaders, openly support and raise money for international terrorists, while fighting to repeal US anti-terrorism statutes and to undermine the Bush Administration’s proposed legislation to uproot terror networks here at home.

On the other hand, they say they oppose terrorism and want to be accepted as part of the American political midstream.

What these major groups don’t do is embrace President Bush’s “with us or with the terrorists” principle. That principle allows us to gauge whether an individual or group really opposes the terrorist enemy – or whether it is part of the problem.

None of these groups, led by the American Muslim Council and smaller spinoffs like the Islamic Institute, has come out and actually called on the American Muslim community to help federal investigative agencies root out terrorist networks from their mosques, centers, and neighborhoods. None has tried to create a political climate to make it easier and more socially acceptable for Arab-American and Muslim citizens and residents to clean out their own proverbial sea in which the terror networks thrive.

Instead, they meet with the FBI director to complain about how their rights are being violated and to demand sensitivity training for counterterrorism agents. In the words of the Islamic Institute, they met with the FBI to strengthen a “pledge to protect the community,” not to protect the country. They demand protection from hate crimes while not lifting a finger to mobilize the people they say they represent to help fight terror at home.

The more “moderate” groups continue to join forces with the pro-terrorist groups. Guilt by association? Not under the president’s criteria.

And that’s the problem with those organizations – and with certain individuals at the White House, who continue to legitimize them.