An important piece by Cal Thomas at JWR looks at The Threat Among Us—a threat to which many Americans prefer to close their eyes. Like the Greek myth of Cassandra, those who try to tell the truth about the danger are accused of lying and bigotry.

In at least 16 states, Muslim groups, by their own admission, are organizing voter-registration drives and political consciousness-raising events for this express purpose. One of the advantages the United States has had over its enemies is that that they openly state their goals. One of the advantages our enemies have over the United States is that too many Americans don’t take them seriously. We prefer the short-term comfort that denial brings. We fear being labeled “bigots” more than we fear the intentions of those who hate us, and so we are reluctant to speak ill of another person’s faith, unless it is the majority faith.

Last Saturday (May 17), the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) opened its newest office in Columbia, S.C., a Southern city with strong Christian roots. The stated purpose of organizers was to discuss “the obligation of Muslims to participate in public affairs, CAIR’s achievements and future goals of the organization.”

Among those “future goals,” according to a CAIR press release, is the elimination of references to “Judeo-Christian” when describing the heritage of the United States. Instead, CAIR and other Muslim groups prefer “Judeo-Christian-Islamic” or “Abrahamic.” CAIR wants this new phrase used “in all venues where we normally talk about Judeo-Christian values, starting with the media, academia, statements by politicians and comments made in churches, synagogues and other places.” Notice the absence of the word “mosques “in this statement. Muslim groups want Jews and Christians to tolerate them, but there is not a similar call for mosques to include Jewish and Christian beliefs.

You do not have to believe in conspiracies or be a bigot to realize something important is happening with this statement and in these political meetings. As Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum, wrote last month in JWR: “(CAIR is) on the wrong side in the war on terrorism,” consistently defending militant Islamic groups and dictators, while “denouncing” terrorist acts. Pipes refers to a story reported in the San Ramon Valley (Calif.) Herald about CAIR Chairman Omar M. Ahmad, who told a crowd of California Muslims in July, 1998, “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran … should be the highest authority in America and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.”