Joel Mowbray is uneasy about official statements that make it seem like the National Guard is wearing “Islam can do no wrong” blinders in the case of Ryan Anderson, aka Amir Talhah: National Guardsman’s Islamic conversion. (Hat tip: Jihad Watch.)

When asked if recently “detained” National Guard soldier Ryan Anderson—who allegedly tried to pass on sensitive information to al Qaeda—was a Muslim, the unit spokesman, Lt. Col. Stephen Barger replied, “Religious preferences are an individual right and responsibility, and I really can’t get into it.”

On one level, of course, Barger is right.� Sadly, however, Anderson’s religion may be the only prism through which his alleged behavior can be understood.

Various media reports have pegged Anderson as a convert to Islam.� Why is this significant?�

Because if he had converted to Buddhism or Hindu, for example, he almost certainly would not have not been caught up in a sting operation that found him trying to deliver to al Qaeda closely-guarded details about vulnerabilities and capabilities of armed tanks and Humvees.

This is obviously not to suggest that Muslims cannot be trusted or that, as a group, they should be viewed with suspicion.� But it is just as true that Anderson’s reported conversion to Islam cannot be ignored.

We call our struggle against al Qaeda and the rest of the worldwide terror network the “War on Terror.”� But to al Qaeda and its ilk, it is not a “war.”� It is a Jihad.

In a Jihad, where the terrorists unite under the rallying cry of defeating the Infidels in the name of Islam, the most likely—if not the only—people to betray America in order to help the enemy are going to be Muslim.