FRAMINGHAM -- August 7, 2007

ORGANIZATIONS that apologize for Islamic terrorists on a regular basis, such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), are engaging in character assassination when they equate honest criticism of Islamic extremism with anti-Muslim or anti-Arab prejudice. The charge is as ridiculous as it would have been to claim during World War II that criticizing Nazism was anti-German, or during the Cold War that criticizing communism was anti-Russian.

In case the apologists haven’t noticed, the United States, the Western democracies, and, for that matter, more moderate Muslim states and peoples around the world are defending themselves against an aggressive enemy. That enemy is the forces of Islamic terrorism.

It should be obvious that criticizing those who are trying to kill us — and, in fact, have already killed many of us because we refuse to submit to their control — has nothing to do with the ethnic background of the killers, and everything to do with their actions.

A case in point is an attempt by CAIR to seek damages from US Airways for ejecting a group of six bearded imams who publically chanted “Allah Akbar” before boarding a passenger jet in Minneapolis last November. While this would be part of a prayer for moderate Muslims, for an Islamic terrorist such an utterance would be the equivalent of Nazis’ shouting “Heil Hitler!” before gassing a group of Jews. (Hijackers shouted “Allah Akbar!” as they seized the passenger jets on Sept. 11, 2001, turning them into missiles.)

After boarding the plane, the imams, rather than sitting at their assigned seats, sat in locations of the plane that were reminicent of positions taken by the 9/11 hijackers. According to the police report, an Arabic-speaking passenger spoke to one of the imams, who expressed radical views.

Under such circumstances, people boarding American airplanes have a right to be concerned.

Yet I saw the executive director of the Foundation for Arab-American Leadership, Dr. Hussein Ibish, chortling and sneering the other night on the Fox News show Hannity and Colmes in response to concerns expressed by Stop the Madrassa Coalition representative Sara Springer over a planned opening of a public school in Brooklyn that would be dedicated to the teaching of Arab language and culture. I’m sure that such a school would be fine in more peaceful times, but is it not reasonable and proper, in these less than peaceful times, to be concerned and vigilant?

We are struggling to survive as a nation and as a people, and many have already lost the fight. How many children lost one or both of their parents on 9/11? The Department of Homeland Security is telling us to expect more mass murder in the coming months.

Yet groups such as CAIR are shutting down our ability to identify the nature of the enemy by harassing and suing those who dare to speak of it. An example is talk show host Michael Graham, who resigned from his Washington radio gig rather than apologize for remarks he made about Islamic terrorism. His station was threatened with a lawsuit by CAIR. Today, Graham is back on the air in Boston, but for how long? Indeed, the fear is in the room.

For more information, please check out the excellent Web site www.anti-cair-net.org.

Chuck Morse is a Boston-area radio-talk-show host, author, columnist and former Republican congressional candidate. For more information contact Chuck Morse: (617) 271-5044 and visit his Web site at www.chuckmorse.com