The Right Words. But.

Reading this article, one becomes quite hopeful that the majority of American Muslims are, indeed, not jihadis waiting to explode. All the right words are here, all the assurances that yes, there are decent people in the majority in the American Muslim world. (I happen to believe that is true, incidentally). Most people who come to this country only want a better life. My grandparents on my mother's side came here right after the first World War, in fact, looking for just that.

After the Sept. 11 suicide hijackings, distraught U.S. Muslim leaders feared the next casualty would be their religion.

Islam teaches peace, they told anyone who would listen in news conferences, at interfaith services and, most famously, standing in a mosque with President Bush.

But five years later, the target audience for their pleas has shifted. Now the faith's American leaders are starting to warn fellow Muslims about a threat from within.

The 2005 subway attacks in London that investigators say were committed by British-born and -raised Muslims, and the relentless Muslim-engineered sectarian assaults on Iraqi civilians, are among the events that have convinced some U.S. Muslims to change focus.

"This sentiment of denial, that sort of came as a fever to the Muslim community after 9-11, is fading away," said Muqtedar Khan, a political scientist at the University of Delaware and author of "American Muslims." "They realize that there are Muslims who use terrorism, and the community is beginning to stand up to this."

Muslim leaders point to two stark examples of the new mind-set:

_A Canadian-born Muslim man worked with police for months investigating a group of Islamic men and youths accused in June of plotting terrorist attacks in Ontario. Mubin Shaikh said he feared any violence would ultimately hurt Islam and Canadian Muslims.

_In England, it's been widely reported that a tip from a British Muslim helped lead investigators to uncover what they said was a plan by homegrown extremists to use liquid explosives to destroy U.S.-bound planes.

I noted that the British arrests came because of a tip from a Muslim at the time and was quite appreciative of it. As I said, these are all the right words. As the title of this post says, there is also a "but" here.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a civil rights group, ran a TV ad campaign and a petition-drive called "Not in the Name of Islam," which repudiates terrorism. Hundreds of thousands of people have endorsed it, according to Ibrahim Hooper, the group's spokesman.

After the London subway bombings, the Fiqh Council of North America, which advises Muslims on Islamic law, issued a fatwa — or edict — declaring that nothing in Islam justifies terrorism. The council said Muslims were obligated to help law enforcement protect civilians from attacks.

"I think everyone now agrees that silence isn't an option," Hooper said. "You have to speak out in defense of civil liberties, but you also have to speak out against any kind of extremism or violence that's carried out in the name of Islam."

Those words are not the issue. Other actions by CAIR are, however. For that, you need to juxtapose this article with this piece by a Bahraini author commenting on the Muslim Groups in America:

The basic narrative of these self-described civil-rights groups is twofold: The United States provokes terrorism because of its foreign policy, and Muslims in the West face a backlash in the wake of terror.

On July 31, for example, Salam al-Marayati, executive director of MPAC, penned an op-ed piece in the Denver Post arguing that "we should not be surprised" when Islamist extremists "respond with belligerence to their continued humiliation and not-quite-human treatment by the international community." He made no mention of the Saudi religious schools that indoctrinate generations of children into a philosophy of hate and violence.

After law enforcement stopped the mid-Atlantic massacre, Nihad Awad, executive director of CAIR, warned, "We ought to take advantage of these incidents to make sure that we do not start a religious war against Islam and Muslim." He called on Muslims to step up security at mosques and community centers to counter negative backlash to news of the plot.

But does such a backlash exist? According to the 2004 FBI hate-crimes report, the latest published, there were 156 incidents of anti-Muslim hate crimes; in comparison, there were 95 anti-Christian, and 954 anti-Jewish attacks in the United States. Rather than fear American freedom, most Muslims embrace it. At more than $42,000, average income for Muslim families is higher than the American average.

Rather than help Muslims in America, most Muslim organizations hinder them. Self-appointed representatives downplay religious extremism and focus more on the image of Muslims rather than on the loss of innocent life. They remain silent on the assault waged on liberalism by Islamists. Most Muslims in America, though, fled the Middle East for the liberal values of their adopted country.

On Aug. 7, Bush condemned this extremist assault on liberal values, defining it as "Islamo-fascist" in nature. He chose his words carefully. For most Muslims, Islam is a religion of peace. But rather than side with these Muslim victims, MPAC criticized Bush for saying that the British plot was a "stark reminder" the United States is "at war with Islamic fascists."

Edina Lekovic, MPAC spokeswoman, issued a statement saying, "The problem with the phrase is it attaches the religion of Islam to tyranny and fascism, rather than isolating the threat to a specific group of individuals." It is not Bush's wording that makes this attachment, though, but the 24 terrorists in Britain and the imams who instructed them.

Parvez Ahmed, CAIR chairman, sent an open letter to Bush: "You have on many occasions said Islam is a 'religion of peace.' Today you equated the religion of peace with the ugliness of fascism." But what would Ahmed suggest calling people who intend to blow themselves up in commercial airplanes, taking thousands of innocent lives with them? Flying angels? Kamikazes?

Therein, I think, lies the "but". While the first article is saying the right things, sometimes groups like CAIR are not doing the right things in other matters. The constant drumbeat of having to guard against anti-Muslim backlash, that has not really occurred, is counterproductive. Stop trying to take offense at every statement a non-Muslim politician makes and keep up the other good things instead. Then the "but" goes away.