November 6, 2009 By Tom Tancredo Denver Post,
The recent indictment and arrest of Aurora resident and Afghanistan immigrant Najibullah Zazi on terrorism charges has again put a spotlight on the problem of Islamic radicals plotting acts of violence. But a book released this past week raises the question of whether our nation's response to the terrorist threat is being deliberately undermined by U.S.-based organizations whose mission is the eventuaI Islamization of America.

"Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld that's Conspiring to Islamize America," http://tinyurl.com/yjvn6v5 was released Oct. 15 and is already gaining attention from national lawmakers. Four members of Congress have asked the House sergeant-at-arms to investigate allegations in the book of double agents placed inside Congress by the Council for American-Islamic Relations.

Such allegations will be dismissed as alarmist by many, but critics will have to confront the book's extensive documentation. Its authors are investigative reporters David Gaubatz and Paul Sperry, who have national security backgrounds and solid reputations.

The most controversial part of the book is the relationship between CAIR and the international Muslim Brotherhood, a relationship that has both financial and ideological aspects. The Muslim Brotherhood is highly organized and operates in both public and covert realms. One of its avowed missions is to bring Sharia law to America as one step in the destruction of Western civilization from within.

The Council for American-Islamic Relations www.cair.com is well known in Washington, D.C. Until recently, it enjoyed a cozy relationship with the FBI. Our nation's news media often turn to CAIR for a "moderate Muslim response" to events of the day. Yet this book shows that the mask of moderation covers its real mission.

CAIR has a record of opposing many laws and measures that aim to deal effectively with the jihad being waged against Western democracies by radical Islam. How "moderate" is an organization that supports Palestinian terrorists, seeks to eliminate all obstacles to Islamic immigration to the U.S., opposes the Patriot Act, and accepts funding from sources tied to the Muslim Brotherhood?

According to "Muslim Mafia," CAIR is part of a network of more than 100 organizations in the U.S. that are serving as front groups for the Muslim Brotherhood. Their agenda is not to protect the civil rights of Muslim- Americans. It is a purely political mission: to neuter all opposition to the agenda of radical Islam.

CAIR's operatives and apologists try to paint all critics as "Islamophobes" and "McCarthyites" and seldom respond to specific charges. To these apostles of pre-emptive forgiveness, Islam is just another exotic religion, and we can all live together in peace and friendship if we will only put away the fears and slanders propagated by the "merchants of hate." The problem is that the principal "merchant of hate" in the modern world is radical Islam and its jihad of violence, not those who are sounding the alarm.

Fortunately, authentic leaders within Islam have begun speaking out against the jihad waged by the radicals. The dividing line, however, between Muslims wanting to live within our democracy as Muslim-Americans and the radicals who want to replace it is not support or opposition to jihad. That dividing line, this book makes clear, is the choice of Sharia law over Anglo-American common law and the U.S. Constitution. CAIR and its allies are pursuing a plan to place civic loyalty and ultimately citizenship itself outside the Constitution and in the hands of radical imams.

The articles of indictment against Najibullah Zazi say he sought and attended terrorist training in Pakistan. But if the authors of this book are correct, we face a far larger problem than these foreign-trained terrorists. We may well be growing and training our own brand of domestic terrorists who know how to destroy our nation from within.

Former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado is chairman of the Rocky Mountain Foundation http://tinyurl.com/yd2s68q.