"The clock was ticking. All they needed to do was to start killing"

Even the LA Times, whose editorial line espouses jihad-denial, reports straight-up how close to deadly action the most recently busted U.S. terror operation was:

It was not the most spectacular domestic terrorism plot since the Sept. 11 attacks, and certainly not the best-known.

But no other case posed such a real and immediate threat as the audacious scheme to attack more than a dozen military centers, synagogues and other sites in Southern California, experts said Thursday.

"If you look at the roster of defendants in terrorism cases, it often seems like a casting call. They all have aspirations, but most lack real talent and helpful connections," said Brian Levin, an attorney and director of Cal State San Bernardino's Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism.

"But here you actually had a case where defendants had a radicalized ideology, a list of targets and they had already gone from planning to operations," Levin said. "This was beyond merely a threat. In this instance, they were operational."

As the FBI's John Miller put it:

The clock was ticking. All they needed to do was to start killing.

Because the wannabe jihadists were so close to carrying out their plots, investigators had to act with uncharacteristic speed:

In a matter of weeks, the FBI, Los Angeles and Torrance police departments and two dozen other agencies conducted 19 searches, seized two dozen computer hard drives and examined about 53,000 documents, all without the normal luxury of moving at their own pace with undercover informants, surveillance and wiretaps.

Besides stopping the JIS' planned attacks, the case has resulted in new protocols between prison officials and anti-terror investigators, designed to track Islamic prison activities more closely.

Soon to follow: The CAIR/ACLU lawsuit against the new protocols.

FBI Rebuts CAIR Scare Tactics

Here's how CAIR explains Islamophobia:

When 9-11 happened, the people already predisposed to viewing Islam with suspicion jumped on this bandwagon and through a multitude of primarily right wing outlets have been successful in creating a climate of extreme prejudice, suspicion and fear against Muslims. This sentiment has also been aided by many pro-Israeli commentators such as Daniel Pipes, Steve Emerson, Judith Miller, and Bernard Lewis among many others.

It's all a big problem in CAIR's eyes:

Such public attitude translates into discrimination, exclusion and violence. In 2005, CAIR processed a total of 1,972 civil rights complaints, compared to 1,522 cases reported to CAIR in 2004. This constitutes a 29.6 percent increase in the total number of complaints of anti-Muslim harassment, violence and discriminatory treatment from 2004.

CAIR can't help itself; it must threaten us with the consequences:

The impact of Islamophobia is not only seen in these large increases in complaints of discrimination by Muslims but it can have other consequences that will be very detrimental to the overall society. Muslim youth in the West have grown up being preached ideas of plurality, equality and freedom. When such ideas are not applied towards their own empowerment it can lead to disillusionment, social disorder and in the worst cases irrational violence.

Interesting, isn't it, that the focus is on youth? You think ill thoughts of us, they seem to say, and you will have London subway bombers, Paris car burners and Carolina pipe bombers.

More interesting, isn't it, that it's all gross overstatement? For all CAIR's concerns, far more Catholics and Protestants face hate crimes than Muslims ... and Jews, who CAIR professes no concern for, are the targets of 66 percent of the hate crimes, compared to Muslims' 11 percent. This from an Investors Business Daily editorial citing new FBI stats:

Not only are anti-Islamic hate crimes way down, but they're a fraction of overall religious hate crimes. The overwhelming majority of such crimes target Jews, something CAIR and other Muslim groups don't seem all that concerned about.

In 2006, a whopping 66% of religiously motivated attacks were on Jews, while just 11% targeted Muslims, even though the Jewish and Muslim populations are similar in size. Catholics and Protestants, who together account for 9% of victims, are subject to almost as much abuse as Muslims in this country.

CAIR can trumpet all they want about anti-Islamic hate, but the fact of the matter is that in all of last year, the FBI indentified just 156 anti-Muslim hate crimes, down 68 percent from 2001.

Such a small number does not serve CAIR's policy wonks well. For them to succeed in fighting the Patriot Act, the TSA and the war, they need an intolerant America, but they're stuck with an America more tolerant by far than the countries from which they, or their forefathers, hailed.

They're between a Ka'ba and a hard place. To raise funds and be an Islamic NAACP, they must cry wolf, but they can never accept that, as the FBI evidence shows, tolerant America is not the problem, but the hate-flaming intolerance of Islam is. Admit this, and CAIR would have to turn its attention to trying to reform Islam, not trying to Islam-ize America.

hat-tip: memeorandum; chart: IBD

Quote Of The Day: Do We CAIR Edition?

“CAIR can go to Hell and they can take their 72 virgins with them.”

That was the Young America's Foundation's response to CAIR attorney Joseph Spencer's demand that YAF cancel a presentation by The Jihad Watch's Robert Spencer at an upcoming YAF convention.

Flopping Aces has a good summary of the day's news on this latest CAIR outrage..

Deception Of The Day: CAIR's Cover-Up

"We are proud that our grass-roots support in the American Muslim community has allowed CAIR to grow from having eight chapters and offices in 2001 to having 33 today," Parvez Ahmed, chairman of the Council on American-Islamic Relations recently told Wash Times.

Well, gee, Parvez, that's just great, but it's a bit off-point, isn't it? After all, Wash Times is reporting a more complete story:

Membership in the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has declined more than 90 percent since the 2001 terrorist attacks, according to tax documents obtained by The Washington Times.

The number of reported members spiraled down from more than 29,000 in 2000 to fewer than 1,700 in 2006. As a result, the Muslim rights group's annual income from dues dropped from $732,765 in 2000, when yearly dues cost $25, to $58,750 last year, when the group charged $35.

The organization instead is relying on about two dozen donors a year to contribute the majority of the money for CAIR's budget, which reached nearly $3 million last year.

This is hopeful news, indeed, but it raises a troubling question: Why haven't the 27,300 Muslims who have left CAIR not started a new organization, a Moderate Muslims of America, to actively counter the fiercely anti-American rhetoric of the organization they've left?

hat-tip: memeorandum