The single most important recent article on the war-related challenges confronting the United States at home is the spring Middle East Quarterly essay by Daniel Pipes and Sharon Chadha: "CAIR: Islamists fooling the establishment." In the detailed and heavily footnoted article, Pipes and Chadha show:

*Perhaps the most obvious problem with CAIR is the fact that at least five of its employees and board members have been arrested, convicted, deported, or otherwise linked to terrorism-related charges and activities.

*CAIR has a number of links to Hamas.

*CAIR's founding personnel were closely linked to the Islamic Association of Palestine; the Islamic Association of Palestine functions as Hamas's public relations and recruitment arm in the United States.

*CAIR encourages law enforcement in its work -- so long as it does not involve counterterrorism.

*CAIR discourages Americans from improving their counterterrorism skills.

*CAIR has consistently shown itself to be on the wrong side of the war on terrorism, protecting, defending, and supporting both accused and even convicted radical Islamic terrorists.

*CAIR has a key role in the "Wahhabi lobby" -- the network of organizations, usually supported by donations from Saudi Arabia, whose aim is to propagate the especially extreme version of Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia.

*CAIR affiliates regularly speak at events sponsored by the Islamic Society of North America, an umbrella organization of the Wahhabi lobby.

*CAIR attempts to close down public debate about itself and Islam in several ways, starting with a string of lawsuits against public and private individuals and several publications.

*CAIR has a long record of unreliability and deceit even in relatively minor matters.

Pipes and Chadha conclude with a question: "How long will it be until the establishment finally recognizes CAIR for what it is and denies it mainstream legitimacy?" Coincidentally, on the subject of the Washington Post article that John addressed at length last night in "Rewriting very recent history," Pipes and Chadha note that the "Post seems particularly loath to expose CAIR's unsavory aspects" and observe with respect to CAIR's unreliability and deceit (footnotes omitted):

In May 2005, CAIR published its annual report on the violations of Muslim civil rights in America which purported to document a significant rise in the number of hate crimes directed at Muslims. According to the report, "anti-Muslim hate crimes in the United States" have gone up dramatically: from 42 cases in 2002, to 93 cases in 2003, to 141 in 2004. The mainstream media dutifully recycled CAIR's press release, effectively endorsing this study by reporting it as a serious piece of research. But closer inspection shows that of twenty "anti-Muslim hate crimes" for which CAIR gives information, at least six are invalid.

David Skinner points out a further problem with the 2004 report: its credulity in reporting any incident, no matter how trivial, subjective or unsubstantiated. One anecdote concerns a Muslim college student who encountered "flyers and posters with false and degrading statements about the Qur'an and the prophet Muhammad"; another concerns a student at Roger Williams in Rhode Island who wrote that "a true Muslim is taught to slay infidels." Also, any reluctance to accommodate Muslim women wearing a headscarf or veil was tallied as a bias incident, even in the case of genuine quandaries (such as veiled athletes or drivers applying for their licenses).

Nor is this the first unreliable CAIR study. Referring to the 1996 version, Steven Emerson noted in congressional testimony that "a large proportion of the complaints have been found to be fabricated, manufactured, distorted, or outside standard definitions of hate crimes." Jorge Martinez of the U.S. Department of Justice dismissed CAIR's 2003 report, Guilt by Association, as "unfair criticism based on a lot of misinformation and propaganda."

The online version of the article is full of links that add to its usefulness. This is an important piece that deserves the widest attention. Here is our own footnote to the Pipes/Chadha essay: "CAIR chairman elected to board of ACLU-Florida."

Today's papers offer two columns closely related to the themes of the Pipes/Chadha piece. Diana West takes up the New York Times series on the Brooklyn imam in "The media and Islam" and the New York Sun reports that "Alarm spreads over jail imam."

Based on her attendance at the Palestine Solidarity Meeting at Georgetown University, Allyson Rowen Taylor separately reports how the Palestine Solidarity Movement plans to use deception and fraud to infiltrate churches in the United States. (Thanks to Israpundit.)