"Other Americans Don't Respect Our Religion"

Michelle Malkin is all over Muslims' claims of persecution.

It also just happens that Ms. Malkin notes that the recent traffic-stop of a converted black Muslim resulted in the discovery of the following:

A 9mm pistol

Books written in Arabic, including the Koran, along with hundreds of pages printed from the Internet on the Iraq war and terrorism

Ahem. Either this guy is a terrorist or else we've just discovered the secret identity of The Punisher.

I want to see that this guy is carrying around a notebook called "The Punisher's War Journal" and contact information for each of the Avengers or else I want him in jail for the rest of his miserable life.

The truth of the matter is that there are Muslims who want to commit terrorism against us, more Muslims willing to assist those who want to commit terrorism, still more Muslims not willing to actively assist terrorists but also unwilling to cooperate with police and identify potential killers in their own mosques, and a fairly sizable number of Muslims who sympathize with the terrorist cause, because, ah yes, they don't like "our foreign policy."

That's the truth. That may be hard for American Muslims to hear but it is the truth and it has always been the truth. I'm not inclined to lie about it.

Malkin's first piece reports a small number of assualts on Muslims. Obviously, I'm against that, and I condemn such assaults.

I should note, however, that it is often the case that Muslims, when asked about terrorism, condemn terrorism before justifying it by saying, "You must understand. We don't like this country's foreign policy."

The claim is made that that doesn't constitute justification or mitigation, that it's just "making us aware" of the position of Muslims. (Like we haven't been made aware of this six billion times in the past three years.)

If such statements do not consitute at least a partial justification or mitigation of terrorism, then let's put the shoe on the other foot.

What if I said, "I condemn assaults on peaceable, law-abiding American Muslims. But you must understand-- we Americans don't like the foreign-policy favored by Muslims"?

I think in that case, "but you must understand" would be interpreted as a justification, and condemned as such.

So why isn't it a justification when spokespeople from CAIR say the same thing?