This is getting interesting.

According to CAIR, the seven men arrested last week for plotting to wage war against the United States (and blow up the Sears Tower) are not Muslims -- and we are not to refer to them as Muslims:

CAIRO — The Council on American-Islamic Relations, America's largest Islamic civil liberties group, has urged the media not to associate the seven suspects arrested on charges of plotting terrorist attacks in the US with the country's Muslim minority, insisting they were not Muslims.

"Given that the reported beliefs of this bizarre group have nothing to do with Islam, we ask members of the media to refrain from calling them Muslims," Ahmed Bedier, Director of CAIR Florida chapter, said in a statement e-mailed to IslamOnline.net.

If only there were an equivalent group for Christians! I get so tired of not knowing who's a Christian and who's not, as usually, I take people at their word.

CNN quotes the group's leader as wanting to wage Islamic war, and uses the term "jihad" quite freely, but I don't frankly care what these people believe, and I guess I should be glad they are not Muslims.

I'm glad CAIR has enlightened us.

But the problem is, there's a disagreement. Another Muslim organization, the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago, says they are Muslims:

In a statement issued on Friday, the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago expressed “relief and concern” at the arrest of the accused men before they could carry out their plans.

“The fact that another attack on our country was in the works is something that concerns us deeply,” said Council chairman, Abdul Malik Mujahid. He appealed to Imams across the US to offer Friday sermons about “the sanctity of life in Islam and the heinousness of terrorism.”

Mr Mujahid urged journalists and editors to exercise caution in linking Islam to terrorism as this case develops, since those arrested are Muslim.

The indictment alleges that, beginning in November 2005 and continuing to the present, Bastiste recruited and supervised individuals to organise and train for a mission to wage war against the US including a plot to destroy the Sears Tower by explosives.

It goes without saying, of course, that whether they are Muslims has nothing to do with whether they are terrorists.

Right?

It's getting harder and harder to know the rules.

I'd like to know who gets to officially decide.