Posted on 08/01/2004 8:18:16 AM PDT by SJackson
Edited on 08/01/2004 8:24:03 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
HASHIM Raza is a 38-year-old physician from St. Louis who, like like a majority of Arab- Americans, voted for President Bush in 2000. Raza has voted Republican in every presidential election starting with Ronald Reagan in 1984.
This year, he will vote for Democrat John Kerry. "After 9/11, things started adding up,' he said at a reception Tuesday for Muslim attendees to the Democratic National Convention hosted by the Islamic Society of Boston. "Muslims were unfairly targeted; we were presumed guilty; Ashcroft, Rumsfeld and Cheney acted like they have no use for Muslims. The Republican Party has become a refuge for far right religious extremists. I believe people like Bush senior and (Bob) Dole were moderates. But now I feel the party has excluded me.' A year ago, Arif Gafur, a 52- year-old engineer for Shell Oil in Houston, did not know anything about being a delegate to the convention. Before 9/11, he and many of his professional friends were never involved in politics. But the aftermath of the terrorist attacks, where many Muslims were detained, made him concerned. "America is the best country in the world, but it's not easy to be a Muslim,' he said.
The invasion of Iraq, which Gafur said was "unnecessary,' pushed him and several other South Asian Muslims to register 1,000 voters and elect delegates to district, state and national delegations. Of the about 5,000 delegates to the convention, about 40 are Muslim and six are from Texas, including himself.
"Sometimes, on Middle East policy, Kerry seems to come across as Bush Lite,' Gafur said. "But on domestic policy, with the Patriot Act and the racial profiling of Muslims, the Muslim community was awakened to the fact that we had to get involved.'
Grover Nordquist, line 1!
A lot of those exiled Iraqi's that were dancing in the streets when Iraq was liberated will be voting Bush. It wouldn't surprise me if Bush gains in the Arab vote.
Conservatives?....depends on what the meaning of 'is'...'is'... apparently....
Awww, another member of the Religion of Peace (tm) irked because Ashcroft won't lethis favorite charity sponsor suicide attacks against us and our allies. tsk tsk. Kerry, of course, is glad for his vote.
John, we know what side you were on in the Viet Nam War, and which side you are on now.
And is he so stupid that he cannot figure out why?
Maybe it's the fact that 19 out of 19 9/11 hijackers were muslim?
Maybe it's the fact that 95% of the terrorist incidents of the last 20 years were perpretrated by muslims?
I challenge both the adjectives.
Dan
Hopefully it is because Ashcroft is using the patriot act to keep good track of them.
Is there such a thing?
Just damn.
If you want on the list, FReepmail me. This IS a high-volume PING list...
It wouldn't suprise me either!
All of which tends to support the contention that Muslims owe their primary allegianceto the Islamic ummah.
" All four members of the family say they have been singled out for antiterrorism searches in airports. "
I am pretty average American and you know I've been singled out for searches. The last time I was flying I had to take my belt off and shoes and sit while they were take away for study. Sitting next to me was an East-Indian and he screamed and complained and tried to play the race-card. So come up with a better line then the airport story.
Victimhood is the new badge of honor in the USA!
I wonder how Muslims will like a President Kerry when he overreacts after the next terror attack by doing what Roosevelt did with Japanese-Americans in 1942.
Jewish Americans should listen carefully.
French Jews are emmigrating to Israel because the antisemetic climate is growing.
American Jews have a chance to defend themselves now or fall in behind their Muslim "brothers" who love them so dearly.
Everything about Islam is un-American.
And TAY-RAY-ZAH Heinz Kerry can quote me on that.
Well, one more terror attack within our borders, and I'm not sure how much longer any of these people will stay in the United States. If they think it's hostile now..........and I will gladly help usher them out the door.
Really Mr. Muslim...When is the last time a "far right religious extremist" crashed a plane into a building or blew himself up or beheaded someone? To call someone extremist when you yourself are a memeber of the most extreme group on this planet takes a LOT of gall you absolute moron.
Big-Time Oxymoron!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Until the last muslim is kicked out of America we'll have to continue worrying.
These people are so different from the rest of us.
If, G-d forbid, a fanatical Jewish sect engaged in terrorism against the US, 99% of America's Jews would be racing against one-another to condemn the attack and demonstrate their patriotism and belief in America to the rest of the country.
There have been sporatic equivocal statements from Muslim leaders in the US (and from certain overseas Muslims like the religious leader in Turkey and Palozzi in Italy). By far the greater reaction has been to count the number of times people give them dirty looks and tell them to go back where they came from, and feel sorry for themselves because they are "misunderstood."
In World War II, there were battalions of Japanese-Americans formed to fight for the US. I have yet to read of something similar in the US.
This is a dangerous community.
Really Dr. Raza? As an attendee of the RAT's convention, you are hardly objective on this. Can you offer a single shred of evidence to back up that statement? Probably not. Your agenda is showing.
Perhaps Muslims will receive less scrutiny under a Kerry administration, at least at the beginning. But, Dr. Raza, since effective law enforcement to weed out the terrorists hiding within your community will be sacrificed for political correctness, what do you suppose will happen to Muslims when the next attack occurs? Will there be a reasoned, rational effort as is going on now (I'm sure there are abuses, but on the whole you know I'm right) or will there be a knee-jerk need to look strong reaction from a Kerry White House? Will the population itself lash out?
Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it.
I hate to mention the inconvenience of being personally detained at airports because of the security screening put in place becaue of the Arab terrorists. I never used to have to be at the airport 3 hours ahead of my flight until some Arabs perpetrated the 9-11 attacks.
Repeat my inconvenience by the millions of Americans who pass through the security checkpoints and I have no sympathy for a Arab family of 4 being detained. They need to get a grip on their fellow "conservative" muslims who publicly proclaim America is a threat to Islam.
By the way......what is a Conservative Muslim??? Are they Muslim first or American first? And they should be reminded, it is a privlige to be American, not a right.
An enemy will always remain loyal to a friend of the enemy. If the enemy supports Kerry, then Kerry is also an enemy.
Is that a muslim who starts the the beheading cut under the right ear?
Now there's a sure fire motivator!
i guess I'll have to change my plans and join them.
NOT!
That's right Joe ... sounds like the callers to radio & TV stations, who state they were life long Repubs, but GWB is so evil they are heading Left.
Is that violin music I hear? ;)
Post 23 has it nailed. Where is the condemnation of violence from our "American Muslim" brothers?
I see it as are you for a civilized world or a world where a government like Saddams's is the norm? I choose civilization.
GREAT PHOTO!!!!!!!!!! That's EXACTLY how FnKerry would be!!!!!!!!! Good job there!
Not all Muslims are terrrorists, but all terrorists "have been" Muslims. That's the very definition of a profile. A 100% profile.
The weekend after 9/11 we flew to Bangor, Maine to attend a wedding. The airline we flew had been disrupted and so they arranged for us to fly on another airline about two days before our flight. Well, my Arabic last name combined with the fact that it looked like we had booked the flight so recently, plus that it was to Bangor (an airport that played prominently in 9/11) raised alarms and my wife (who happens to be a fair-skinned redhead) and I were taken to closed rooms and strip-searched, our luggage pilfered, questioned at length, etc. A teenaged female passenger, seeing our treatment, literally cried and begged her parents not to let her get on the flight with us.
Naturally, I was embarrassed and humiliated, made to feel ashamed of my last name, which together with my love for grape leaves and tabouli are the only things I have remaining of my family heritage. I can only imagine what I would have been put through had I been a Muslim without a local driver's license.
Did I think it was necessary? Yes. Did I expect it before we traveled and even pondered not making the trip? Yes. But did I deserve it? No. And I don't believe the vast majority of Muslims in this country have deserved the treatment they have received either.
That doesn't translate into a vote for Kerry, in my case. I won't vote for Bush this time around either, however, and I am a Pennsylvania Republican. I will root for Kerry to lose, but that's as far as I go.
The Homeland Security apparatus is only one aspect of a long list of measures Bush has initiated that take power from the individual and communities in favor of a central state. The Bush administration has clearly and decisively been moving in the wrong direction -- a direction completely antithetical to true conservatism -- and I think I'd be no worse off with an imbecile who talks like a socialist but has no capability to enact his agenda. At least with Kerry in office my party can stand for something I believe in again.
And according to Kermit, it's not easy being green. We all have a burden to bear.
It makes sense that traitors would join the Demorat party.
They vaguely condemn "terrorism"; the question is, do they condemn specific attacks, such as on the WTC, Pentagon, Bali, etc., as terrorism, and do they condemn the likes of Osama bin Laden and his supporters as terrorists? As a rule, they don't. In their eyes, only infidels are guilty of "terrorism" -- whatever the faithful do is justifiable.
"I wonder how Muslims will like a President Kerry when he overreacts after the next terror attack by doing what Roosevelt did with Japanese-Americans in 1942."
A very likely scenario. Of course, it will be for their own protection. American Muslims are ill served by the extremely poor PR they have in this country. They don't seem to realize that, in the US, when something bad happens, everyone must come out with a statement in the press condemning the act without conditions. Silence, in the US, implies support of the action. And American Muslim groups have been quite silent since 9-11, and before.
THE TRUTH be known GWB has taken a lot of hits ,for standing up for the muslimes ,nobody wants to talk about that now do they ,you cant please everyone ,.GWB has to look out for the nation as he swore he would do
FYI - I was taken to a room after coming back to the US after living overseas because the customs agents decided I was a drug "lordess." I wasn't stripped searched, but I was accused, my luggage was torn apart (they were looking for secret compartments), then left in a heap. When the agents walked off, I quit my crying and packed my things back up. I didn't like my treatment and still think they were stupid and rude. They could have used a drug dog and didn't need to insult me. But I am still going to vote for President Bush. It is not any president's fault that I fit certain profiles because if the countries in which I chose to travel.
The point is, when the bad guys have certain characteristics that's what we need to be looking for.
The USA has invited in people from all over the world and given them the priviledge of being Americans. Name another country in which, despite your race, you will be considered one of the people?
Because "American" status has been conferred in the way it has (not by race or skin color) it is impossible for us to look at someone and know for certain about their backgrounds or the risks they pose to US! And think about the rest of us Americans for a second... Even though the overwhelming evidence proves that middle eastern males between a certain age are the enemies, all of us who were kind enough to allow foreign born people to be Americans, WE now are being pulled out of lines and searched at airports. For what they did, we are being photographed as we come into baseball games and walk down city streets.
Yes, I almost cried too when a 85 year old grandmother in a wheelchair was harassed and searched as I flew through Denver last year after CPAC. It made me furious and angry - as usual the government beaurocrats mess it up.
But when you stop feeling sorry for yourself you might think of ways to help. No one is safe inside our country if there are sleeper cells. And that includes both you and your fair-skinned wife. And your children. Do something to find and oust these monsters. The Japanese chose to prove their worth during WWII by fighting, not pouting. Unfortunately, I have heard few middle easterners do the same or help support our President in this terrible time. Don't allow yourself to be discouraged, get active. Helping through planned inaction to get Kerry elected is a mistake you will regret forever.
Then let everyone work on putting in place some common sense laws about immigration, border access, and background investigations of peole who want to come to the US. For that, we need everyone's help- yours too.
LOL!!! that pic is awesome!!!!!
Muslims voting for Kerry? Lordy...the next thing you know, they'll tell us that rain is wet and sugar is sweet.
I am a Christian. I was raised in Catholic schools. I was born in this country. My father was born in this country. All four of my grandparents were born in this country. I am not welcome in the Muslim community. When I was in college I tried to join the Arab Club on campus and they wanted nothing to do with me, mostly because they were all Muslims and saw me as an infidel. They were nice enough people, but we were miles apart culturally.
You think that because I have an Arabic last name somehow I have the capability to find the terrorist cells out there and turn them over? Believe me, I would if I could. And I feel certain that Muslim-Americans would, and have, as well.
George W. Bush campaigned in 2000 with the words "the only thing Al Gore has to sell is fear itself". Now he is campaigning as the greatest fearmonger in my lifetime, enacting the most egregious laws against civil liberties since the Civil War. You may think they are necessary. If so, then you are drinking the neocon kool-aid.
Ironically, he has done all of this to purportedly save New York, Washington and Los Angeles from a devastating terrorist attack. The people of these three cities appreciate it so much they will vote for Kerry decisively (something I at least won't do). If they, who benefit most from all this crap, don't give a rat's behind about their security, why should those of us in the flyover states give up our liberties for their sorry cabooses?
So the Taliban are voting for Kerry.....As if no one saw that coming......BFD.
"This year, he will vote for Democrat John Kerry. "After 9/11, things started adding up,'"
Yeah, muslims were attacking America AGAIN and he looked at the math:
Bush will destroy islami-fascism, Kerry will kneel to it.
And lets not forget Israel, the old islamic standby:
Running up to the 2000 election, despite Clinton doing everything he could to convince Israel to give up 97 percent of Yesha and half Jerusalem for NOTHING, most muslims (and many Jews) thought Bush could be worse because of his so-called "family oil connection"...
Surprise, W's relationship with G-d is thicker than Baker's friendship with the Saudis!
Total BS - Roosevelt was worse, Bush keeps calling the 1300 year old death cult a "religion of peace", and Bush isn't "enacting": Congress went with it AND IT'S CATCHING TERRORISTS and ensnaring few innocent people.
"You may think they are necessary. If so, then you are drinking the neocon kool-aid."
And you are buying and regurgitating the isolationist crap that the ultra-left and the sand-nazis gleefully want you to swallow; "Hey, Pat, Ostriches ARE MUCH easier to decapitate!" "You're welcome Achmed, just be sure and come for me and mine last!"
That crap is NOT GOING TO SAVE OUR COUNTRY. Isolationism is USELESS in the 21st century.
"Ironically, he has done all of this to purportedly save New York, Washington and Los Angeles from a devastating terrorist attack. The people of these three cities appreciate it so much they will vote for Kerry decisively (something I at least won't do)."
BS: Unless you have an in with AQ, you have no knowledge that they aren't targeting other cities; we have had warnings all week about Texas and New Mexico. YOU ARE THE ONE WHO IS FEAR MONGERING.
Once again, your non-vote in Pennsylvania IS a vote for Kerry.
" If they, who benefit most from all this crap, don't give a rat's behind about their security, why should those of us in the flyover states give up our liberties for their sorry cabooses?"
It's called the UNITED STATES. I live in this liberal toilet bowl in NYC, and my taxes ALSO GO TO SUPPORT YOUR AND OTHER STATE'S SERVICES.
I may not like how the two coasts vote, but let us know when wall street completely leaves NYC and when silicon valley completely disappears from California.
"I won't vote for Bush this time around either, however, and I am a Pennsylvania Republican.
You didnt' vote for him last time and you call yourself a Republican?
"I will root for Kerry to lose, but that's as far as I go... At least with Kerry in office my party can stand for something I believe in again."
I will be sure and scrawl that for you on the next hero's message wall when we get attacked again.
With all due respect, my wife is foreign born, blue eyed and blonde. She once flew to Holland on Jordanian Air (no other flights) and when she flew back on another airline, she was completely searched and interrogated. BEFORE 9/11!
Get over yourself. Pres. Bush's methodology isn't perfect; we cam ALL find some fault with some aspect of his response, but YOUR NOT VOTING FOR BUSH IS A VOTE FOR KERRY.
Beyond the social value considerations (raise your hand if you want Kerry mandated transgendered baby-sitters for your kids) based on Kerry's promise TO RESPOND to an attack rather than PREEMPT AN ATTACK, YOUR VOTE FOR KERRY WILL, G-D FORBID, KILL MORE AMERICANS.
You wrote here:
This is not a sporting event. We're talking about the future of human civilization here, and you folks all rally around your candidate based on party affiliation without regard for right or wrong.
Myself, I already feel like the cartoon character Pogo, who uttered the famous line "We have met the enemy and he is us."
Well pal, there is only one issue this election, and it transcends party, and imho, it transcends our arguments over who is more freemarket oriented:
The enemy is islamo-fascism which is linked up with real (not RINO) socialism, and if we don't have a leader who has a semblance of a clue on that, you can take all your "freedom from within" and hide it when Osama (backed by Kerry's thought police) come to your unarmed door.
And make no mistake about it. You call yourself a Catholic? After they get through with us observant Jews, you're next.
Daniel Pipes said the Democrat party was fast becoming the clear party for the Muslims.
Great Pic!
So, are you voting for Bush?
I realize he is in a tough spot. I do like the guy personally. When I see him on TV he seems honest and genuine. Unfortunately, we don't agree on very much politically. He is a statist through and through.
You ask what I could do and what Bush could do. I'll start with me.
I own a small business. I sell antiques and collectibles on eBay and on my web site (www.auktiononline.com). My business brings in hundreds of thousands of dollars from outside my community, much of it from foreign countries. By the time me and my employees and suppliers spend it, and the places they spend it turn it over, we're talking several million dollars in economic benefit. Clearly, the best thing I personally can do is to continue what I am doing and grow by as much as I possibly can. Especially here in Pennsylvania, where new types of businesses need to step up to overcome the economic losses from the decline in manufacturing. For most hard-working Americans, I feel certain the answer is the same.
As for Bush, I think he is dreaming if he thinks he can contain the uinevitable. Sooner or later nuclear and/or biological weapons are going to end up in the hands of a few fanatics. It might be next year or it might be in 50 years. It might be Muslims, or the North Koreans, or whomever. I don't believe it is really within Bush's power to stop it. I don't think he believes it is, either, but he wants desperately to see that it doesn't happen on his watch, and to pass on some semblance of order to the next guy.
The thing is, this threat is not internal. It's external. And yet, they treat it as an internal threat, as if little old ladies from Peoria might be terrorists. Meanwhile, the borders -- the place where the real problem exists -- are even less secure now than they were 4 years ago. Mexican trucks cross the border virtually unheeded. Why? One reason. Public relations. If you personally are searched, you will perceive that things are safe and you will travel and spend money.
When you get right down to it, what are they protecting? Real estate and urban infrastructure. I think the long-term solution is to close the noose around the cities for now, become far less interventionist overseas, decentralize the government and deurbanize the society. This is the conservative approach. Bush, by contrast, seems hell-bent to expand the central government and the country's role internationally in the futile hope that being centralized and militarily imperialistic will be better for us. Every true conservative knows intuitively that the exact opposite is true. It was Teddy Roosevelt, after all who articulated the "walk softly and carry a big stick" foreign policy.
Most of the functions that are performed in the cities can now be performed without one. The stock markets do not have to have buildings to exist. Neither do the financial markets and most service-oriented functions that account for 75 percent of the economy. When the cost of securing the cities outweighs the economic advantages of having them, then maybe we ought to consider how we can reorganize things. We'd be much better off culturally as a society of small towns anyway. I think that ought to be the long-term goal, and for the short term we ought to be more focussed on the things that can yield results rather than propagating fear.
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