Many conservative American Muslims are turning to Kerry

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.'

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.

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.

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?

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.
I understand you are Christian, and I don't think you have special knowlegde about where the terorists are, same here. I wish President Bush had gotten rid of Norman Minetta, who thinks it's neccessary to search young kids an grandmothers. I think it would have been more effective to go after the target group first, instead of spreading it around... But, I don't quite understand what you want - you say you don't want to lose civil liberties, but want President Bush to be truly effective in fighting for our saftey. So, what do you feel he should do? What should we Americans do to help, in your opinion?

So, what do you feel he should do? What should we Americans do to help, in your opinion?

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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