NEW YORK TIMES: US ARABS BACK BUSH
By J. Grant Swank, Jr.
Feb 19, 2004, 01:50
Wealthy Arab-Americans and foreign-born Muslims who strongly back President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq are adding their names to the ranks of Pioneers and Rangers, the elite Bush supporters who have raised $100,000 or more for his re-election reports New York Times’ Leslie Wayne on February 17.
“’He has saved Iraq,’ said Mori Hosseini, Iranian-born chief executive of ICI Homes in Daytona Beach, who left Iran when he was 13. ‘He’s the savior, if not of Iraq, but also of the other countries around Iraq. They want freedom. I am so sure of this because I am from that part of the world.’”
Yousif Ghafari, a Lebanese Christian who owns an engineering firm, has raised $350,000 to become a Ranger. "He said that ‘the 9/11 situation was a bad situation for us’ but that he supported Mr. Bush for ‘taking the initiative’ to oust Saddam Hussein and believed that Mr. Bush had the capacity to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
“’The Western-educated and business-motivated know that the whole Middle Eastern region has to change,’ said Mr. Ghafari, who collected donations from non-Arabs as well.’”
Dr. Malik Hasan is from Pakistan and former chief executive of Foundation Health Systems of Denver. "In the past decade, Dr. Hasan has given several hundred thousand dollars to Mr. Bush and the Republican Party, including a $100,000 check to the Bush inaugural committee.
"This year, Dr. Hasan is a Pioneer. In the past few months he has met personally with Mr. Bush, once at a White House dinner and again at a fund-raiser in Washington. He visited with Mr. Bush at the president’s ranch, and Dr. Hasan’s wife, Seeme, has been brought into high-level meetings on Arab-American concerns.
"The couple say they are still fans of Mr. Bush, even though, Mrs. Hasan said, their American-born son was recently surrounded by the police and detained at an airport for no apparent reason other than his ethnic background.
“’As a Muslim I felt it was wonderful that Saddam Hussein was removed,’ Dr. Hasan said. ‘The rest of the Muslim countries were standing there doing nothing. Honestly, I wrote to the president and said I adored his accomplishments.’”
"Fred Pezeshkan counts himself among the Republican hard core. For the past 25 years, Mr. Pezeshkan has lived in Naples, Fla., where he is president of the Krate Construction Company. He is also a first-time Ranger, having raised $200,000 for Mr. Bush. In previous years, except for voting Republican, the Iranian-born Mr. Pezeshkan was not politically active.
“But to Mr. Pezeshkan, the invasion of Iraq shows ‘a strong American interest to go to those countries in the Middle East and bring democracy, culture, education, hospitals and the things that they need.’”
Original article posts a correction at http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F70717FB3F590C748DDDAB0894DC404482
stating
Correction: February 18, 2004, Wednesday
A headline yesterday on a front-page article about fund-raising for President Bush’s re-election referred imprecisely to donors described in the article. Not all are Arab-Americans; they include Pakistani and Iranian-born donors.
Oops!
A Google search on this found several response to the original article pointing out that is was inappropriately named and should have been titled “US MUSLIMS RAISE MONEY FOR BUSH”
Great to see that some Pakistani Americans are supporting Bush! God save us from another raving Democrat!
I must confess to agreeing with their assesment of the situation!
Peace To All Who Read This…
