Republican Rhetoric Alienates US Muslims

"They're all falling over each other to demonize Muslims and Islam," Victor Ghalib Begg, a 60-year-old furniture store owner, told the Detroit Free press on Sunday, January 13.

"They're trying to appeal to the power of prejudice and hate….And it's brainless," said the man who has campaigned for Republican candidates for year.

As the race heats up, with the Midwestern state of Michigan the next nomination stop, Muslims are disturbed by a growing anti-Muslim rhetoric overshadowing Republican electioneering.

Frontrunner Mike Huckabee, a priest and former Arkansas Governor, has invoked in his campaign the fight against the so called "Islamo-fascism", a provocative term commonly used by many Bush administration officials.

"Radical Islamic fascists have declared war on our country and our way of life," he says on his Website.

"They have sworn to annihilate each of us who believe in a free society, all in the name of a perversion of religion and an impersonal god."

In a recent TV ad for former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, images of angry Muslim men and women appear on screen with a voice-over warning of "a people perverted".

Senator John McCain of Arizona insists in campaign videos and rallies that the challenge of "radical Islamic extremism" is the motive for running.

"I'm not interested in trading with Al-Qaeda. All they want to trade is burqas," McCain quipped last week, referring to a face cover used by some Muslim women.

Ex-Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney had earlier raised eyebrows after saying he would not endorse appointing a Muslim cabinet member in his administration.

Despite the lack of official statistics, there are between six to seven million Muslims in America.

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