On Friday Sept. 24, the FBI raided homes of anti-war and international solidarity activists in Chicago and Minneapolis.
Doors were kicked in during the early morning raids and personal belongings including children’s artwork, posters of Martin Luther King, Jr. were taken, as well as cell phones,
computers and boxes of paper records. About a dozen activists from Illinois, Minnesota and Michigan have been subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury.

The FBI emphasized that no arrests were made, but that evidence was being collected regarding the possible ‘material support’ of terrorism. The ‘material support’
statute is so broadly written that it can, and does, criminalize international peace-building activities whose only connection to terrorism is to fight against it.

Recently the Justice Department’s own Inspector General released a report documenting political surveillance by the FBI. Friday’s raids continue this pattern,
whose purpose is to intimidate and suppress dissent rather than in any way protecting U.S. citizens. These raids threaten the First Amendment rights of all of us.

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Inform Yourself

With President Obama expanding the conflict in Afghanistan as well as extending it into Pakistan, we need to understand the roots of the crisis there as well as the history of U.S. involvement. For centuries, Afghans have resisted foreign occupation.

Can the U.S. presence there succeed where all others have failed? What will happen if we pull our troops out? Can there be a non-military solution?

Elizabeth Gould and Paul Fitzgerald, authors of Invisible History: Afghanistan’s Untold Story, have been reporting from Afghanistan since 1981 for CBS, PBS, ABC, and other news organizations. In this BFP Forum on June 24, 2009, they explained how American actions today are connected to past miscalculations, and how U.S. policy puts both Afghans and Americans in danger.

View video of this Forum Part One, 27 minutes