Milwaukee, WI – A group of anti-war students and community members gathered in downtown Milwaukee in the early afternoon of September 11 to protest continued U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. Speakers acknowledged the significance of the withdrawal of U.S. troops, but pointed to history and actions taken since the evacuation of the U.S. embassy as a sign of things to come.

“It’s a good thing that the U.S. has removed its forces, but we know that they’re not going to allow the unimpeded expression of Afghan self-determination,” said Ryan Hamann, speaking on behalf of Freedom Road Socialist Organization – Wisconsin.

“We see this in the drone strikes ordered by Biden which resulted in the deaths of ten civilians, seven of whom were children. We should expect to see sanctions against ‘the government’ in the near future,” Hamann continued. “Sanctions kill people, too, and the U.S. government knows this. It’s all a part of their plan to continue the war on Afghanistan.”

Attendees chanted, “Hands off Afghanistan!” and “No justice, no peace, U.S. out of the Middle East!” as cars drove by honking their approval for the anti-war demonstration. Downtown Milwaukee was alive with foot traffic due to SummerFest, a major annual music festival. A few people stopped to join or ask questions.

After the event, people were asked to purchase a book detailing the lives of women in Afghanistan. The proceeds raised would be donated to the Afghan refugee resettlement efforts in Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, an area that falls roughly halfway between Madison and the Minnesota state line. The event was organized by the FRSO – Wisconsin and the Milwaukee branch of the Party for Socialism and Liberation together with a handful of Iranian graduate students.

FRSO – Wisconsin is hosting a study on imperialism and national liberation, with the current events in Afghanistan serving as a backdrop for discussions. This study is open to all who want to learn more about these topics. It’s set to take place via Zoom on September 19 at 5 p.m. Central Time. The link for the Zoom call can be found on the FRSO – Wisconsin Facebook page.

#MilwaukeeWI #AntiwarMovement #Afghanistan #Asia #PeoplesStruggles #September11

Tampa, FL – On Sept. 11, members of various student and community groups gathered at the University of South Florida (USF) to commemorate the millions of victims affected by the conflicts sparked by the U.S. after the attacks on this day eleven years ago. The gathering was organized by Tampa Against the War on Terror and was supported by the campus chapter of Students for a Democratic Society. It came before a counter-protest in downtown Tampa, against a hate group that was seeking to ban the Council on America-Islamic Relations from speaking in Hillsborough County Public Schools.

The event started with the distribution of signs and artwork which depicted the gruesome realities and toll of the War on Terror. This was followed by a march around the USF Student Center, where people chanted, “No justice, no peace, no war in the Middle East,” and “Drop tuition, not bombs.”

The protesters ended their march inside the Student Center, where Tefa Galvis, an organizer with Tampa Against the War on Terror, invited everyone present to get involved to end the wars, while a banner that stated the figures on the lives and resources lost in the past eleven years was dropped from the third floor. Galvis went on to add that the rising cost of tuition was directly related to the amount of money spent on these wars.

A representative from the University attempted to stop the protest. Despite this, Matt Hastings, an organizer with SDS, gave a speech blasting the racist interventions in the Middle East, particularly the recent U.S. involvement in Syria, declaring, “No drone strikes, and no tuition hikes!”

The crowd then swiftly organized a caravan to join the counter-protest downtown, where the Education Coalition, consisting of Tea Partiers from across the state, was holding a press conference outside of a Hillsborough County School Board meeting to denounce the Council on America-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as a ‘jihadist’ organization and to attempt to get CAIR banned from speaking at local schools. The counter-protest quickly broke the lines of the press conference with chants such as, “No hate, no fear,” to make sure that the anti-Islamic message made by the group was not welcomed in the city of Tampa.

#TampaFL #AntiwarMovement #StudentsForADemocraticSociety #Islamophobia #September11 #TampaAgainstTheWarOnTerror

On the heels of the attacks on 9/11, the U.S. launched its criminal war in Afghanistan in October with the stated purpose of hunting down Osama Bin Laden. They launched their bombing campaign in the face of Taliban leader Mullah Omar's expressed willingness to cooperate in capturing Bin Laden. Come October 2011, this war will have dragged on for a decade, costing nearly $500 billion and the lives of 1670 U.S. troops, with tens of thousands of Afghans killed and seriously injured.

The illegal war in Iraq was instigated by Bush's lies regarding Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. In the political climate following 9/11, the corporate media supported and parroted whatever the White House and Pentagon said. The U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq cost $800 billion, the lives of 1.4 million Iraqis, more than 4000 U.S. troops dead and more than 100,000 wounded. It is noteworthy that more than 300 times as many deaths occurred in these two wars than in the 9/11 attacks. Likewise, since 9/11, under the guise of the ‘war on terror,’ the U.S. has expanded wars and interventions in Colombia, the Philippines, Palestine, Yemen, Syria, Pakistan, Sudan and elsewhere.

Most recently, the U.S./NATO attacked Libya, seeking to establish a firm foothold in North Africa. All of these wars and interventions are about nothing more than strengthening the power of U.S. imperialism and of lining the pockets of the U.S. ruling class with the spoils of war in the form of oil and other natural resources. For the people of these countries, it means war, occupation and repression, along with the complete violation of their national sovereignty.

All the while, the people of the world, from Afghanistan and Libya, to Colombia and the Philippines continue to fight for self-determination and national liberation. We in Freedom Road Socialist Organization, along with progressive people everywhere, support them with the knowledge that our struggles are linked. The U.S. ruling class, oppressor of nations all over the world, likewise stands on the backs of working and oppressed people here. While the economic depression creates havoc at home for working people, the rich and powerful act as war criminals overseas.

The U.S. government was quick to shift public opinion in its favor following the Sept. 11 attacks. Bush's “with us or against us” mentality left no room for sane discussion in the mainstream media. This fueled the fire for the notorious Patriot Acts that were quickly pushed through as part of the package deal of repression and war. As a result, an era of state terror against Arabs and Muslims began. Tens of thousands of Arabs and Muslims were subject to ‘special registration,’ put on no-fly lists, placed under surveillance and persecuted by the U.S.'s racist response to 9/11.

Not long after, it became clear that the web of domestic spying was being widened to include the progressive and anti-war communities generally. We understand this particularly well since the law enforcement officer “Karen Sullivan” infiltrated Freedom Road Socialist Organization, along with other groups we are active in, in the build up to the 2008 Republican National Convention in Minnesota. This infiltration led to the FBI raids on the homes and offices of 11 activists on Sept. 24, 2010, subpoenaing them to testify in a grand jury investigation concerning alleged “material support for terrorism.” Today, a total of 24 activists are targets of the investigation, with the threat of indictments looming.

U.S. imperialism is in decline, and the rich and powerful are growing more desperate by the day. As we said in our 2010 Main Political Report, “The 'war on terror' launched by the Bush administration was a dramatic attempt by the rulers of the United States to counteract the long running decline of Wall Street’s empire, by using military means. It ended in a series of defeat and stalemates, causing the phrase ‘war on terror’ to be quietly dropped from the Pentagon’s lexicon. The result is that on every continent, the U.S. finds itself struggling to find the methods and forms to maintain its domination, in the context of a declining ability to do so.”

The tragedy of 9/11 happened as a direct consequence of U.S. imperialist policy around the world. As long as these policies, which are part and parcel to the capitalist system itself, are allowed to continue, we will see further tragedy. The U.S. government repression, resulting from the cynical manipulation of this tragedy, has come down on FRSO and our friends because we have steadfastly resisted the ongoing wars and repression, both here and around the world. Likewise people around the world are continuing to fight back against the forces of empire. Despite all of the obstacles that face us in the days, months and years to come, we will continue to resist with all our might until, through mass struggle, a new era of peace, justice and equality is won.

#UnitedStates #InJusticeSystem #Editorials #PeoplesStruggles #RacismInTheCriminalJusticeSystem #warOnTerror #911 #IraqWar #September11 #September24FBIRaids #AfghanistanWar #LibyaWar #politicalRepression

###Ten years of the “war on terror”

Just days after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, [President George W. Bush stated](http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/2001/09/17/2001-09-17_a_fight_vs__evil__bush_and_c.html), “This crusade – this war on terrorism – is going to take a while, [...] And the American people must be patient. I'm going to be patient. But I can assure the American people I am determined.”

[A few days later](http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/20/gen.bush.transcript/), Bush said, “Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.”

As Bush made clear ten years ago, this war would not be about ‘al Qaeda,’ but about a long war that would span the globe. And Bush was right about this. The ‘war on terror’ led to:

- The invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, which has caused tens of thousands of civilian deaths and forced millions of people to leave their homes - The invasion and occupation of Iraq, in which the U.S. occupation was responsible for the deaths of over one million Iraqis and the total devastation of that country’s infrastructure - Cruise missile attacks and drone air strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia that have killed countless civilians - The establishment of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, the site of countless abuses of human rights and torture of hundreds of people - Even the killing of Osama Bin Laden is symbolic of the expansion of the ‘war on terrorism’: Bin Laden was reportedly killed deep within Pakistani territory in the city of Abbottabad, in violation of Pakistani sovereignty.

The headlines of all the major U.S. newspapers and TV outlets are crowing, “Osama Bin Laden is dead!” and some people apparently took to the streets in celebration in Washington, D.C.

But how can anyone find joy or cause for celebration in the death of one man who has been used as an excuse and justification for the deaths of so many hundreds of thousands of people, and the forced displacement of countless millions in the Middle East and Central Asia?

###‘War on terror’ and criminalizing national liberation movements abroad

One of the most far-reaching implications of the ‘war on terrorism’ is the criminalization of national liberation movements and labeling these movements and their supporters as ‘terrorists.’ From this angle, the ‘war on terrorism’ is nothing but a thin veneer over the U.S. drive to control resources and dominate territories across the globe.

Conveniently, the labeling of a movement or organization as ‘terrorist’ always aligns with the interests of U.S. foreign policy. As it just so happens, many of the organizations on the Foreign Terrorist Organization list are in resource-rich countries that receive millions of dollars in U.S. military aid. Movements that form in opposition to U.S.-backed dictatorships or repression in these countries – from Palestine, to Colombia, the Philippines, India and many others – are placed on the State Department’s the Foreign Terrorist Organization list, and their members and supporters are targeted for repression.

And what if circumstances change and the designation of a the Foreign Terrorist Organization becomes inconvenient to U.S. foreign policy? The U.S. simply chooses to ignore its own rules. We see this in Libya today, where the U.S. and NATO are supporting and possibly arming members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, or in Iran, where prominent members of the U.S. political structure have met with and expressed their full support for the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK), a group which carried out numerous terrorist attacks in Iran. And we can’t forget [Luis Posada Carriles](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Luis_Posada_Carriles), the self-confessed anti-Cuban terrorist who the U.S. refuses to extradite to Venezuela or Cuba so he can face justice for his bombings and attacks which killed dozens of civilians.

###Destroying civil liberties at home

Often we hear of the ‘erosion’ of our civil liberties in the wake of 9/11 and the PATRIOT Act that was passed, supposedly as a tool to help assist law enforcement with the ‘war on terror.’ But “erosion” is far too passive a word: it sounds like a gentle, natural process. What has taken place, and what continues today, is an all-out assault on the civil liberties granted by the Constitution, and the democratic rights to speech and assembly. The main effect is to strengthen the political and policing power of the ruling class and provide new tools for targeting domestic dissent.

The PATRIOT Act, the legal framework for the ‘war on terrorism,’ is still intact today, ten years after it was first passed as temporary measure. And thanks to this legal framework, the surveillance and spying apparatus of the U.S. has grown to enormous proportions – as the Washington Post series “Top Secret America” has reported, no one even knows how large, or how much money is spent on the domestic intelligence agencies.

What is known is that since Sept. 11, 2001, the FBI has stepped up its surveillance and harassment of Muslims in the United States – beginning with the rounding-up of thousands of American Muslims in the months after Sept. 11, 2001 for ‘voluntary interviews’ with the FBI. U.S. corporate media and right-wing politicians have encouraged people to view Muslims with suspicion. Islamophobia and hate crimes against Muslims are on the rise. Muslims who give money to charities that help people who suffer from the U.S. policies of war and occupation in Palestine are prosecuted under the ‘material support of terrorism’ statute. And the FBI increasingly dedicates its resources to entrapping Muslims in plots that the FBI has come up with; as was the case in Oregon where the FBI encouraged the ‘radicalization’ of a disaffected Muslim youth and provided him with the money, a fake bomb and encouragement to go through with an attack that was then ‘foiled’ by the FBI.

Then, six months ago, the expansion of the domestic ‘war on terrorism’ took a new turn as dozens of [FBI agents raided the homes of social justice activists in Chicago and Minneapolis](http://www.stopfbi.net), eventually issuing subpoenas to 23 people to a federal grand jury concerning an investigation into the ‘material support of terrorism.’ The raids came just months after the Supreme Court ruled in a controversial case, Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, that free speech can be considered material support for terrorism if it is done in coordination with or under the direction of a foreign terrorist organization. The court did not define what “coordination with” or “under the direction of” means, leaving many wondering whether statements or organizing efforts against the disastrous and bloody interventions of the United States military in places like Colombia or Palestine will be in violation of the law.

###War of terror

Under the pretext of fighting terrorism, the U.S. has invaded and occupied Iraq and Afghanistan, and used air strikes and covert operations across the world. The ‘war on terrorism’ has caused over one million deaths and forced millions to flee their homes.

This is not justice for the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The ‘war on terrorism’ only deepens the sadness and pain caused by those attacks ten years ago. It is well past time for Americans to understand that the path to justice and peace is through ending all U.S. military aid and military interventions around the world, dismantling the PATRIOT Act and reigning in the out-of-control domestic spying by the FBI and other agencies.

#UnitedStates #AntiwarMovement #WarOnTerrorism #September11 #OsamaBinLaden

Chicago, IL – Students in Chicago came together today to oppose the threatened Qu’ran burning by the Dove Church in Gainesville, Florida. As part of a nationwide response, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) chapters from the University of Illinois-Chicago, Wright College and Columbia College joined together with others from Northeastern Illinois University, Northern Illinois University and the Palestine Solidarity Group.

As cars driving by honked in support of the protesters, Alaa Saleh, a Palestinian student from Wright College SDS, led the chant: “One, two, three, four! We don’t want your racist wars! Five, six, seven, eight! No to bigotry and hate!” Saleh stated, “It is important to stand up for what is right.”

“These attacks are aimed at the communities who are already victims of U.S. wars and the U.S.-backed occupation of Palestine,” explained Hatem Abudayyeh of the Arab American Action Network.

Abudayyeh continued, “The hate against Arabs and Muslims is not new, and it’s not just in Gainesville and it’s not only members of our community that are targeted. We’re here to take a stand against attacks on Arabs, Muslims and all immigrants.” Kait McIntyre said that it was very powerful for her to know that SDS chapters all across the country were holding protests today.

#UniversityOfIllinoisChicago #ChicagoIL #AntiwarMovement #AntiRacism #September11 #Koranburning

Students for a Democratic Society at the University of North Carolina-Asheville will hold a rally downtown along with peace, social justice and other activists from the Asheville community on Sept. 11, the anniversary of the 2001 attacks in New York and Washington D.C., to speak out against a wave of anti-Muslim bigotry that has spread across the U.S. in recent weeks. The event will also call for an end to U.S. wars and occupations being carried out in the name of ‘fighting terrorism.’ This rally will coincide with others like it being held in cities across the country.

The rally will be held Sept. 11 at 1:00 p.m. at Pack Square in downtown Asheville.

On Sept. 11, right-wing groups plan to demonstrate at the World Trade Center site to whip up hysteria against a proposal to build an Islamic community center several blocks from the WTC site. On that same day, Christian fundamentalists plan a “Burn the Qur’an” day in Florida.

Jeremy Miller, an organizer with Students for a Democratic Society, said, “Sept. 11, 2001 was a tragedy. It was tragedy for those who lost their lives on that day and has been an ongoing tragedy for the victims of the ‘war of terror’ that has been waged on the people of the world since then.”

“We demand an end to the wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan now and that all the troops be brought home,” Miller continued. “We must not allow what happened on that day to be used as a justification for these ongoing wars for empire or for anti-Muslim bigotry and anti-Arab racism. We will join our sisters and brothers in Gainseville Florida, New York and in many other cities around the country to stand up and fight back!”

#AshevilleNC #AntiwarMovement #RacismInTheCriminalJusticeSystem #StudentsForADemocraticSocietySDS #Islam #September11

Minneapolis, MN – Peace, social justice and other organizations will hold a rally on Sept. 11 in Minneapolis, on the anniversary of the 2001 attacks in New York and Washington D.C., to speak out against a wave of anti-Muslim bigotry that has spread across the U.S. in recent weeks. The event will also call for an end to U.S. wars and occupations being carried out in the name of ‘fighting terrorism.’

The rally in Minneapolis will coincide with protests, speak-outs and other events in cities around the U.S. that will call for an end to attacks on the Muslim community.

The rally will be held Sept. 11 at 1:00 p.m. at the Library Plaza at Hennepin and Lagoon Avenues in the Uptown neighborhood of Minneapolis.

On Sept. 11, right-wing groups plan to demonstrate at the World Trade Center site to whip up hysteria against a proposal to build an Islamic community center several blocks from the WTC site. On that same day, Christian fundamentalists plan a “Burn the Quran” day in Florida.

Meredith Aby, a member of the Anti-War Committee, the sponsor of the Saturday event said, “In 2001, 3000 people lost their lives in the attacks of Sept. 11. We have not forgotten this tragedy, and we cannot allow those events to hold us hostage to a war agenda that is not in the interests of the people of the U.S. or people around the world.”

“The U.S. government has used the events of 9/11 to justify a war agenda that has led to two wars and occupations. Right wing elements are now using the anniversary of 9/11 to whip up a campaign against the Muslim community in the U.S.,” Aby continued.

A statement issued by organizers says, in part, “On Saturday, people of good conscience will gather in New York, Minneapolis and other cities to say no to anti-Muslim bigotry, racism and war.”

The Saturday event is initiated by the Anti-War Committee and endorsed by Al-Aqsa Institute, Coalition for Palestinian Rights, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAc), Iraq Peace Action Coalition, Iraq Veterans Against the War-MN, Military Families Speak Out-MN, Palestine-Israel Justice Project of the United Methodist Church, RNC 8 Defense Committee, SDS at the U of M, Twin Cities Peace Campaign, Veterans for Peace Chapter 27, the Welfare Rights Committee and Women Against Military Madness.

#MinneapolisMN #AntiwarMovement #AntiRacism #AntiWarCommittee #September11