Articles
 
Dangerous Trend: FBI Detains and Investigates Peace Activists
The FBI has detained the editor of Middle East News Online and he now faces deportation. The FBI is also investigating Women in Black and is threatening the group with a Grand Jury Invesitagtion. The two messages below give information about both cases. This is a dangerous trend, indicating that no person and no group is immune.

Racist Attacks Since S11
Khaled Ksaibati, the faculty adviser for the Muslim Student Association at the University of Wyoming described an attack on the Muslim family at a Laramie Wal-Mart. "The people who screamed in her face wanted her to go back to her country," he said. "This is her country. She was born here.

US 'planned attack on Taleban'
A former Pakistani diplomat has told the BBC that the US was planning military action against Osama Bin Laden and the Taleban even before (the Sep. 11) attacks.

Conditions in Afghanistan
Afghanistan is a poor rural society that is at the bottom of the U.N.'s Human Development Index. It has experienced more than twenty years of continuous war, first with the Soviet Union and then a civil war as militia factions struggled for power.

Liberty at Risk
Certainly, we must update our counter-terrorism laws so that they reflect 21st century reality. But new expansion of government authority should be limited to properly defined terrorist activity or threats of terrorism. And with increased federal power, we must ensure accountability and oversight.

Letters
 
American and Arab
I'm living in fear, and my identity leaves me no shield. I often fly from Newark to San Francisco. Was the attack a one-time event or the first of many? Will our cities ever feel safe? Then, again, what will I face in my day-to-day existence? Will I get mocked and beat up? Are my tears for the dead less potent? Will my name become a Yellow Star that excludes me from society? Will I share in the collective healing that must come?

From an Afghan American
Some say, why don't the Afghans rise up and overthrow the Taliban? The answer is, they're starved, exhausted, hurt, incapacitated, suffering. A few years ago, the United Nations estimated that there are 500,000 disabled orphans in Afghanistan--a country with no economy, no food. There are millions of widows. And the Taliban has been burying these widows alive in mass graves. The soil is littered with land mines, the farms were all destroyed by the Soviets. These are a few of the reasons why the Afghan people have not overthrown the Taliban.

Statements
 
Austin Against War Statement on U.S. Airstrikes
Autocratic regimes such as Afghanistan and Iraq have caused tremendous suffering among their own people and are consequently not disturbed when the United States causes more suffering. Bombing cities results not only in a tragic loss of life, it is demonstrably useless at achieving American policy objectives.

A Response to the Oct. 7 Airstrikes from Two AAW Members
As we watch this conflict unfold into catastrophic proportions, we will continue to be an alternative information source in hopes of providing a more balanced perspective than that of the corporate media. It is of vital importance that we share a compassionate and logical perspective on the downward spiralling futility of violence, even as our families, friends and neighbors are stirred into a war frenzy by selectively presented or false information and nationalist rhetoric issued under the guise of "news".

Anti-war Statement
In response to the media blackout of a peaceful and democratic resolution to the events of September 11, 2001, activists in Austin are soliciting community organizations and distinguished individuals to endorse the statement below for us to deliver to Lloyd Doggett, our U.S. Representative. We will encourage Lloyd Doggett to take this message to DC and strive for a lasting and peaceful resolution.