At long last, we learn why the Portland Seven tried to go to Afghanistan. It was not because they hungered to fight with the Taliban and kill Americans, as continues to be portrayed by the prosecuting attorneys. It was because they saw the wrong that the United States was doing by warring on a country and a people that had not attacked the United States, and wanted to go to the aid of their Muslim brothers and sisters.

At his sentencing on November 24, 2003, Patrice Lumumba Ford said he was inspired to make the trip while holding his 9-month-old son, Ibrahim, while feeling that Muslim fathers in Afghanistan could not protect their children from "bombs dropped from 30,000 feet." Ford read a letter to his son, explaining his upcoming 18 year prison sentence, "Son, I hope you will understand that I could no longer watch these horrible things continue to happen to other children any more than I could watch them happen to you."

Click here to read an October 22 Letter to the Editor by Sekou C. Ford, M.D., Patrice Lumumba Ford's brother. It is particularly galling to read the statements of prosecuting attorneys, still vainly trying to make these men appear as terrorists, by attempting to inflame Oregonians by quoting an informant. The informant claims that after the failed trip to Afghanistan, Jeffrey Battle planned to attack and kill hundreds of Jews at a Portland-area synagogue or Jewish school. Jeffrey Battle denied those stories, saying he made up the statements to prove a point, and he said he regretted saying those things. Battle said, "People, you are looking at victims of terrorism, not terrorists. The so-called crime that I'm being prosecuted and punished for is my controversial spoken thoughts, opinion and unaccomplished religious intention."

Chief prosecutor, Charles Gorder said he was convinced "that if someone told Battle to strap on a bomb and get on a TriMet bus, he'd do it." Battle said, "No, I wouldn't."

Judge Robert E. Jones said he was convinced Ford would have done anything he could to make sure he killed an American in Afghanistan. "You do not represent the Muslim faith," said Jones. "You are an insult to the Muslim faith. You're no Nelson Mandela or anyone close to it." The fact is, neither Ford nor Battle made it anywhere near a battlefield, so speculation about what they might have done had they reached Afghanistan, is mere speculation.

Click here for the entire Oregonian coverage of the Portland Seven.



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