[Marxism] Antiwar Strategies for 2006 (USLAW Steering Committee, 12/3/05)

[Steffie Brooks <steffie.brooks@xxxxxxxxx>]

Growing Labor and Popular Opposition to the War in Iraq
and the War on Working People at Home

(Statement of the USLAW Steering Committee, adopted 12/3/05)
In Chicago, on December 3-4, the USLAW Steering
Committee met to map out strategies for 2006. More than
forty SC members and guests participated.
Below is the major political statement adopted by the
Steering Committee.  A link is provided at its
conclusion to a PDF version.  Below that you will also
find a links to the USLAW statement adopted on the
Katrina disaster, and USLAW By-Laws which will be
submitted for a vote of ratification by the Leadership
Council.

These and other documents from the meeting will be in
the Steering Committee section of the USLAW website
under "About USLAW" in the top menu.  Check back
periodically to view newly posted materials.
=======================================================
Growing Labor and Popular Opposition to the War in Iraq
and the War on Working People at Home (Statement of the
USLAW Steering Committee, adopted 12/3/05)
>From its very beginning, USLAW has publicly opposed the
war in Iraq.  We stated that Bush was lying, that we
had no right to invade Iraq, that oil was more the
issue than weapons of mass destruction.  We predicted
that war with Iraq would lead to a prolonged and bloody
guerrilla war, while encouraging terrorism in the
Middle East and elsewhere in the world.  We warned the
war would divert our nation from the essential tasks
needed to provide for our own people.

Since February 15, 2003, when more than 10 million
people across the globe went out into the streets to
say much the same thing, it has been clear that the
people have been smarter than our political
representatives.  If members of Congress and leading
opinion makers in the United States wanted to believe
the Administration's lies, it was not because the truth
was not there for all to see.

Almost three years after USLAW was founded, the peace
movement has resoundingly won the public debate. Most
polls now show more than 60% of all Americans and more
than 73% of Democrats want the U.S. military to leave
Iraq as soon as possible.  A November 2005 New York
Times/CBS news poll found that more than 8 in 10
Americans are concerned that the $5 billion spent each
month on the war in Iraq is draining away money that
could be used in the United States.  Only 19% of
military-related people polled in the heavily
militarized state of North Carolina said the war was
"worth fighting."

In the labor movement the USLAW-initiated effort to
call for rapid withdrawal from Iraq passed
overwhelmingly at the July convention of the AFL-CIO,
and many of the largest national unions are on record
against the war.  Such opposition to a war in progress
within the U.S. labor movement is unprecedented and
bespeaks the depth of antiwar sentiment among working
people.

This of course is a reflection of the disastrous
effects of the war: more than 2,100 U.S. soldiers dead,
more than 10 times that number wounded, many seriously
scarred or maimed for life. More than 100,000 Iraqis
are dead, much of Iraq has been destroyed by U.S.
military actions, and most of the Iraqi people are
still without jobs, water, electricity, basic sewage
services, health care and any minimal sense of personal
security. Meanwhile our money pours into Iraq at $8
million an hour, much of it directly to the coffers of
corporate cronies of the Bush Administration.

U.S. policies in the Middle East, and the war and
occupation of Iraq in particular, have made our country
and the world more vulnerable to terrorism, not more
secure.  The occupation is fueling the violence in Iraq
and has turned Iraq into a school for terrorism.
Attacks there are up from 150 last year to 700 per week
today. Polls in Iraq show 80% of Iraqis want U.S.
troops out. It was recently reported that after almost
3 years of training Iraqis to serve as U.S. proxies in
this war, less than 1% of Iraqi military units can act
independently of the U.S. military. In desperation the
United States is bringing back Saddam loyalists to run
the army, the very brutal enemy we claim to have gone
to war to eliminate. Many of the Iraqi military units
are under the control of religious and sectarian
militias. At home, military recruiters are in a panic
and despite all their rosy promises, inducements and
monetary incentives, young Americans are refusing to
enlist.

The use of torture against Iraqi prisoners, the use of
chemical weapons like white phosphorous on cities like
Fallujah, the U.S. refusal to permit international
monitoring of detention camps and operation of secret
CIA prisons, our government's flouting of international
law - all these have turned international public
opinion against the United States and have destroyed
any claim our government might make to the moral high
ground.

Congressman John Murtha (Dem-PA) made it clear: the
occupation is the problem and can't be the solution. As
the Iraqi trade unionists said in the joint statement
they signed with USLAW at the end of a 25-city USLAW-
sponsored tour in June:  "The principal obstacle to
peace, stability and the reconstruction of Iraq is the
occupation. The occupation must end in all its forms,
including military bases and economic domination."  The
Iraqis cannot work out their differences under
occupation.  It must end now!

Those politicians who claim to support the troops yet
call for "staying the course 'til victory is won" are
compounding the tragic and needless slaughter that has
already occurred there by adding still more lives to
the tragic cost the Iraqis and we have borne.  A failed
policy cannot be made right by doing it longer, harder
or better.

It is important to realize that the essential goals of
the war were in fact to secure control over Iraq's oil
reserves, take out a leader who had slipped from under
the thumb of the United States, and strengthen U.S.
military presence in the Middle East.  The Bush Neocons
also seek to make Iraq into an unregulated free market,
privatizing the large public sector industries and
opening the economy to foreign corporate control, just
as they seek to use the disaster in the Gulf Coast to
privatize the schools and remake New Orleans and the
Gulf Coast in their corporate image.  None of these
"alternatives" has anything to do with democracy or the
genuine interest of Iraqis.  They are more about
preserving prerogatives for U.S. power abroad and
greater corporate domination at home.

The most serious threat to the real security of the
American people today comes from the White House and
its Congressional supporters. With the 2006 elections
looming, we need to seize the opportunity  to move
members of Congress and all elected officials to
publicly and decisively oppose the war and occupation.
For too many political leaders, "victory" means having
the Iraqis fight as our proxies while U.S. troops
remain in permanent military bases and the Pentagon's
control over reconstruction funds and armed forces
results in a compliant Iraqi government.  We reject and
must oppose such phony schemes for ending the war.  The
challenge before us is to escalate the demand for
immediate withdrawal within the labor movement, to join
forces with the growing opposition to the war across
the county to force our political leaders to remove all
U.S. troops, to provide the Iraqis with the funds they
need to reconstruct their country, and to redirect our
tax money to taking care of the serious social problems
we face at home.

Our labor movement is fragmented and divided over
organizing and politics, power and leadership.  Despite
these divisions, in 2005 USLAW made dramatic strides,
mobilizing for national demonstrations, organizing the
discussion that led to an historic resolution at the
AFL-CIO convention, touring Iraqi trade unionists to 25
U.S. cities, spawning large Educators to Stop the War
conferences, and holding numerous union educational
events around the country.  Though most unions are
caught up in a fight for survival against hostile
employers and a hostile government, the struggle to end
the war and to reorder national priorities can be a
unifying force between the AFL-CIO and Change to Win,
both of which have affiliates in USLAW.

USLAW has grown to over 125 affiliates representing
millions of workers. Today we have an opportunity,
given the climate and the success of our work in 2005,
to double the number of our affiliates. Our support and
credibility in the labor movement are much greater than
our affiliations - many labor organizations are working
with us that are not officially part of USLAW. Many
more share our goals but are not yet in our network.
USLAW provides the vehicle for the labor movement to
effectively fight against the war in Iraq and to link
it to the war against working people at home. It is a
vehicle through which organized labor can break with
decades during which it blindly followed Cold War
foreign policies that were crafted in the interests of
global capital, not the interests of American or
international labor.

Local, regional and national sectors of the labor
movement, as well as the AFL-CIO and Change to Win,
need to step forward in 2006 to make this effort
effective. We must move the antiwar message and
conversation down from the leadership level of our
organizations to the rank and file, and then move our
members into action for a new foreign and domestic
policy agenda.

The labor movement is in a position not only to be an
integral part of the antiwar movement, but to actually
lead the movement. That is the role that unions and
workers should play; it is the role that unions in many
other countries do play. We in the labor movement
should be the conscience of U.S. workers on the war. We
must make our voices heard.

Why should labor lead the movement against the war?

* This is not an "extra issue."  This issue is at the
center of the national crisis our nation is in. We
cannot achieve any of labor's goals such as major
health care and pension reform, the government-funded
rebuilding of the Gulf Coast and the strengthening of
our endangered public services, without ending this
war.

* It is a budget issue, a Patriot Act issue, it is tied
to the political club called the "War on Terrorism"
that is used to attack labor rights and much that we
hold sacred, and it is the horse that many right
wingers in office have ridden for political gain.

* Our credibility as a labor movement in the rest of
the world is at stake. As we strive to organize
multinational corporations across borders, we cannot be
for U.S. aggression and the domination of U.S. capital
and claim to be in solidarity with workers in
developing countries or even in Europe-no one will
believe us.

* Defeating the U.S. policy in Iraq must be accompanied
by a new vision of genuine solidarity, based on the
mutual interests of workers, and on respect for
international law and national sovereignty. .

* We can no longer let the issue of war and the false
patriotism of tyrants and demagogues be used to drive
an anti-worker agenda, as has occurred since 9/11.
In consideration of all of the above, USLAW calls for:
*  Expanding the USLAW Network
Doubling the number of USLAW affiliates to 250 labor
organizations. Working to deepen the participation of
International Unions, the AFL-CIO and Change to Win.
This work will culminate in a National Labor Leadership
Assembly on December 2nd, 2006.

* Legislation to End the War
Put the issue of the war at the center of the political
agenda for the 2006 election year. This includes a
broad based effort in the labor movement, in
conjunction with the peace movement, to promote
federal, state and local legislative initiatives aimed
at ending the war and occupation and to ask political
candidates to take these positions.

* Massive Spring 2006 Anti-War Demonstration
A massive broadly based national demonstration in
Washington DC in April 2006, with labor playing a major
role along with a wide ranging coalition of national
organizations.

* Union-Sponsored Vet-Military Families Forums
A nationally coordinated series of forums to be held at
union-sponsored events to include Iraqi vets, Military
Families Speak Out representatives and members of Iraqi
Veterans Against the War in order to engage rank and
file members in anti-war education and activities.

* Iraqi Labor Solidarity
Continue to work in support of labor rights for Iraqi
workers and unions and explore sending delegations of
US trade unionists to Iraq and bringing Iraqi trade
unionists, including women, to the US.
By mobilizing the labor movement at every level to end
the war in Iraq, with an informed membership, we set
the stage for labor to play a stronger role in the
future in setting our nation's priorities at home and
abroad.

Download this statement in PDF format at
http://www.uslaboragainstwar.org/downloads/SCMeetingStatement.pdf .

View and download the USLAW Statement on the Katrina
Disaster at
http://www.uslaboragainstwar.org/downloads/uslawkattrinastatement.pdf

View and download By-Laws at
http://www.uslaboragainstwar.org/downloads/By-laws.pdf
=======================================================
U.S. Labor Against War (USLAW)
www.uslaboragainstwar.org Email:
<info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
PMB 153 1718 "M" Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20036
Voicemail: 202/521-5265
=======================================================
Co-convenors:  Gene Bruskin, Maria Guillen, Fred Mason,
Bob Muehlenkamp, and Nancy Wohlforth
Michael Eisenscher, National Organizer & Website
Coordinator
Virginia Rodino, Organizer
Adrienne Nicosia, Administrative Staff

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