Vigil “End Afghanistan War”
Earle Campbell Fed. Bldg.,
1100 W. Commerce
Downtown Dallas
Friday 11:30- 12:30 PM
11:30 AM every Friday: Vigil against the occupation of Afghanistan with “Jobs not War” banner at Dallas Federal Building, 1100 Commerce
http://dallaspeacecenter.org/modules/extcal/event.php?event=54
A Day of Peace and Resistance
Wednesday, February 10, 2010, 11:00am – 1:00pm
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=231199444930
Texas State University: Outside the Student Center
“In the great tradition of student protest, we will come together on Jan. 28 on Texas State’s campus to speak out against the criminal military actions of the United States government. With the recent escalation of the war in Afghanistan, the expansion into Pakistan and Yemen, and the continued occupation of Iraq, it is time to hold our leaders accountable. This day marks an opportunity to come together to discuss, to network, and to celebrate peace and resistance. As students, teachers, peace veterans, and musicians, we will make our voices heard against war. Not in our name!”
Everyone is welcome. Spread the word.
Hosted by CAMEO (Campus Anti-war Movement to End the Occupations)
[email protected]
December 4-6, 2009 – Wyndham O’Hare Hotel, Chicago, IL
6810 North Mannheim Road, Rosemont, IL 60018
An International Call to Labor for
World Wide Peace with Economic and Social Justice
in a Time of War and Economic Crisis
Featuring:
- Iraqi Oil Worker Union Leaders
- Pakistani Women, Youth & Labor leaders
- Scholars and Policy Experts on Afghanistan
- Antiwar Trade Unionists from Across the US
- Iraq & Afghan War Veterans
We are at a turning point in US History. In 2008 the labor movement had a moment of triumph, playing a critical role in electing Barack Obama and a majority Democratic Congress. In 2009 we find ourselves still in the middle of a devastating economic crisis with wars and militarism standing between working people and the peaceful just world we seek and deserve.
This is a moment of both peril and promise. USLAW is challenged to develop a program and organizing strategy that will expand and deepen the influence and effectiveness of antiwar forces within the labor movement, while continuing to play a leading role within the broader antiwar movement.
This is the context in which USLAW will convene its third National Assembly in Chicago, December 4-6th.
The Assembly is open to delegates from USLAW affiliates as well as individual associate members. It is the highest decision-making body of USLAW where we debate and adopt resolutions on a range of issues that establish USLAW policy and strategic direction for the next three years. The Assembly will elect the leadership that will guide the organization, and has the authority to make changes in the By-Laws that govern USLAW.
In October 2003 at the historic founding Assembly of USLAW, the delegates adopted a visionary Mission Statement that calls for:
In the Fall of 2009, the need to organize based on these principles is greater than ever.
IRAQ
Despite hundreds of billions of dollars, more than 4300 US fatalities and an unknown number of Iraqi deaths and personal trauma, the people of Iraq and the US have little to show for it. Violence and economic devastation abound. More than 130,000 US troops and an even greater number of private contractors remain on Iraqi soil. Iraqi workers still have no right to union representation, as the US supported government clings to Saddam’s 1987 anti-union labor law. Global corporations hover over Iraq like vultures waiting for the opportunity to seize control of Iraqi resources
AFGHANISTAN
In Afghanistan, after 8 years of war the US faces another quagmire of death, dollars and destruction, with the added elements of drug lords, massive corruption and untold human dislocation and suffering. This is now President Obama’s war – a war that threatens to undermine both Obama’s and labor’s domestic agenda, much as Vietnam did to LBJ’s.
PAKISTAN
Meanwhile Pakistan, a country with 173 million people ruled by a corrupt regime with a nuclear arsenal, is threatened with dangerous destabilization as the US has turned it into part of a military battlefield in what is now a regional war.
MILITARISM
The giant sucking sound you hear is the US military budget of 2/3 of a trillion dollars that consumes 58 cents of every tax dollar as it drains away precious resources from meeting human needs.
Labor can never have a sustainable full employment economy, healthcare for all, an environmentally responsible energy policy, and humane immigration policy while billions of dollars and countless lives are squandered on unwinnable and unnecessary wars that make us no safer but make a small elite very rich. The Iraq and Afghan wars will distract from and overwhelm any possibility of implementing a progressive agenda.
USLAW has had a powerful effect in the labor movement since its formation in 2003, helping to alter how organized labor views foreign policy. But our mission is far from over. USLAW is the only voice of workers that brings them to the forefront in linking the struggle for a just society to the struggle for a just foreign policy.
U.S. labor needs a larger, more powerful and influential USLAW.
Our challenge is to refocus and re-energize our movement, to more clearly make the connection between the economic crisis, a national economy that operates in service to the military-industrial complex and a militarized foreign policy that puts our country at odds with most of the people of the world. We need to figure out how to make foreign policy a legitimate subject of discussion and an important concern to be addressed by our labor movement – in much the same way concern for the environment and a sustainable economy is now understood to be a legitimate focus for organized labor.
Our task is to expand the vision of the labor movement so that unions serve as more than instruments for reshaping our workplaces. They must become instruments for reshaping our world.
Come to Chicago to help
US Labor Against the War
Chart a Path to Peace with Justice
For registration and hotel reservation information,
Alexander the Great, the Persian Empire, Great Britain, the Soviet Union–all failed in their military occupations of Afghanistan. Says Zamir Kabulov, Russian ambassador in Kabul, The U.S. has “already repeated all of our mistakes.”
by ROBERT MACKEY Raheb Homavandi/Reuters
September 21, 2009
An exhibit on the failed Soviet occupation of Afghanistan at a war museum in Herat, a city in the west of the country that also contains the remains of a citadel built by Alexander the Great.
Now that word has leaked out that Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top American military commander in Afghanistan, has concluded that he will need more than 68,000 American troops to defeat the Taliban, the natural question is: how many foreign troops does it take to secure Afghanistan?
The fast answer is that no one really knows, since, as even late-night comics have noticed recently, armies have been failing to do it for centuries.
On Saturday the leader of the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Muhammad Omar, weighed in with an op-ed of sorts posted on a Taliban Web site — helpfully made available in English, as well as Pashto, Farsi, Arabic, Urdu, Finnish, German, Spanish, Russian, French, Somali and Malay/Indonesian — noting that history has not been kind to foreign forces seeking to control Afghanistan, “from the time of the aggression of Alexander.” Mullah Omar invoked a somewhat more recent example as well, pointing out that the Afghans “fought against the British invaders for eighty years from 1839 to 1919 and ultimately got independence by defeating Britain.” While the world has obviously changed a good bit since Alexander arrived in Afghanistan with an army reinforced by elephants, or the British seized temporary control of the country in 1878 with 33,500 troops, it has only been 20 years since the Soviet military tried and failed to fend off an insurgency by Islamic militants against an Afghan government they had supported.
In February 1989, when the Soviets finally withdrew from the country a report in The Times by Bill Keller noted:
Today’s final departure is the end of a steady process of withdrawal since last spring, when Moscow says, there were 100,300 Soviet troops in Afghanistan. At the height of the Soviet commitment, according to Western intelligence estimates, there were 115,000 troops deployed.
On Monday, my colleagues Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker reported that the largest troop increase currently under consideration would bring the total number of American troops there to 113,000 — almost exactly the same size as the Soviet force:
Pentagon and military officials involved in Afghanistan policy say General McChrystal is expected to propose a range of options for additional troops beyond the 68,000 American forces already approved, from 10,000 more troops to as many as 45,000.
As The Lede noted in March, when Mullah Omar issued a call for help from Pakistani militants, there are an estimated 15,000 Taliban fighters on each side of the exceedingly porous border. On the day the Soviets departed in 1989, the BBC reported that “Kabul is surrounded by a mujahedeen force of around 30,000.” It seems reasonable to ask if a force roughly the same size as the Soviet one, aided by about 30,000 NATO troops, is big enough to defeat this Afghan insurgency. The Americans do have some advantages the Soviets lacked. In this struggle, Pakistan’s military and intelligence services are, to some extent, helping to undermine the insurgents, who are not being armed by a rival superpower. Despite signs of rising discontent with the current Afghan government, the Taliban may also have less popular support than the mujahedeen enjoyed in the 1980s.
Although it is hard to conduct accurate surveys in Afghanistan, in one opinion poll carried out earlier this year for British and American broadcasters, just 4 per cent of Afghans surveyed said that they would like to see the Taliban return to power.
On the other hand, Afghanistan’s population is estimated to have doubled since 1979, so this foreign force now has to find away to police and provide basic security to about twice as many people as the Soviet one.
Instead of looking just at failed occupations of Afghanistan, it might be worth looking at what how many troops were deployed during the successful occupation of postwar Germany in the 1940s. According to a Rand corporation study called “America’s Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq,” the U.S. peacekeeping force in the one-quarter of postwar Germany it controlled in 1945 (an area that then had a population of about 17 million people and no active insurgency) included more than 290,000 soldiers and “a constabulary or police-type occupation force” of 38,000.
Looking closer to home, consider that there are nearly 38,000 police officers in New York City, patrolling an area of just 300 square miles, with a population of 8.3 million. Given that, it is no wonder that Gen. McChrystal thinks it might be tough to provide security to 30 million Afghans and police 250,000 square miles of mostly mountainous terrain with even 100,000 troops.
Then again, it is also possible that too large a force, rather than subduing Afghanistan, could serve to provoke the Afghan people.
One man who has suggested that more American troops are not the answer is Russia’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, who was a K.G.B.
agent in Kabul during the Soviet occupation in the 1980s. Last October Mr. Kabulov told my colleague John Burns that the U.S. had “already repeated all of our mistakes,” and moved on to “making mistakes of their own, ones for which we do not own the copyright.” One of the biggest mistakes the Soviets made, Mr. Kabulov said, was letting the force grow too large. “The more foreign troops you have roaming the country,” he said, “the more the irritative allergy toward them is going to be provoked.”
Good that the AFL-CIO included “contractors” in the call for withdrawal. Unfortunately, they dropped the call for “complete and immediate” withdrawal. (And what about Afghanistan?) –Leslie Cunningham, Texas Labor Against the War, Austin
September 17, 2009
These resolutions were adopted on September 17, 2009, in the final session of the AFL-CIO Convention in Pittsburgh. Numerous USLAW affiliates contributed to this success. Special thanks go to David Newby, President of the Wisconsin AFL-CIO, and Jos William, President of the Metropolitan Washington DC Labor Council, both of whom served on that committee, to Co-convenors Fred Mason and Nancy Wohlforth, who led the antiwar effort at the convention, to Tim Paulson, Executive Director of the San Francisco Labor Council, Traven Leyshon, President of the Washington-Orange-Lamoille Labor Council and Gerry Colby, President of the Champlain Valley Central Labor Council, all of whom spoke from the floor on the resolutions, and Sharon Cornu, Secretary-Treasurer of the Alameda Labor Council; and USLAW National Organizer Tom Gogan, who helped coordinate that effort. Many delegates were also involved in building support for the resolutions and circulating USLAW’s petition to Hillary Clinton in support of labor rights in Iraq. Leaders of five of Iraq’s labor federations attended the convention to witness this effort. They were also honored with a luncheon hosted by the United Steel Workers Union.
RESOLUTION 16
Submitted by Alameda Labor Council (Calif.), San Mateo County Central Labor Council (Calif.), Washington-Orange-Lamoille Labor Council (Vt.) and Wisconsin State AFL-CIO
WHEREAS, after more than six years of military occupation, more than 4,300 U.S. and as many as a million or more Iraqi lives have been lost and our government has spent nearly $650 billion of taxpayer funds on the military occupation of Iraq, and yet real democracy in Iraq still remains more of an aspiration than reality; and
WHEREAS, one of the fundamental building blocks of a democratic society is the right of workers to join unions of their choice free of government interference, domination, harassment or repression; and
WHEREAS, after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the U.S. nullified most of the repressive Saddam era legal code, but kept on the books and continued to enforce a 1987 law that Saddam Hussein imposed making it illegal for public-sector and public enterprise employees to join unions or negotiate the terms of their employment; and
WHEREAS, the subsequent Iraqi Interim Governing Authority continued to enforce this undemocratic denial of worker rights, and the newly elected Iraqi government imposed additional restrictions on worker and union rights, including seizure and freezing of union bank accounts and assets; and
WHEREAS, U.S. and Iraqi forces raided and ransacked union offices and assaulted and detained union leaders, and management of public enterprises, including the oil industry, was directed not to recognize or bargain with unions; and
WHEREAS, a vibrant pluralistic independent labor movement continues to grow in Iraq despite harassment, beatings, kidnappings, detention, torture and even murder of trade union activists; and
WHEREAS, Article 22, Section 3 of the new Iraqi Constitution promises respect for worker rights, foremost freedom of association and calls upon the Iraqi government to enact a law that guarantees the right to form unions; and
WHEREAS, Iraq is also a 1962 signatory to ILO Convention 98 on the right to organize and collectively bargain (which, ironically, the United States has yet to ratify), thereby also imposing a treaty obligation under international law to respect worker rights; and
WHEREAS, the ILO assisted the Iraqi government to draft a basic labor law that conforms to the requirements of the Iraqi constitution and international norms for respect of labor rights and yet the Iraqi government has refused to present that law to the Parliament for adoption; and
WHEREAS, these transgressions of fundamental labor and human rights have taken place for more than six years without a word of criticism from the U.S. government to Iraqi authorities and it is long past time for the U.S. government to speak up for the rights of Iraqi workers and unions; and
WHEREAS, respect for and enforcement of labor rights anywhere encourages respect for and enforcement of labor rights everywhere, including in the United States;
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the AFL-CIO adopt this resolution and urge the U.S. government to strongly call upon the Iraqi government to live up to the terms of its own constitution and international treaty obligations by:
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the AFL-CIO shall send a copy of this resolution to the U.S. government through Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, with an additional copy to the Iraqi government through its embassy in Washington, D.C.; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the AFL-CIO urge its state and area labor federations and central labor councils to concur with this resolution and communicate that concurrence to the U.S. government by notice to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Iraqi government through its embassy in Washington, D.C.; and
BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED, that the AFL-CIO shall participate in the campaign for labor rights in Iraq by circulating the petition in support of those rights initiated by U.S. Labor Against the War.
Submitted by Alameda Labor Council (Calif.)
Amended by the International Labor Committee
WHEREAS, the 2005 AFL-CIO convention resolved that “Our soldiers…deserve a commitment from our country’s leaders to bring them home rapidly. An unending military presence will waste lives and resources, undermine our nation’s security and weaken our military;” and
WHEREAS, at the time of that convention, 1,700 U.S. troops had already lost their lives in Iraq, and today there are more than 4,300 U.S. dead and more than 30,000 seriously wounded; and
WHEREAS, the nation confronts the most serious economic crisis since the Great Depression and as a consequence millions of workers have lost their jobs or suffered cuts in working hours and wages, social programs and government services are being cut or eliminated across the country for lack of resources while our country has spent $650 billion in Iraq already and nearly $900 billion since 2001, including Afghanistan; and
WHEREAS, under terms of the Status of Forces Agreement signed by the Bush administration, U.S. forces will remain in Iraq until the end of
2011, and will continue to engage in combat and suffer casualties as long as they remain in that country; and
WHEREAS, in March 2008, Barack Obama said, “It is past time to end this war that should never have been waged by bringing our troops home, and finally pushing Iraq’s leaders to take responsibility for their future. As we do, we must serve the memory of all who have died as well as they who served our country, by providing support for their families, caring for our troops and veterans and upholding the American values which our fallen heroes exemplified through their service”; and
WHEREAS, at its 2005 convention, the AFL-CIO called for “rapid” withdrawal from Iraq—and four years later, 130,000 troops and 190,000 contractors are still in Iraq;
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Alameda County Labor Council reaffirms its opposition to the continuing military occupation of Iraq and calls for the speedy* withdrawal of all military forces and armed contractors from Iraq; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Alameda County Labor Council calls upon the Congress and president to redirect the resources now squandered in Iraq to meeting the urgent needs of the American people, restoring and fully funding vital social programs and public services, developing sustainable technologies to address global warming, creating quality long-term jobs that provide a decent living, rebuilding the Gulf Coast and our nation’s infrastructure and a host of other needs that will provide our country with real security; and
* “Speedy” was substituted for “complete and immediate” by the International Resolutions Committee with agreement by Sharon Cornu of the Alameda Labor Council in order to secure sufficient support to report the resolution to the floor for a vote.
What will the change at the top of the U.S. government mean for the war and occupation in Iraq?
What do Iraqi workers think? What do you think? Read some labor perspectives on this website and on the website of U.S. Labor Against the War.
And what about Afghanistan???
| The agreement between America and the Iraqi Government Undermines the Will of Iraqi Society
by Falah Alwan, President , Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq |
|
Since several months there was a preparation to sign what is referred to as a “Security Agreement” between America and Iraq. This agreement is presented as an opportunity for Iraq to achieve sovereignty. The political forces that endorse this “agreement” are presenting it as an agreement for the withdrawal of American forces in Iraq. Before the political position is presented, the reality is that America and the authorities that support it, are trying to push through an agreement at a time when (Iraqi) society is busy trying to secure their daily bread and trying to deal with the lack of basic life necessities such as electricity, water, and medicine. The forces of liberation are scattered at the moment and are unable to effectively stall this project and to instill the will of society which is the project of the immediate ending of the occupation. The insistence on removing Iraq from the sanctions through this agreement is bad because Iraq was placed under sanctions by the United Nations in 1990 because of a “security threat in the area” and force was used against it after the invasion of Kuwait. So the countries that are placed under the sanctions are the countries that that are involved in threats and attacks. There were several conditions on removing Iraq from sanctions which were implemented and they were: the withdrawal from Kuwait and to make the borders official and to recognize the Kuwaiti government and to repay debts and release prisoners. All these conditions were met and yet the economic embargo continued to be enforced and subject the people to great pains. What should fall under sanctions according to the UN documents is America, which occupied Iraq after a vicious military invasion formed a threat to the region. Underneath the sound and fury which the US and the authorities in Iraq propoagating is the distortion of facts to pass the so called “security agreement.” Since the agreement does call for the withdrawal of the forces of occupation, which has never been a force of stability. On the contrary the bloody ethnic and religious infighting arrived with the arrival of the (American) tanks. So this agreement is the last link in the progress of the American project to transform Iraq into an arena where the American forces can run amok and create a perpetual threat to its security and peace. What is occurring right now is not an agreement, because an agreement happens between two parties with equal will and freedom of choice. For Iraq’s situation is that it is under American occupation and American tanks fill its streets, alleyways and villages. So the agreement with America is nothing but an opportunity to provide legal justification for the permanent presence of the occupational forces. There will not be any legitimate agreement, no with American or with another without the withdrawal of its forces from Iraq and the ending of the occupation because there is no peace with the entity that stole security from (Iraqi) society. Despite the false claims and the distractions, the people have expressed their refusal to the agreement on several occasions – in demonstration, conferences and rallies and political positions. The people have expressed all this despite the dangerous state of our security and despite the bombings that have been occurring. All the while, the political forces in the parliament and in the ministries are flip flopping and maneuvering for their own political gain. The rejection of the agreement by the Federation of Workers’ Councils and Unions in Iraq, which represents tens of thousands of workers (whether members of supporters) is the most prominent formulation of the rejection of this agreement by the people. This places their position in an official, publicized arena. And this is precisely the duty of the organization and federations and political forces that reject this (security) agreement. We invite the forces which reject this agreement to place their opposition in the political arena to widen the public discourse and to transform the rejection of this agreement to an empowerment of the people – to exercise its will and to prevent the passing of this agreement, which is diametrically opposed to its interests, behind its back. We ask the forces of resistance to the occupation to support the forces of rejection of this agreement in its stand against in approval. Long live the will of the people. |
| A letter to Mr. Barack Obama on his election as President of the United States of America from the Iraq Freedom Congress
by Samir Adil, Presidentresident, Iraq Freedom Congress |
Greetings… On behalf of Iraq Freedom Congress, I would like to congratulate you on your success as President-Elect of the United States of America and we hope that this can be a start of a new phase of U.S. policy toward the world, and Iraq in particular. Your election to this position by the American people means a defeat for the neoconservatives and their inhuman policy towards the world, which adopted a pre-emptive strike policy that resulted in nothing but destruction and strengthening of terrorism, because of which the entire world has become less safe. We need to remember that we experienced the agenda of the Democratic Party, and tasted the bitterness of their policy in Iraq during the rule of Bill Clinton in the last century, who insisted on extending the unjust economic blockade several times in the UN Security Council, and viciously bombed and killed civilians where children were the most affected. We will also never forget what he did in Kosovo, Rwanda, and how extremely difficult the dreams of forming an independent Palestinian state has become. In other words, we do not see the difference between the agenda of Bush senior, his son’s Republican policy and the Democratic administration of Bill Clinton. But we hope to find a change in the administration’s policy under your command, because you descended from a family who is experienced and familiar with the oppression and injustice, there can be reasons for the world to sympathize with your cause. With respect to Iraq, your objection to the war and occupation is highly spoken of and gives us hopes in ending the long lasting cycle of war and terrorism in this wounded country. The way to end the tragedy of Iraqis, and putting an end to nearly six years of killing and displacement of millions is to end the occupation and support a secular non-ethnic government, a government that defines people on the basis of Human identity. Finally, you have raised the slogan (we need change) in the election campaign this prompts us to see that you will review the policy of the previous administration and take a courageous decision to end the occupation, which was one of the key factors in the growing hatred towards America around the world. The decision to end the occupation and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq is the [change] the U.S. needs to rectify its image. Samir Adil Amjad Al-Jawhary Working For a Democratic, Secular and Progressive Alternative to both the US Occupation and Political Islam in Iraq
|
Jeremy Scahill in Austin!
Sunday, November 2nd, 6:30 p.m.
Location: UT Campus, FAC 21
(map to FAC: http://www.utexas.edu/maps/main/buildings/fac.html)
The U.S. occupation of Iraq won’t end with the election. Even when regular troop withdrawal begins, America’s highly paid mercenaries will remain– killing civilians, accountable to no one, and lining their pockets with our tax dollars. Find out why corporations like Blackwater Worldwide couldn’t be happier that we didn’t heed Eisenhower’s warning about expanding the U.S. military-industrial complex.
Jeremy Scahill is a Democracy Now! correspondent, writing fellow for The Nation Institute, award-winning investigative journalist and best-selling author of the ground-breaking exposé Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army.
Scahill is one of the world’s leading experts on privatized warfare. He will explain the dangers of outsourcing military and intelligence functions. Scahill also provides historical and political context for this disturbing trend: what it means to our democracy, the way it undermines our troops, and how it affects citizens in this country and around the world.
Sponsored by CAMEO, with special thanks to Nation Books, Monkeywrench Books and the Travis County Green Party.
On Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=27675462613
Check out this interview with Jeremy as he speaks about Blackwater mercenaries in post-Katrina New Orleans: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnVbulr2Pvw
