UE Convention Resolutions
For Peace, Jobs,
And a Pro-worker Foreign Policy
Never has the destructive impact of a militarized foreign policy on our domestic economy been clearer. As the Bush administration pours ever more vast sums of money into the military budget, the standard of living of the American people declines by the day, and the prospects for our security are diminished.
Military expenditures represent a direct shifting of funds from productive uses and result in far fewer jobs created than money spent on education, healthcare, housing, transportation, or any other basic need. Since the 1950s the U.S. military has primarily had two roles: cash cow for some of the biggest U.S. corporations, and protector of U.S. companies and investments abroad.
The Bush administration has taken this to a new level. The unilateral preemptive invasion of Iraq and the continued occupation of that country by U.S. government and corporate forces, in the face of worldwide opposition, demonstrate that the Bush government would not hesitate to use whatever means necessary to impose U.S.-led corporate globalization. Corporate globalization has destroyed tens of millions of good American jobs over the last generation and impoverished much of the world. The rush to privatize Iraq’s oil resources and make Iraq’s oil workers union illegal merely confirms this point.
For 2007, the US will spend more on our forces than at any time since World War II. The U.S. is slated to spend more on its military than the next 42 highest-spending countries combined, accounting for 47 percent of the world’s total military spending. This does not include many military-related items that are outside of the Defense Department budget, such as nuclear weapons research, or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Bush administration is restarting nuclear weapons programs and abrogated the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty in order to build the wildly expensive and technically flawed Star Wars defense system.
As stated in a recent report by the National Priority Project, this arguable idea that we can spend vast sums for the military begs the question of whether we should. As our country seeks to extricate itself from a disastrous attempt to remake the Middle East by means of military force, this is the moment for a serious debate on the long-term direction of our foreign policy. The Bush administration’s national security doctrine, drawn up before the current wars were launched, prescribes an expansive, global role for the military, one that even current levels of spending don’t come close to covering. After five years of testing, it’s time to ask: does this doctrine, and its costs make sense? Are we safer as a result?
A positive outgrowth of the growing movement against Bush’s rush to war in Iraq is the development of a non-partisan independent voice for workers on foreign policy and how it relates directly to worker rights here at home. UE was instrumental in the founding and formation of U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW), which has been the major voice and forum for labor in opposing the invasion and occupation.
The U.S. continues to pump billions of dollars of military aid into Colombia, purportedly in pursuit of the war on drugs. While the drug trade flourishes, the civil war has intensified, along with the repression of the Colombian labor movement, whose leaders are assassinated in greater numbers than any other country on earth.
Working people throughout Latin America, fed up with decades of declining living standards, have in recent years elected a wave of progressive, pro-worker governments, including those of Lula De Silva in Brazil, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Nestor Kirchner in Argentina, and Evo Morales in Bolivia. The election of these progressive governments has already benefitted U.S. workers by their scuttling of the job-killing Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The U.S. has, however ineffectively, worked to demonize these legitimately-elected pro-worker governments, and in some cases actively destabilized them and supported their overthrow.
The U.S. policy in the conflict between Israel and Palestine is outrageously one-sided. It perpetuates injustice, instability, and the threat of war in the Middle East. U.S. aid to Israel far exceeds that of any other country, although Israel is by far the richest country receiving U.S. aid. U.S. policy emboldens the continued occupation of Palestinian land, including the construction of an apartheid wall through the West Bank, which amounts to the imprisonment of the Palestinians in their own country. Although U.S. news coverage is as biased and unbalanced as U.S. policy, influential voices are beginning to question this policy, including the Council for the National Interest, and the recent and courageous book by former President Jimmy Carter, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.
Our government continues to promote policies which defend the fortunes of the wealthy and their corporations. The result is exorbitant military spending and the substitution of military force for peaceful diplomacy. We demand that our government use the vast resources of the U.S. to build prosperity for all – for its own sake and as the foundation of our security. Only then will we have the respect and friendship of the people of the world.
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT THIS 70th UE CONVENTION:
- Calls on the UE to continue its work to inform and engage the membership on the ramifications of U.S. foreign policy and on the need to change that policy to promote democracy and workers’ rights;
- Demands that our government invest in real peace by building economic security, in particular:
- A substantial reduction in the military budget, while redirecting resources to provide adequate pay and benefits to enlisted personnel;
- The immediate redeployment of these savings into the nation’s transportation system, housing, healthcare, education, environmental protection, renewable resource development and other infrastructure;
- The refocusing of federal research and development dollars on the technologies required by today’s industrial, healthcare, and consumer markets, rather than military technologies;
- The conversion of defense industries to production for industrial and consumer use, and the creation of a "superfund" to guarantee any worker or military personnel displaced by conversion up to four years’ living allowance and educational expenses;
- Demands that the U.S. government renounce the "preemptive strike" policy, end the use of the military as the main tool of foreign policy, and instead work within the boundaries of international law in cooperation with international institutions;
- Welcomes initiatives by the Congressional Black and Progressive Caucuses to redefine federal budget priorities;
- Supports legislation by Presidential candidate and Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) to establish a cabinet-level Department of Peace within the federal government which would be dedicated to peacemaking and the study of conditions that are conducive to both domestic and international peace;
- Demands that the U.S. government end incentives for military corporations to profit from exporting weapons abroad, and to stop military aid programs such as Plan Colombia;
- Demands that Congress immediately cease all funding for the National Missile Defense program and that the Bush administration immediately reaffirm U.S. participation in the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and support efforts at the United Nations to ban all weapons in space;
- Further demands that Congress take all steps to reduce the dangers of military conflicts over international economic disputes and rivalries, including:
- Limiting all current and future military treaties to purely defensive purposes;
- Working to eliminate international arms trafficking;
- Ending U.S. efforts to convert the Japanese Self-Defense Force (SDF) to offensive purposes;
- Supports the goal of our sister union Zenroren to close all U.S. military bases in Japan;
- Opposes the use of U.S. military and intelligence agencies in interventions against sovereign nations which pose no immediate threat to the American people;
- Calls for replacing the lopsided pro-Israel policy of the U.S. with a good faith, even-handed effort to achieve lasting peace between Israel and Palestine based on full justice and mutual respect;
- Endorses efforts by U.S. Labor Against the War to end the military occupation and corporate exploitation of Iraq;
- Encourages all levels of UE to take part in other campaigns for new federal funding priorities;
- Demands that the Bush administration and successor administrations provide genuine support, not just lip-service, to our armed forces and also make good on promises to take care of workers when they return home, especially by properly funding Veterans’ Administration (VA) medical systems.