The AFL-CIO and the Iraq war

The crisis of the AFL-CIO is the result of politics, including the politics of collaboration with employers and opposition to militant ?grass-root? organizing. Over the past 50 years the AFL-CIO trade union bureaucrats have intervened against militant local unions, surrendered past gains to avoid struggles with employers, passively accepted corporate plant closings and relocations to low-wage areas, and refused to organize the tens of millions of low-wage workers in the retail and other service sectors.

The privileges in salaries and ?benefits? of the top and middle level trade union bosses exceed, on average, $300,000, apart from multiple pensions, and corrupt management of billion dollar pension funds. The key to the internal rot in the AFL-CIO is its long-standing structural linkages to US imperialism, including its role in joint ventures with the CIA in overthrowing democratic regimes and training and financing pro-business ?trade union officials?. The AFL-CIO has supported every major US imperial war, (Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, and Iraq); and every major US intervention (Guatemala 1954, Chile 1973, Guyana 1955, Venezuela 2002, Iran 1955, Panama 1980 and Grenada 1983.

The AFL-CIO has undermined legitimate militant unions and paved the way for pro-US business regimes to come to power, thus facilitating the relocation of US multinationals from the US to low-paid, non-union US client countries

True to its tradition as an accomplice to US imperial wars, the AFL-CIO has supported the US invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan and continues to hold billions of dollars in Israel bonds, despite the fact that less than 0.5% of its members are Jewish.

By July 2005, over half of the US population is questioning the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. Most of the major traditional religious organizations are opposed to the war. Over 25,000 US soldiers have been incapacitated by mental or physical injuries and 1800 US soldiers have been killed and over 100,000 Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the US war. The AFL-CIO in its recent ?split? congress (July 25-28, 2005) characteristically refused to condemn the war and call for the immediate withdrawal of troops, despite the fact that many Americans are moving in that direction.

A close reading of the AFL-CIO resolution on the war in Iraq approved by its last convention reveals that it continues to echo the military agenda of Washington, despite claims by many US ?leftists? and ?progressives? that the resolution represents a victory for the anti-war movement.

The opening paragraph bluntly states its support for the US occupation army in Iraq? in all branches of the armed forces, which must include the ?men? and ?women? engaged in torturing Iraqis in Abu Ghraib? The statement goes on to call for greater armaments and stronger military leaders for the occupation.

What follows is the single sentence, which is cited by the ?progressives? as their ?victory?. The sentence reads: ?Most importantly they (the US soldiers) deserve a commitment from our country?s leaders to bring them home rapidly.? This is a statement which is no different from what Bush, Blair or Rumsfeld have promised: to return our soldiers as rapidly ?as security allows?, ?as the Iraqis can defend their democracy?, and ?as we train their soldiers to replace our servicemen and women.? In fact, the day the AFL-CIO passed its resolution, the Pentagon announced it hoped to reduce US troops guarding the 16,000 Iraqis held in concentrations camps as soon as next spring when the Iraqis presumable could be trusted as the mercenary jailers of their own compatriots. The AFL-CIO?s time schedule mirrors that of Bush/Rumsfeld; both are indefinite in time and place. The AFL-CIO?s reason for an eventual withdrawal have nothing to do with the ravages and destruction of a colonial war and everything to do with empire building ? globally.

The follow-up sentence reads: ?An unending military presence will waste lives and resources, undermine our nation?s security and weaken our military.? In other words, the US military faced with a prolonged war in Iraq cannot engage ?insurgents? elsewhere!

The following paragraph mentions the 1,700 US dead and vaguely refers to Iraqi civilians ?in the thousands? and then, the supreme cant and hypocrisy blames the insurgency (resistance), which ?has focused its terror on the Iraqi people?. The massive US bombing of Fallujah, Baghdad, Samara and other cities; the wanton daily killing of hundreds of civilians ? over 100,000 dead according to the medical journal, The Lancet, as of last year, is totally absent. The AFL-CIO blames the resistance for the crimes committed by ?our leaders?. The AFL-CIO praises the election orchestrated by Washington under its colonial military occupation and run by its exile clients as an example of Iraq?s democratic aspirations, forgetting to mention that over 80% of the Iraqi people want the US military out?yesterday! Once again the AFLCIO echoes the Bush-Rumsfeld line on the occupation, the elections, the resistance and the constitution.

Following the overwhelming majority of the US public, which recognizes that Bush lied in the lead-up to the war ? the AFL-CIO fails to denounce the lies and multi-billion dollar theft of Iraqi assets which has taken place during the occupation. The best that the labor bosses can offer is support for a ?call from members of Congress for the establishment of benchmarks (?) in the key areas of security, governance, reconstruction and internationalization.? Call for ?benchmarks? (whatever that means) when there are a raft of detailed official reports on the pillage of reconstruction spending, the privatization and handover of billions of dollars of oilfields to US MNCs (?internationalization? according to the euphemisms of the AFL-CIO), and the transfer of prisoners to Guantanamo to be tortured indefinitely (a lovely ?security benchmark?).

In paragraph six, the AFL-CIO explicitly defends a continued military occupation of Iraq ? purportedly based on a ?broad coalition of nations?. At a time when even US clients like Poland,Bulgaria, the Ukraine and most others are pulling out of Iraq, the AFL-CIO mindlessly parrots the John Kerry/Hilary Clinton parody of a multilateral colonial army, when the political basis for it has disappeared.

The military solution remains as the single most important reference point for the AFL-CIO: ?Greater security on the ground remains an unmet precondition for such efforts (?building a democratic Iraq?) to succeed.? ?Greater security on the ground? means US soldiers, lots of them for a long time, because of ?unmet preconditions?, a euphemism for massive sustained anti-imperialist resistance, which precludes the puppet regime from consolidating its rule.

The AFL-CIO resolution says nothing about socio-economic reform, job programs and channeling oil wealth into social welfare programs and real nation building ? programs which would require the ousting of the US-backed elite. Instead they call for police state repressive solutions. ?The AFL-CIO calls on the international community (sic) to help the Iraqi people build its capacity to maintain law and order through a concerted international effort to train Iraqi security and police forces?. More secret police, torturers, mercenaries, collaborators ? the AFL-CIO is on familiar ground in Iraq as it was in orchestrating the aborted coup in Venezuela, the Chilean coup and other successful ventures in imperial ?law and order?.

Perhaps the worst of the worst of the AFL-CIO apologia for the US imperial occupation is found in its discussion of the destruction of Iraq and the efforts at recostruction. The entire blame for the destruction of Iraq is placed on the Saddam Hussein regime, despite the fact that all testimony and date demonstrate that living standards, employment and health were better prior to the US invasion than now. It would, of course, be beyond the capacity of the AFL-CIO to note that it was the US enforced economic sanctions under their Democratic President Clinton that 500,000 Iraqi children died. And that ?rehabilitation? has failed because of the wholesale pillage of Iraqi assets, including oil revenues, and US tax dollars by US military contractors, security agencies, military officers and a host of other rapacious officials. The resolution ends by appealing for trade union freedoms, such as payroll deductions for union dues, no doubt the least concern of militants facing trigger-happy US soldiers and their death squad ?buddies? in the Iraqi special battalions. But payroll deductions for union dues are important for union bosses who do not fight for their members and have not secured their loyalty on the picket line. I am sure if the AFL-CIO trains Iraqi counterparts, the US occupation will eventually come around to allowing these ?unionists? to clip 10% off the starvation salary of an Iraqi oil worker.

Conclusion

The Iraq War resolution approved at theAFL-CIO?s latest convention, apart from an ambiguous phrase thrown in to pacify a few dissidents, remained true to its history of supporting imperial wars and tyranny while continuing to lose members and loyalties in the US for its efforts.

July 27, 2005