I.   U.S. Intervention Around the Globe:                             Government and Corporations

What can the organized Left and the social movements demand of the institutions of U.S. imperialism to counter its world domination of global military, economic, and political affairs?

Current conditions

The imperialist countries of the Group of 8, currently under the hegemony of the United States, dominate the globe. They struggle constantly to redivide their controlling power over other nations in a continual shifting of spheres of influence within the modern world system. The United States claims hegemony over this political/economic system of transnational capitalism and, for the time being, has no contending counterforce— be it a revolutionary socialist nation or another imperialist state.

In this context, of the many contradictions that cause motion in world affairs, we analyze the principal contradiction to be between U.S. imperialism, with its international operations and apparatuses on the one hand, and the exploited and oppressed nations and peoples of the world, on the other.  Opposing the U.S. imperialist program is our strategic aim.  We look to the global oppressed nationality, predominantly female, working class as the main force in a strategic alliance between the multinational working class movements and the national liberation movements around the world.  The creation of an antiimperialist united front as a center of resistance is our strategic plan, and therefore the overarching focus of our organizational and ideological practice.

Therefore, as the internationalist perspective of our work has grown through twelve years of shared practice, we find ourselves placing a frontal challenge to the country in which we live.  This requires a program for resistance to U.S. imperialism in its many manifestations—from its determination to be the policing power of a new world order (through the world market and the world military) to its fierce control over formal and informal colonies (for example, its violation of Hawaii's sovereignty and rejection of independence for Puerto Rico) to its intensification of structural racism and aggression against the many nationalities now being exploited and oppressed within the borders of the United States.

In the most recent manifestation of U.S. imperialist expansionism, after September 11, 2001 the Bush Administration unleashed A War on the World.  The U.S. "War on Terrorism" is already being waged on at least four different fronts: Afghanistan where the U.S. bombing campaign killed at least 4,000 Afghanis, the Philippines where the U.S. has deployed 3350 ground troops—including 160 Special Forces soldiers, Columbia which has received a $1.3 billion aid package for its ongoing war against the popular revolutionary movements under the pretext of fighting the "war on drugs" and now on "terrorism", and Iraq which the U.S. has openly declared its intention to bomb.  The U.S. led war has also given regimes the world over the pretext for launching attacks on opposition forces by labeling them as "terrorist."   In particular, it has given Israel the diplomatic and military green light to further expand its genocidal war against the Palestinian people.

In the last 18 months of the Palestinian uprising—and with even greater frenzy since September 11—Israel has carried out a campaign of massive demolition of civilian infrastructure, including homes and refugee camps, the assassination and mass arrest of Palestinian political leaders and activists and deliberate targeting of civilians and resisters—more than 1,500 dead and 33,000 injured at the time of this writing.  Most notably, in the April reoccupation of Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank, some 13,000 of the camp's 15,000 residents have been displaced and their entire community reduced to rubble; hundreds of people are missing—either dead, buried beneath the rubble, or are being held by the Israeli military.  When Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called Palestinian President Yasser Arafat "our bin Laden", Israel seized on the propaganda tool provided by the U.S. to accelerate its assault on Palestinian self determination under the guise of furthering the "War on Terrorism".

Currently, there is no organized antiimperialist or socialist movement in the world capable of challenging U.S. hegemony—either based on class struggle or national liberation. In a period of accelerated aggression, the U.S. ruling class is forcing every nation to pledge allegiance to its power—"either you are with us or against us."  Yet, we see critical resistance. The world over peoples are struggling to quell the appetite of U.S. imperialism—such as the people of Palestine, who, in their resistance to Israeli aggression, know that every tank, bullet, helicopter gun ship and machine gun used against them is Made in the USA. Thus, we give priority to supporting all such struggles outside the U.S. and to all progressive forms of organized resistance within the U.S. 

Dilemmas for the Left

A central obstacle for the Left—within the U.S. and internationally— is that it is not unified around a common analysis of U.S. imperialism. The dilemma here is that all progressives want to "unite all who can be united," but there must be a clear, principled basis of unity in order to even begin to work towards a common program. How can we build a united front if we can't agree on common aims? For the most part, demands against imperialist aggression seem straightforward. But actually agreeing to focus on a common strategic objective of opposition to U.S. imperialism is more difficult. Even forces who agree in theory can disagree in practice or lose focus and easily become disoriented in the current morass of human suffering. Increasingly, we see progressives framing demands in ways that actually call for U.S. intervention.

Some progressive forces call for interventions into states whose present troubles are significantly the result of U.S. intervention. For example, when the elected Aristide government in Haiti was overthrown by a military coup (with strong U.S. support), the Congressional Black Caucus and other black progressives demanded U.S. intervention to re-install Aristide and to get the military junta to step down.  Clinton sent Jimmy Carter to negotiate a withdrawal of the same military government the U.S. had helped come to power while pressuring Aristide to institute policies affirming ties to the U.S. and to reject running for re-election.  This created a new form of U.S. exercise of control in the internal affairs of Haiti.

Another recent example concerns China. We are all motivated to act in defense of the students struggling for democracy, the old revolutionary cadre who are now being imprisoned for their activism, the right of Chinese minority nationalities to exercise some form of self-determination. Yet when western human rights groups ask the U.S. government to impose sanctions against China, when Chinese in the West ask the U.S. government to prepare to use force in order to obstruct the negotiated reunification of Taiwan with the mainland, or when the AFL-CIO demands that the U.S. government keep China out of international trade organizations in order to protect jobs for U.S. workers, they give complete authority to U.S. imperialism to intervene in a sovereign nation. From the point of view of the U.S., the sovereign nation of China poses the greatest obstacle to U.S. world domination, a factor that helps the international antiimperialist forces. This makes the demand for U.S. sanctions even more problematic for the Left. From the point of view of the Program Demand Group, it is the human rights violations of our country that we must first address.

At the present time we face similar unclarities among progressives about U.S. aggression in the Middle East.  Historically, left analysis of this complex region has led to widespread support for the Palestinian national liberation struggle against the Zionist strategy of occupation, apartheid and genocide.  Many young activists today came into social movements through their opposition to Bush Sr.'s invasion of Iraq in the Persian Gulf war.  Yet a U.S. Left that has never had consensus about the USSR has suffered tremendous disorientation since the collapse of this socialist experiment and the dis-unification of the soviet republics that had long struggled to maintain a voluntary unity. The resulting widespread repudiation of left politics combined with political upheaval in eastern Europe and the Middle East has caused some progressives to, again, look to the U.S. for protection of the starving people of Kosovo or ask the U.S. to broker an Israeli/Palestinian peace process.

The  call for further U.S. involvement in the Middle East masks the centrality of the U.S. support for Israel's expansionist policies.  Israel is currently the largest recipient of U.S foreign aid in the world, receiving upwards of $5 billion per year in military and economic aid.  Since the 1948 establishment of the state of Israel, the U.S. has played a defining role in its development.  Initially the U.S., along with Britain, decided to back Israel as a beachhead for Western interests in the region and then, when Israel proved its military capability through its swift "success" in occupying Arab lands in 1967, it became an even more valuable military ally to the U.S.  In the 1993 signing of the Oslo Accords, the U.S. asserted itself as a so-called neutral broker in a deal designed to make permanent Israel's control over Palestine by granting Palestinians limited autonomy in isolated population centers, amounting to no more than 18% of the West Bank and Gaza—a so called Palestinian state. In addition to direct military and economic aid, the United States has provided Israel with diplomatic cover in the UN since its inception, through use of its veto power on the Security Council to block world consensus on the just implementation of the UN resolutions on Palestine, which mandate Israel's withdrawal from occupied lands and the full right of return for Palestinian refugees. The material and strategic relationship between Israel and the U.S. creates conditions in which the U.S. can never be a neutral broker, much less a defender of Palestinian rights.

Some of the progressive forces calling for U.S. intervention now also buy into the proposition that the U.S. can be the leader of a would-be anti-fascist united front against so-called "terrorism."   We too see the rapid rise and popularization of fascist principles of belligerent nationalism, but in the form of George W. Bush's right-wing religious crusade against the so-called "axis of evil." Further, Bush's call to "depend on the eyes and ears of alert citizens" to secure our homeland is not the call of an anti-fascist but the recall of well-known tactics of the National Fascist Party of Italy, the German Nazi Party which rallied the working class under the banner of "national socialism," the U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee and the FBI's domestic counterintelligence program, COINTELPRO. Whatever concern we have about the practices of politicized religious fundamentalism, progressives are being called upon to defend the very freedom that the USA Freedom Core homeland security force is preparing to deny.

There are many examples of countries in which there are serious violations of international human rights conventions, yet there is no country whose brutality is more far-reaching than the Unites States, especially since the U.S. blocks implementation of these conventions through its veto power on the UN Security Council. Whatever other approaches we might develop with increased left clarity and capacity, we cannot allow the U.S. to be the world's police force.  We need demands that oppose imperialism not that request its intervention.  Thus, the Program Demand Group focuses on the long term and structural danger of U.S. intervention.  We focus here on stopping U.S. intervention and prioritize campaigns that demand military, economic, and political withdrawal of U.S. forces.

Strategic demands around which the strategy center's program demand group is unified

We call upon the U.S. government and all U.S. corporations to stop aggression against sovereign nations, colonial and semi-colonial lands, and indigenous peoples—whether through political diplomacy, the economic speculation of private corporations, the restructuring policies of the U.S.-dominated international apparatuses of the Group of 8, the IMF and World Bank, covert/overt military operations, or imperialist war. 

Focal campaigns we prioritize

n U.S. government, stop the bombing;  end military and economic attacks on sovereign nations, such as Afghanistan, currently occurring in the name of the so-called "war on terrorism."

n U.S. government, engage in full diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of Cuba; stop the embargo and the systematic campaign of harassment and destabilization.

n U.S. and all Group of 8 countries and their various U.S.-dominated international apparatuses, cancel all Third World and Apartheid debt without conditions.

n U.S. corporations, cease exploitation of indigenous peoples and destruction of their lands; for example, Occidental Petroleum Corporation cease attacks on the rights of the U'wa People of Columbia. U.S. government, end all economic and military assistance to other countries for suppression of indigenous peoples, such as the massive U.S. aid to the Mexican government for attacks on the peoples of Chiapas in the name of the so-called "war on drugs" and the U.S. intervention to train so-called "anti-terrorist" units in the Philippines.  U.S. government, stop the bombing of Vieques.

n U.S. government, cease political, economic and military support for Israel's war to defeat the Palestinian struggle for self-determination.  U.S. government cease all diplomatic and political actions that block the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes of origin, in accordance with UN resolution 194.  U.S. government, end all support for Israel's system of apartheid and the racist, exclusionary ideology it is founded upon.  U.S. government, in accordance with UN resolutions 242 and 338, end all forms of support for the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian land in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the annexation of Jerusalem, and the destruction of Palestinian homes, infrastructure, and agriculture.  U.S. government, stop supplying military aid and weaponry that Israel uses to target political leaders for assassination and to bomb and shell civilians.