No More Blood for Oil: UE Condemns Military Attacks on Venezuela
Sid Shniad
No More Blood for Oil: UE Condemns Military Attacks on Venezuela
Our government’s escalating attacks on Venezuela are unconstitutional, immoral, and a massive waste of resources. The idea that Venezuela represents a military threat to the U.S. is patently absurd; the use of the U.S. military to carry out lethal attacks on fishing boats and seize oil tankers amounts to simple murder and piracy. We demand that our government immediately cease these attacks, and that Congress exercise its power to reign in this overreach by the executive branch.
In the resolution “For Jobs, Peace and a Pro-Worker Foreign Policy,” delegates to our most recent convention declared that “Foreign and military policies should defend the interests of working people, not the wealthy. UE has long believed that the labor movement should promote its own foreign policy based on diplomacy and labor solidarity.” This commitment to diplomatic rather than military solutions led delegates to demand that the U.S. government “[c]ease using U.S. military and intelligence agencies in interventions against nations which pose no threat to the American people” and, specifically, that the U.S. “[c]ease all harassment of and economic sanctions on Venezuela.”
The administration has been attempting to justify its attacks with claims that the vessels it is attacking are smuggling drugs into the U.S., and that this is being funded by the Venezuelan government — claims for which it has not produced a shred of evidence. Even if these claims are true, the appropriate action would be to interdict the vessels, seize the drugs, and pursue criminal charges against the smugglers, not to carry out extrajudicial killings. Even if our country were in a legitimate armed conflict with Venezuela, the intentional killing of survivors, such as happened during a second strike on September 2, would still constitute a war crime.
We agree with Congressman Joaquin Castro (D-TX) that the blockade of Venezuela ordered by President Trump this week is “unquestionably an act of war. A war that the Congress never authorized and the American people do not want.”
As recent comments by White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles make clear, these attacks are not about drugs, but are instead an attempt to bring about regime change and gain control over Venezuela’s oil. Although President Trump campaigned, in part, on keeping the U.S. from getting entangled in the internal politics of other countries, the course his administration is pursuing risks getting our military bogged down in a military conflict that few Americans want.
The administration’s actions are putting our service members in harm’s way and making demands on them to carry out illegal orders. Several senior military leaders have resigned in protest, and Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ), who served as a Navy fighter pilot, has spoken out, reminding service members that they have the right to refuse illegal orders. In a disturbing use of the military to pursue a partisan political agenda, the Pentagon has opened and escalated an investigation of Senator Kelly.
Unfortunately, the use of extrajudicial killings as a tool of U.S. foreign policy is a bipartisan affair. During his eight years in office, President Obama ordered over 500 drone strikes, killing almost 4,000 people, including over 300 civilians, and normalizing the use of military power to engage in targeted killings in foreign countries. Congress must reassert its authority over the power to make war, not as a partisan measure, but because no president of either party can be trusted with this power.
As working people in the U.S. face an increasing affordability crisis, our government’s resources should be directed to meeting the needs of working people, not wasted on illegitimate and immoral military adventures. We demand that Congress pass H.Con.Res.64, a bipartisan bill which would invoke the War Powers Resolution to put a stop to this unconstitutional military aggression. War with Venezuela would be a disaster for the working people of both countries, and we as a labor movement must do our part to prevent it.
Scott Slawson
President
Andrew Dinkelaker
Secretary-Treasurer
Kimberly Lawson
Director of Organization