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Issues: Iraq
The U.S. government should not create any permanent
military bases in Iraq.
We've been engaging in direct and grassroots
lobbying on this issue since the occupation began. The main resultant
of these efforts came in the recently passed Defense
Authorization Bill for FY08 which included an amendment to
prohibit permanent bases introduced my Rep. Lee. We helped keep
this provision alive by defeating House
Bill 1585.
Now we are lobbying for House
Committee Bill 46, designed to further prohibit the war hawks
and profiteers. It declares, "it is the policy of the U.S.
not to establish any military installation or base for the purpose
of providing for the permanent stationing of U.S. Armed Forces
in Iraq and not to exercise U.S. control of the oil resources
in Iraq."
The oil in Iraq is a birthright
to the people of Iraq. The U.S. government should prevent oil companies
from privatizing Iraqi oil.
The Bush Administration has worked
with their cronies at Exxon and Shell to usurp a long standing
law in Iraq which guarantees profit sharing of oil revenues among
the Iraqi people. They will tell you this is part of their diplomatic
priority to settle the 'oil issue'. The reality is much more disturbing.
Under their plans
Iraqi oil will be privatized and it's profits sent to multinational
corporations - not to the people.
In June, U.S.
Labor Against the War & Peace Action helped to bring Faleh
Abood Umara, the general secretary of the Iraqi Federation of
Oil Unions, and Hashmeya Muhsin Hussein, president of the Iraqi
Electrical Utility Workers Union (and the first female trade union
president in Iraq) to the United States to tell some of the stories
that Americans so rarely get to hear. In Boston, Peace Action
organizers facilitated our Iraqi brother and sister in meeting
with members of Congress. In Milwaukee, Peace Action activists
brought local, national and international media attention to the
tour. In the San Francisco Bay Area, East Bay Peace Action members
helped organize events that educated almost 700 people on the
human aspects of the occupation of, and wars in, Iraq. Read more
about this in our newsletter
archive.
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