AFL-CIO President John Sweeney has declined to explain why his name andtitle appear on a list of supporters of the Project for the New AmericanCentury, an organization whose prime activity is to promote theestablishment of an American global empire through the use of military and economic power. On the list of “people associated” with the Project, besides Sweeney, are: Vice President Dick Cheney, a founder; Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and a gallery of neo-conservatives, many from the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation. The list is “current to Dec. 2004.”
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Although Sweeney has continuously criticized President George Bush on domestic policies, he has remained conspicuously silent on Iraq and the war on terrorism, even in the final days of the presidential elections, when Bush was especially vulnerable on his handling of the war.
In the two years since the invasion of Iraq, Sweeney has refused to comment on any of Bush’s embarrassing problems: the failure to find weapons of mass destruction; the rising toll of dead and wounded American soldiers; the exorbitant cost of the war, and the lack of an exit plan for the return of our troops.
Moreover, the AFL-CIO, with Sweeney’s apparent approval, has maintained a strict blackout of news and information about Iraq, homeland security and terrorism. Most affiliated unions have followed Sweeney’s example; their leaders have refrained from issuing any statements that criticize Bush’s foreign policy, and their publications act as though the war in Iraq is not an issue for America’s working families.
The news blackout is enforced even within the labor movement. AFL-CIO publications and policy statements by the Executive Council have consistently ignored the anti-war movement and its advocates among members of its affiliated unions. U.S. Labor Against the War reports a list of unions, representing better than a third of the entire AFL-CIO membership, that have passed resolutions calling for an end to the American-led occupation in Iraq and the return home of our soldiers. Yet this is not considered newsworthy by the AFL-CIO’s official magazine, America@Work and other union publications.
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