War and Peace – Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism

THE COMMITTEES OF CORRESPONDENCE FOR DEMOCRACY AND SOCIALISM (CCDS) RESPECTS MILITARY PERSONNEL WHO CHALLENGE ILLEGAL WARS

Antiwar marches holding banner - we won't fight another rich man's war

Members of CCDS and many other progressives have spent our adult lives opposing United States foreign policy, economic sanctions, covert operations, and wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and elsewhere. Often, we have critiqued military spending, offering a vision of a different kind of society.

Despite the historic stances of the peace movement against war and interventions, it has tried not to disrespect the personnel who for many reasons have made the military a career. The peace movement has recognized that military personnel have been trained to act in a professional manner. Despite many media narratives the peace movement did not wish to disrespect those who fought in Vietnam but rather were critics of the policy but not those who, often against their will, carried out the policy.

Also, CCDS, as part of the peace movement, knows that United States military behavior is circumscribed by numerous traditions, documents, international institutions, the US Constitution, and the values of religious institutions.

Today, in reference to the wars against the peoples of Iran and others in the Middle East, it is clear that many, if not all, documents and traditions, indicate that US war against Iran and support for Israel’s war are acts of international illegality. Also, US actions violate the US Constitution and most importantly the humane values embedded in the US culture.

Therefore, we in CCDS wish to express our respect for US military personnel who are raising objections to US aggression and violations of international law in Iran. CCDS respects those military personnel who criticize and/or refuse orders by politicians to continue and escalate the war on the Iranian people.

CCDS also stands in support of efforts to improve international institutions such as the United Nations system, international law, and the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights.

NO TO WAR!

END GENOCIDE!

BUILD A PEACEFUL WORLD!

CCDS Condemns President Trump’s Aggression Towards Latin America

No war on Venezuela! No Military aggression against Colombia or Mexico! No deadly US assaults on boaters!

CCDS condemns the far-right cabal in the White House for its unprovoked aggression against our Latin American neighbors. We simultaneously condemn the US military’s naked aggression and murders, from September 2 through November 12, 2025, of 75 people on 19 boats off the coasts of Venezuela, Colombia, and Mexico. These murders by US armed forces are simply piracy that violate international and US law, including Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution.

We note the Commander of the US Southern Command, Admiral Alvin Holsey, announced his early retirement supposedly in response to President Donald Trump’s actions against Venezuela. Nonetheless, we demand the court martial of military brass who’ve overseen the assassination of unarmed civilians on the high seas. We call for international court indictments of those US officials who’ve ordered this policy.

Trump’s assault includes threatening B-52 bomber flights, intervention by the CIA, and the stationing of a full aircraft carrier group with 15,000 troops off the Caribbean coast of Venezuela. Without evidence, these actions are based on a fabrication that President Nicolas Maduro is responsible for the operation of a Venezuela drug cartel. Trump has further fabricated a claim that the export of illegal drugs constitutes an act of war.

We demand that Trump cease his threats against Venezuela, and more recently against Colombia and Mexico. Such belligerence is calculated to destabilize those societies. This may very well be a prelude for a much larger military attack and invasion. Imposition of the dominance and will of US foreign policy elites and corporations is the overall goal.

With specific regard to Venezuela, Trump’s assault is based on his avaricious stance toward its vast reserves of oil as well as mineral deposits. Despite the Maduro government’s offer to open up Venezuela’s natural resources to US oil and mining firms, the US has continued to press its assault.

The military threats are also aimed at the growing progressive majority in Venezuela. US elites seek to bring about an end to the Bolivarian Revolution. Through this Revolution, the majority is raising living standards, building housing, providing extensive medical care, and expanding higher education.

CCDS says “Defend the Venezuelan, Colombian, and Mexican peoples!”

“Solidarity with all Latin American people against US attack!”

WAR AND OCCUPATION OPENED THE DOOR TO IRAQ’S VIRUS PANDEMIC

Union leader Falah Alwan, president of the Federation of Workers Councils and Unions of Iraq, and leather goods factory workers argue with the plant manager about their union rights in 2003.

Solidarity, Then the Virus

Many U.S. union activists remember Falah Alwan. As the occupation of Iraq unfolded in the summer of 2005, he and several Iraqi union leaders traveled here to make clear the impact of sanctions and invasion on his country’s workers. From one union hall to another, on both coasts and through the Midwest, Alwan and his colleagues appealed for solidarity.

In the end, the war’s damage went virtually unhealed, but the ties forged between workers and unions of the two countries have remained undiminished. Last week, as both face the coronavirus pandemic, Alwan wrote to the friends he made in those years. “The news from New York is horrible,” he commiserated. “I believe the days to come will be much worse than they are now, not only in Iraq but for you also.”

In 2005 the Iraqis effectively dramatized the human cost of U.S. policy. Today, as both countries face the coronavirus, the devastating situation of Iraq’s people calls for revisiting that question of responsibility.

On paper, the virus’s toll in Iraq today stands at 1,031 officially confirmed cases, with 64 deaths. While Iraq’s per capita count is still much smaller than that in the U.S. – 22 cases per million people to the U.S.’ 910 – the numbers don’t tell the real story. In Iraq very few people can access medical treatment, and the number of infections and deaths is much higher than that given in official statements.

This past week Reuters reported that confirmed cases numbered instead between 3000 and 9000, quoting doctors and a health official – a report that led the Iraqi government to fine the agency and revoke its reporting license for three months. The higher figure would give Iraq a per capita infection rate higher than South Korea, one of the virus’ early concentrations.

Unions and civil society organizations must now try to make up for Iraq’s political paralysis and the partial dysfunction of its government. “Because of our ruined healthcare institutions,” Alwan explains, “the government hurried to impose a general curfew [a stay-at-home order] to stop the outbreak and a rapid collapse in the whole situation.”

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