The UUP Delegate Assembly met in Rochester October 2-3. Delegates passed the following resolution, brought to the body by three committees: Labor and Higher Education, Solidarity, and Women's Rights and Concerns.

Whereas the mission, strategy, and tasks of counterinsurgency are not those of counterterrorism, and

Whereas the military pursuit of counterinsurgency can create many more terrorists than it kills, and

Whereas counterinsurgency strategy involves nation-building, which would draw the U.S. into a long term engagement with the corrupt and illegitimate government of Hamid Karzai, with no foreseeable exit from a country well know as the "graveyard of empires," and

Whereas U.S. standing in the world will benefit from the exercise of more wisdom rather than more raw power,

Whereas military spending creates many fewer jobs than the same amount spent on infrastructure and other domestic needs (Robert Pollin and Heidi Garrett-Peltier, “The Wages of Peace,� The Nation , March 31, 2008), and

Whereas the $65 billion to be spent in Afghanistan this year, and the hundreds of billions of dollars required in coming years for counterinsurgency there, are desperately needed for urgent domestic social purposes, not least health care for all, housing relief in the foreclosure crisis, full veterans benefits, and the creation of millions of jobs, therefore be it

Resolved that UUP opposes any further escalation of US military forces in Afghanistan, and be it further

Resolved that UUP calls for the immediate start to the drawing down of all U.S. military forces and contractors from Afghanistan, and be it further

Resolved that UUP calls for defeat of terrorist conspiracies and networks through appropriate lawful police, intelligence, and financial means, and be it further

Resolved that UUP calls for emphasis on diplomatic measures to enlist the broadest coalition of nations and organizations in the isolation, arrest, and bringing to justice of those who engage in terrorist action against the United States, and be it further

Resolved that UUP calls for the redirection of the military budget for Afghanistan to urgently needed U.S. social programs, and be it further

Resolved that UUP will undertake an educational campaign on these issues among its membership and seek to involve the members in the political tasks necessary to implement this resolution in public policy, and be it further

Resolved that UUP will communicate this resolution to its elected representatives and our affiliates with a request that they act accordingly.
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There was surprisingly little objection to this language. After debate in which no one spoke directly against the substance (a couple of people raised proxy procedural objections that got nowhere) it passed by voice vote by somewhere around 85-15 or even 90-10. There were about 300 delegates at the meeting. On another resolution that touched on gun rights, vocal opposition did emerge, but not on this resolution (and without winning the vote). In UUP, it is now a settled question that anti-war resolutions are part of union business. The principal arguments presented in the debate that carried the vote were the urgency of weighing in with a position at this moment, when the Obama administration is locked in debate about the war; the unacceptable cost, in money and lives; the impossible military task of nation building; the desperate need for the oney to be used for education and other domestic needs.

One supporter of the Afghanistan resolution questioned how we could pass it given the consequences for women if the Taliban gained power in Afghanistan. Here it was significant that the resolution had the support of the Women's Rights and Concerns Committee (which had voted 15-3 with 5 abstentions to endorse it). The committee co-chairs spoke to the question, making the following points: no war is good for women, especially counter-insurgency warfare; women suffer disproportionately in war from dislocation, rape, and the consequences of widowhood. We should not believe that the war in Afghanistan is being fought by the US on behalf of women. Under the Karzai government, laws hostile to women have been passed. The status of women in Iraq has deteriorated dramatically since the US invasion and during the occupation.