by Lauren Smith, published on Popular Resistance, July 14, 2020
Knowing that without truth there can be no justice and without justice, there can be no peace, the Green Party Action Committee (GPAX) endorsed a trailblazing world peace platform on July 6 that aggressively fights back against the militaristic corporate hijacking of the United States’ domestic and foreign policy, and its methods of imperialist oppression through open and covert warfare. With this new platform and ballot access in over 44 states – as of the 2016 presidential election, the Green’s national party is uniquely positioned to rightfully snatch political victories throughout the United States from the clutches of the decrepit, racist, sexist, homophobic, warmongering duopoly – otherwise known as the Democratic and Republican parties. The World Peace Platform is reprinted below.
As an international grassroots movement, the U.S. Greens stand proudly in solidarity with Greens in almost 100 countries. With approximately 129 U.S. Greens already serving in elected office in 22 states, and candidates running in 78 races throughout the country this November, and now with the July 11 selection of U.S. presidential candidate Howie Hawkins and vice presidential candidate Angela Walker, the Greens are strategically positioned to be the world’s peace party that’s long-awaited and desperately needed.
Irrespective of the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, the Green’s platform issues are routinely used by presidential candidates from other parties and continue to raise the bar for environmental and human rights and benefits – which are especially evident with the promotion of the Green New Deal and Medicare for All.
While sheep-dogging detractors’ attempt to write-off the Greens as a tree-hugging, granola crunching grandma party to poach volunteers and funding, the Greens are in fact young, vibrant, and inclusive. The Green national party was founded in 2001 and is still in its teenage years. The fallacy that the Greens are a one-trick pony environmental group must be dispelled. In addition to the World Peace Platform and Ecology, there are two other critical pillars in the Green Party: Democracy and Social and Economic Justice. GPAX is presently drafting the Social and Economic Justice platform and just like the World Peace Platform, it has sharp teeth.
The Greens are working to shut down the United States’ police, prison, and surveillance industrial complex that forces black and brown people into modern-day slavery, and end its repeated violations of international and humanitarian law for corporate greed, under the pretense of American Exceptionalism, that drags us all closer every day to nuclear war. With the Green Party, the United States of America is being taken back by the people for the people.
Lauren Smith is an independent journalist and member of the Green Party and Sanctions Kill.com. Her work has been published by Alliance for Global Justice, Black Agenda Report, Common Dreams, Counterpunch, The Duran, Global Research, CA, Monthly Review, and Telesur amongst others. She holds a BA in Politics, Economics, and Society from SUNY at Old Westbury and an MPA in International Development Administration from New York University. Her historical fiction novel based on Nicaragua’s 1979 revolution is due out in 2021.
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The Green Party’s World Peace Platform
The Green Party believes that economic development is only environmentally sustainable globally when it’s rooted democratically in social and economic justice. As a superpower, our government’s domestic militarism is tied to international militarism. Thus, our foreign policy of attacking, through overt and covert warfare, the sovereignty of nation-states to acquire their natural, financial, and human resources to maintain geopolitical supremacy must end if we are to protect ourselves and the people of the world against the corporate hijacking of our foreign policy. Our interests are best served in respecting international law and the fundamental United Nations principles of non-aggression and self-determination.
I. Warfare – Overt
A. Armaments and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Our government’s use of armaments and weapons of mass destruction not only places our country in violation of international and humanitarian law but also makes the military-industrial-complex the largest polluter on the planet through its production, transport, and deployment of armaments and weapons of mass destruction – putting all life on earth at the edge of environmental extinction.
Despite the United Nations call for a global ceasefire during the Covid-19 world-wide pandemic, our government has instead deployed 20,000 troops to Europe to encircle Russia, and has sent warships to threaten Venezuela, Iran, and China. Our government’s misguided quest to control the world’s largest oil supply puts us in direct opposition with the world’s other superpowers. Further, our country’s interventions in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East have left us mired in endless wars that have weakened our country’s economic vitality and decreased opportunities for our children.
B. Nuclear Weapons
Nuclear weapons are the most devastating weapons of mass destruction in existence. Not only has the U.S. nuclear weapon programs consumed vast resources, generated toxic pollution, and spread global fear of apocalyptic destruction but the Trump administration seeks to restart the nuclear arms race. The large stockpiles of these weapons, and their proliferation into a growing number of nations, pose a clear and present danger to humankind.
Apart from the immediate potential for the massive loss of life and destruction of societies in a nuclear war, the widespread use of nuclear weapons risks global ecological catastrophe in a nuclear winter, a long period of reduced sunlight that would cause crop failure and result in famine. This raises the danger level of nuclear war to an existential threat.
C. Drone Warfare
Armed drones are deployed in both overt bombing campaigns as well as in covert warfare such as assassination attempts and biowarfare. Not only are these attacks in violation of domestic, international, and humanitarian law and violate the sovereignty of nation-states, but errors in intelligence and targeting result in the killing of civilians including medical professionals, journalists, and children.
D. Cyber Warfare
Software hacking by U.S. government agencies against targeted nation-states poses serious risks to global security and peace especially when it conducts false flag attacks. Cyberwarfare tools are now capable of disrupting power grids, damaging public health facilities, and triggering armed conflicts.
E. Weaponization of Outer Space
In support of our government’s quest for full-spectrum dominance, the Pentagon has been directed to establish a sixth branch of the armed forces called the Space Force. Our government is seeking to resurrect some version of the largely defunct 1980’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). The SDI called for the development of a system that could intercept nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). Our government already uses space-based technology, such as satellites, to conduct espionage and disrupt the computer, communication and power systems of sovereign nation-states, and its military has polluted space with toxic orbital debris from broken satellites, spent rocket bodies, etc. which may collide with each other and already fall back to earth daily.
Green Position Against Overt Warfare
1. The Green Party calls for the observance of international law, treaties and charters, and foreign geographical boundaries and airspace and seeks a comprehensive review of treaties the U.S has either not signed or not ratified, covering every area of international relations, to bring the U.S. into compliance with the legal commitments assumed by the majority of U.N. member countries. This is especially important with the proliferation of nuclear, biological, chemical, and nanotechnological weapons and in the regulation and control of existing weapons. This is also highly relevant in climate change accords.
2. The Green Party calls for respecting the sovereignty of all countries and their right to autonomous self-determination. Since 2000, except for Yugoslavia, the U.S. and its adjuncts have toppled governments in Afghanistan, Bolivia, Ecuador, Haiti, Honduras, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, and Ukraine. The U.S. has attempted to destabilize and/or topple the governments in Iran, Syria, Yemen, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Zimbabwe. This demonstrates that both the corporate Republican and Democratic parties are pro-war and anti-peace.
3. The Green Party calls for the repeal of the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) which was passed by Congress in response to the attacks of September 11, 2001, and any other measure purporting to authorize preemptive or illegal military action. In passing the AUMF, Congress abdicated its exclusive authority under the Constitution to declare war. Further, it betrayed its responsibility to the American people by delegating to the president virtually dictatorial power to commit acts of war.
4. The Green Party calls for the abolition of nuclear weapons through legislative and diplomatic means. Until that goal can be accomplished, our government must adopt a no-first-strike policy and no-preemptive strike policy. Our government must abide by all nuclear arms control treaties that limit proliferation, improve safeguards, and reduce sizes of nuclear arsenals leading to elimination such as the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NTP), the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM), the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force Treaty (INF) and the Treaty on Open Skies to prevent the nuclear arms race. Our government must honor its commitments to end the research, testing and stockpiling of all nuclear weapons of any size; and dismantle all nuclear warheads from their missiles.
5. The Green Party calls for the abolition of all research, stockpiling, and sale of chemical, and biological weapons. Our government must comply with the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and the Biological Weapon and Toxin Convention (BWC). Our government must cease all research involving gain-of-function genetic engineering (intentionally making viruses more contagious and deadly to humans) and dual-use research of concern, the creation of viruses that also have bioweapon potential. Our government must allow foreign teams to visit the U.S. for verification purposes at least annually.
6. The Green Party calls for the abolition of the use of drones, nanotechnology, and other robotic weaponry for illegal aggressions, targeted assassination campaigns, and the transmission of bioweapons. The U.S. must enter into international treaties to regulate the use of these weapons, including both remote controlled and autonomous systems. The U.S. must provide full disclosure and transparency in the investigation of drone strikes that result in human casualties.
7. The Green Party calls for the abolition of cyber warfare as it targets civilians through the potential disruption of critical infrastructure and services in violation of domestic, international, and humanitarian law.
8. The Green Party calls for the abolition of all activities and funding that support the weaponization of outer space.
9. The Green Party calls for those guilty of misleading our country into invasions, occupations, and acts of aggression by falsifying information to be held accountable for violations of domestic, international, and humanitarian law. For example, former President George Bush and members of his administration were found guilty of war crimes by Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission.
10. The Green Party calls for the reduction of our Military and Intelligence Community budgets to half of its current size. The Military and Intelligence Community’s 2019 budgets were $686.1 billion and $81.7 billion respectively. For comparison, in the same period, the military budget for China and Russia was $177.6 billion and $46.4 billion respectively.
11. The Green Party calls for the phasing out of all military bases and installations not specifically functioning under a U.N. resolution for peacekeeping and the bringing home of troops stationed abroad, except for troops assigned to protect U.S. embassies. As of 2020, the U.S. has over 1,000 foreign military bases and installations. In particular, we join the call of the Black Alliance for Peace to shut down the military bases that constitute Africom.
12. The Green Party calls for the closure of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly known as the School of the Americas, in Ft. Benning, Georgia which is notorious for teaching torture techniques to foreign military personnel to use in terrorizing their people into submission.
13. The Green Party calls for the ending of arms sales to foreign nations and the shifting of our export market to peaceful technology and services. The United States is the largest arms seller and dealer in the world.
14. The Green Party calls for the signing of the Ottawa Treaty (the Anti–Personnel Mine Ban Convention) which prohibits the production, stockpiling, use, and sale of land mines and assists other nations in unearthing and disabling land mines buried in their lands.
15. The Green Party supports disinvestment campaigns against arms manufacturers, transporters, financiers, and dealers.
II. Warfare – Covert
A. Intelligence Community
Our government uses covert warfare and psychological operations (PSYOP) to install coup d’états in autonomous countries – thereby replacing indigenous elected leaders with oppressive puppet regimes inimical to their people and beholden to U.S. finance capital. These regime change wars are planned, coordinated, and executed by the Intelligence Community (IC) – whose main mission, as described by former CIA agent, Philip Agee, “is to guarantee a favorable investment climate for U.S. industry.” To this end, the IC directs its military contractors/mercenaries to carry out shock-troop campaigns, false flag attacks, assassinations, and the sabotage of key infrastructures such as electrical grids and water treatment plants. Theoretically, this is done to create human suffering so intolerable that it causes civil unrest leading to revolution. However, the reality is that heinous violence and prolonged deprivation causes hatred for our government and destabilizes countries and regions just as depicted in the declassified KUBARK torture manual that specifies how to “create a world of fear, terror, anxiety, dread.”
U.S. taxpayer dollars also fund Astroturf opposition parties, fake news organizations, and subservient Non-Governmental and Human Rights Organizations. As a result of these efforts, biased reports from captive Human Rights Organizations are generated to wrongly justify our government’s misuse of the United Nations Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine to seize assets and install regimes favorable to U.S. corporations. However, regime changes are not sustainable and often lead to power vacuums and greater regional instability as evident with Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, and Syria.
Green Position Against Covert Warfare – Intelligence Community
1. The Green Party calls for the end of all covert actions used to influence, destabilize, or usurp the governments of other nation-states and prohibits assassination in any form.
2. The Green Party calls for the closure of all overseas prisons which are often referred to as Black Sites. At these compounds, the Intelligence Community presides over the torture and interrogation of prisoners outside the scope of the American judicial system. The most infamous of these Black Sites are Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, Abu Ghraib in Iraq, and the Detention Site Cobalt in Afghanistan. Information regarding the exact number and location of secret prisons is classified. Other countries with known U.S. Black Sites are Lithuania, Romania, Poland, and Thailand.
3. The Green Party calls for the release of all foreign political prisoners and those held without criminal charges or violent convictions.
4. The Green Party defends the rights of whistleblowers, journalists, and news media outlets that revealed U.S. war crimes, human rights violations, and corruption, to exist without the threat of persecution, extradition and arrest by the U.S. government – as shown in cases against Philip Agee, John Kiriakou, Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, and Wikileaks.
5. The Green Party calls for those guilty of ordering or conducting torture, executions, and assassinations to be held accountable for violations of national, international, and humanitarian law. For example, former President George Bush and members of his administration were never charged for their role in the torture of detainees.
6. The Green Party calls for the framing and enforcement of legislation that will hold U.S. citizens who profit from misusing their public positions in foreign countries accountable for their corrupt practices. Recent examples are the Biden family in their dealings with Ukraine and the Clinton family in their dealings with Haiti.
7. The Green Party calls for the elimination of the ideologically driven misuse of criminal and judicial procedures by U.S. authorities to falsely accuse politicians like Lula da Silva, Cristina Fernandez, Jorge Glas, Rafael Correa and Evo Morales of crimes to persecute them via “lawfare”.
8. The Green Party calls for the elimination of the ideologically driven misuse of U.S. narcotics policy and enforcement by its Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in foreign countries. In countries the U.S. government targets for regime change, it invents spurious charges that justify the arrest of democratically elected officials and the imposition of unilateral economic sanctions, and in countries it favors it turns a blind eye to drug trafficking at best and facilitates the protection of criminals and drug activity at worst. For example, Venezuela is unfairly targeted for drug trafficking penalties because the U.S. government is engaged in regime change efforts, while Colombia is not – even though Colombia is the world’s top producer of cocaine. Because of the dark alliance between the U.S. government and President Ivan Duque of Colombia, not only does the narcotics trade continue unabated, but the hard-won Colombia Peace Accords signed in 2016 lies in tatters and Duque is not held to account for the hundreds of murders of social, community, environmental and indigenous leaders. The U.S. routinely allies with leaders known to be involved in narcotics and related organized crime like Juan Orlando Hernandez, and Alvaro Uribe which remains a hindrance to world peace.
B. Economic Sanctions
Our government uses unilateral coercive economic sanctions as covert warfare. Economic sanctions negatively impact one-third of humanity in 39 countries and cause death and devastation by denying targeted countries access to U.S. dominated markets, finance, and transactional systems. Additionally, our government uses secondary sanctions to force third parties, such as foreign governments, financial institutions, and individuals, to adopt U.S. sanctions against targeted countries. Penalties for conducting business with a sanctioned country range from military aggression, arrest, fines and property seizures to being cut off from the US financial system and markets – whether or not the activity engaged in impacts the United States directly. Thus, economic sanctions restrict a targeted country from generating wealth, stabilizing its currency against price fluctuations, and providing its people with critical services and resources. Because economic sanctions also interfere with the functioning of essential infrastructure, e.g. electrical grids, transportation and communication systems, and water treatment and distribution facilities, by blocking access to key industrial inputs, such as fuel, raw materials, and replacement parts, they lead to drought, famine, disease, and abject poverty.
Economic sanctions also block health care facilities from obtaining lifesaving supplies and equipment which is even more deadly in times of pandemics, national disasters, and war. In total, economic sanctions result in the death of millions of impoverished people of color in what can only be described as class and race warfare and it puts the United States squarely in violation of the Geneva Convention, the Genocide Convention and Nuremberg Charter amongst others. Yet, sanctions are slyly marketed by our government as a “more peaceful way to make the world safe for democracy.” This lie allows the United States to implement, with impunity, economic sanctions that devastate the most vulnerable people in the countries it hypocritically claims it’s seeking to protect. Economic sanctions are also used to justify and conceal the appropriation of foreign public funds by the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve through asset freezes and seizures.
Green Position Against Covert Warfare – Economic Sanctions
1. The Green party calls for the abolition of all U.S. unilateral coercive economic sanctions.
C. Global Lending Institutions and Trade
Our government’s dominance over global lending institutions, such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), facilitates the destruction of foreign economies through usury and by forcing the adoption of structural adjustments (austerity measures) which end life-saving public benefits to repay these loans, and displaces local industries and farming, allowing U.S. vulture capital to more easily capture foreign vital resources.
Our government’s trade policies and agreements are unfavorable to developing countries and structurally maintain imbalances that date back to colonialism. Policies aimed at unduly protecting multinational corporations from legitimate claims by sovereign countries have enabled environmental and humanitarian disasters such as Union Carbide in Bhopal, Chevron in Ecuador, Shell in Nigeria, and multiple corporations mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Green Position Against Negative Global Lending Practices and Trade Policies
1. The Green Party calls for the redrafting of policies and practices of U.S. led global institutions, such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB), to protect human rights, the environment, and domestic industry and agriculture. To ensure compliance, the WTO, IMF, and World Bank’s operations must be transparent, and the institutions must be held accountable to all nations, not just donors.
2. The Green Party calls for the redrafting of all international trade and commerce agreements such as the Central American Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) as they sustain underdevelopment through unfair terms and conditions.
2. The Green Party calls for U.S. corporations, that operate in other countries, to adhere to the core labor standards established by the International Labor Organization (ILO) Declaration of the Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.
3. The Green Party calls for the granting of states and municipalities’ rights to refuse to invest in foreign businesses that do not abide by their standards for imported goods, fair trade, and environmental protection.
4. The Green Party calls for the revocation of laws that unduly protect transnational corporations from legitimate claims by sovereign countries. Trade policies must include clauses guaranteeing trade partners access on equal terms to impartial arbitration. In particular, our government must make clear it will not protect corporate offenders responsible for mass harm cases as referenced above. Further, our government must not act to defend corporate pharmaceutical and other interests unjustly seeking to extend patents unreasonably against the interests of both vulnerable populations overseas and of the majority of people in the U.S.
D. Department of State and USAID
Our government uses its Department of State as an adjunct to its Intelligence Community. While the Department of State provides diplomatic services to U.S. citizens abroad and foreign heads of state, it also serves as an effective vehicle for intelligence gathering as well as providing cover for U.S. personnel engaged in espionage. Overall our government’s foreign aid program serves to enrich and protect U.S. transnational corporations by creating, sustaining, and defending foreign markets and policies for its products and services. Additionally, it uses military, economic, and humanitarian aid to compel and/or reward foreign governments for taking actions favorable to U.S. corporate interests. In the Middle East, foreign aid can be considered little more than a conduit used to subsidize U.S. arms manufacturers – as it financially seeds theater wars that expend munitions on all sides of a given conflict. Further, even economic aid can be indirectly used as military aid since it frees up committed funds enabling countries to purchase weaponry.
The Budget Request for Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 for the U.S. Department of State and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is $41 billion. In 2018, the top five foreign aid recipients were: Afghanistan ($5.1 billion – 80% military aid); Israel ($3.1 billion – 100% military aid); Jordan, ($1.4 billion – 37% military aid); Egypt ($1.2 billion – 87% military aid); and Iraq ($1.2 billion – 39% military aid).
Green Position on Foreign Aid
The Green Party calls for the end of foreign aid that is used covertly to wage regime change wars in non-compliant autonomous nation-states, and that functions as socialism for U.S. transnational corporations and its products – especially when its failing products are tied to “aid” packages. Often aid packages include commitments involving genetically modified organisms (GMO), toxic/carcinogenic pesticides like glyphosate, fertilizers, and growth hormones laced products that are banned from sale in European countries and Japan and disrupt local economies. Additionally, the State Department and its related agencies’ budgets should be cut in half as proposed for the Defense and Intelligence Community budgets.
E. Palestine and Israel
Our government continues to supply Israel with military aid despite Israel’s discriminatory and racist laws, policies, and practices towards the Palestinian people that violate international and humanitarian law and result in apartheid and displacement. Israel is the second-highest recipient of foreign assistance and 100% of it is military aid. This is done not only because Israel is a strategic ally in the Middle East but also because Israel tests U.S. made weaponry out on foreign countries as well as on the people in the territories it occupies. Further, through collaboration between the U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies (CIA and Mossad), Israel funnels U.S. arms to third countries that our nation is unable to because of congressional restrictions. On behalf of U.S. arms manufacturers and dealers, Israel has sold weapons to the South Africa government during apartheid; the Contras in Nicaragua to allow the Reagan administration to circumvent the Boland Amendments; the military junta of Guatemala; and Iran, during the Iran/Iraq war while the U.S. was simultaneously selling weapons to Iraq, etc.
Green Position on Israel and Palestine
1. The Green party supports the formation of one democratic state in all of historic Palestine – the shared homeland of two peoples – with equality before the law.
2. The Green Party supports the international Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement as a non-violent way to end occupation, apartheid, and allow refugees to return home, in following the example of the divestment campaigns instrumental in ending South African apartheid.
F. Immigration Policy and Detention
Our government’s unquestioned support for the overseas activities of U.S. transnational corporations has not only contributed to the structural underdevelopment of these countries, but also the growth of thriving black markets. As a result, workers are often displaced from their jobs and communities and subjected to drug, weapon, and sex trafficking violence. This has led to caravans of Central American migrants seeking asylum in the United States, believing it to be a land of safety and opportunity. However, upon arrival, immigrants are instead seized and held captive in our government’s detention system – a system that imprisons over 50,000 adults and children in facilities that are so lacking in basic human services that they are largely referred to as concentration camps. Even worse, children are separated by force from their families by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents rendering them more vulnerable to assault, sexual abuse, and psychological trauma. Economic refugees and asylum seekers in Europe are also a result of proxy wars set in the Middle East and Africa that involve the United States military and/or CIA.
Green Position on Immigration and Detention
1 The Green Party calls for the end of unfair and unequal finance and trade agreements and its military and Intelligence Community’s intervention in the politics of developing countries in support of U.S. transnational corporations. These policies have made developing countries inordinately dangerous and unlivable, and increased the need for migration. Therefore, policies to stem the flow of immigrants must first be centered on rebuilding these countries in a way that sustains the health and welfare of their people to reduce incentives to leave.
2. The Green Party calls for a more humane and open immigration policy that’s free of racism and prejudice, and better allows for family reunification, the nationalization of existing immigrants and asylum.
3. The Green Party calls for the release of all immigration detainees that are not criminal fugitives, the closure of all internment facilities, and compliance with our Constitution and universal human rights principles in its treatment of immigrants.
G. Territories/Commonwealths
Our government holds three territories, American Samoa, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands; and two commonwealths, Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands. Although all people born in territories/commonwealths are U.S. citizens (except for American Samoa), they lack the right to vote in federal elections and have no elected representatives in Washington, this renders them at best second-class citizens. Additionally, these territories/commonwealths receive less funding for social and economic programs than those received by the states. Also, since trade and finance are controlled by the U.S., they are prevented from taking initiatives that may be in their best interest for development.
Green Position on Territories/Commonwealths
The Green Party supports the people of Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa and the U.S. Virgin Islands in their respective decisions to either remain U.S. territories/commonwealths, or to petition congress for statehood, or to declare independence as sovereign non-aligned nation-states.
*Featured Image: By Stephen Melkisethian from cc-nc-nd-flickr.