The Eagle Has Landed: U.S. Foreign Policy, War, Immigration, and the

From immigration to the war in Iraq, the U.S. is making its presence felt around the world – militarily and economically. Recent immigrants’ rights and anti-war protests have brought the ramifications of U.S. foreign policy home to roost, and present a historic opportunity for the global justice movement in the U.S. Join us for a discussion with Sameer Dossani, Director of the 50 Years Is Enough Network, on these critical and urgent issues, the future of the global justice movement, and how you can make your voice heard. The current debate around immigration largely overlooks the most important question – why people leave families, communities, and lives to come to the U.S. - but the answer is vital to understanding global justice. Migrants’ lives have been destroyed by the economic policies promoted by the U.S. government – trade liberalization enshrined in free trade agreements, tight public spending caps imposed by the IMF, and privatization of basic services pushed by the World Bank have been a perfect recipe for economic collapse in many countries, causing ever-growing numbers of people to migrate to the U.S. Just as basic principles of justice are being ignored in the immigration debate, they are also overlooked in the furor over the Iraq war. As more and more elected leaders and retired generals are calling for U.S. troops out of Iraq, we ask, "is that enough?" The economic occupation of Iraq is kept under wraps while the Iraqi constitution enshrines privatization, liberalization, and preferential treatment for multinational corporations, and the IMF and World Bank have already moved in to remove subsidies on fuel and food, in an environment where there is up to 50% unemployment and 60% of the population depends on food subsidies for survival. Sameer Dossani is the Director of 50 Years Is Enough: U.S. Network for Global Economic Justice, a coalition of over 200 U.S. grassroots, women's, solidarity, faith-based, policy, social- and economic-justice, youth, labor and development organizations dedicated to the profound transformation of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The Network works in solidarity with over 185 international partner organizations in more than 65 countries. Through education and action, the Network is committed to transforming the international financial institutions' policies and practices, to ending the outside imposition of neo-liberal economic programs, and to making the development process democratic and accountable.