This is the URL for an article I wrote 3 years ago on Sweeney's foreign policy for Dollars & Sense. I think its key conclusion - that organizing is pretty much missing from the federation's work on international affairs - stands up pretty well. Since this was written, the AFL's international affairs department has added one person to do corporate campaigns, but as mentioned in previous posts, the various institutes grouped under the Solidarity Center can't do that kind of work because most of their money comes from the government. The Israel rally, where Sweeney's remarks were to the right of an extremist like Wolfowitz, shows that us rank and filers have a lot of work to do. The muckety mucks at 16th Street didn't like this article, even though it was quite positive about their international people, because I described the US government career ('foreign service officer') of the director of the Solidarity Center, a man they'd much rather keep under wraps. They never questioned my facts about him, though.
TS