[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 39 (Thursday, March 11, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E412-E413]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    FATHER DRINAN'S VOICE FOR SANITY

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. BARNEY FRANK

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 11, 1999

  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, my predecessor in Congress, 
Father Robert Drinan, was during his very impressive tenure here an 
important spokesman for a sensible reordering of our national spending 
priorities. Since leaving Congress, Father Drinan, has continued to be 
a leader on issues of human rights and social justice, and his most 
recent article on national policy makes in a compelling way the case 
against the proposed military budget increases President Clinton has 
unfortunately requested. Father Drinan sets this in the appropriate 
context and I believe his reasoning is persuasive and his facts 
compelling. As Father Drinan notes in this article in the National 
Catholic Report for January 22, ``the world scene has changed, but 
neither the White House nor the Pentagon seems to have heard the good 
news.'' I ask that this important statement be printed here.

            The Military-Industrial Complex Just Marches On

                         (By Robert F. Drinan)

       When I read in early January that President Clinton had 
     agreed to support the Pentagon's request for an increase of 
     some $125 billion over the next six years, I became certain 
     that the United States had failed to produce a new foreign 
     policy for the world after the Cold War.
       All my anxieties and misgivings about U.S. foreign policy 
     in the six years of the Clinton administration coalesced into 
     the conviction that the United States had lost an 
     unprecedented opportunity to fashion for the entire world a 
     policy that would relieve hunger, promote democracy and bring 
     stability to troubled regions.
       Since the Warsaw Pact and world communism dissolved in 
     1990, the entire human family has been looking to the United 
     States for moral leadership that could usher in a new era of 
     peace.
       The military has not rethought its goals since 1990. The 
     one review the Pentagon conducted resulted in the 
     questionable finding that the United States must be prepared 
     to

[[Page E413]]

     wage two regional wars at the same time. That theory has 
     never been approved by Congress following hearings or 
     evaluated in the crucible of public opinion.
       It is self-evident that the world has changed radically 
     since the disappearance of the Soviet Union. The nations of 
     the world do not need military jets or sophisticated 
     armaments; they need the skill and resources to promote 
     economic stability and make adequate provision for health and 
     education for their people.
       America could help make that happen. Instead, the White 
     House chooses to invest the nation's wealth in the largest 
     boost in military spending since the heyday of the Reagan 
     buildup. The Air Force will be able to buy more F-22 
     fighters, and Army can acquire new Comanche attack 
     helicopters and the Navy will build new ships.
       In so doing, the president may have headed off a 
     potentially dangerous issue in the race for the White House 
     in the year 2000. Vice President Gore will not have to face 
     charges of letting America's guard down. But meanwhile the 
     opportunity to rethink the military polices of the United 
     States in a postcommunist world is slipping away.
       For me, the concession of 1999 to the Pentagon symbolize 
     the failure of the White House to engage Congress and the 
     country in a fundamental re-examination of what America 
     should do as the human family struggles with feeding, 
     sheltering and keeping all its members safe.
       The White House has rejected all the voices since 1990 that 
     have been pressing for new foreign policy priorities. Arms 
     control experts, activists and academics in the peace 
     community and scores of religious organizations feel spurned 
     by Clinton as he agrees to go along with the Pentagon with 
     business as usual.
       The Council for a Livable World and similar organizations 
     get regular assessments from military experts of what the 
     United States needs to deal with its current challenges. 
     Their estimate is nowhere close to the $260 billion available 
     to the Pentagon this year.
       There certainly is no need for the entire world to be 
     spending $780 billion on arms this year.
       The world scene has changed, but neither the White House 
     nor the Pentagon seems to have heard the good news. The 
     military is still operating with 80 percent of its Cold War 
     budget and much the same attitude.
       The military establishment in this country is awesome. It 
     includes 1,396,000 men and women on active duty, 877,000 in 
     the reserves and 747,000 full-time civilians. Imagine the 
     impact if only a fraction of this vast armada joined the 
     7,000 Peace Corps volunteers serving the poor in useful ways.
       Supervision of the sprawling world of the Department of 
     Defense seems to be beyond even the Congress. There are 122 
     separate kinds of accounting used by the Department of 
     Defense--so many that even the Pentagon's inspector general 
     admits the need for reform. And although there is every 
     indication that the country's military needs are shrinking, 
     the Pentagon asked Congress for 54 new slots for generals and 
     admirals this year.
       It should also be remembered that the Pentagon resisted and 
     prevented America's acceptance of the international ban on 
     land mines whose advocates captured last year's Nobel Peace 
     Prize. The Pentagon blocked U.S. participation in the new 
     International Criminal Court, a sort of permanent Nuremberg 
     Court, and it was the Pentagon that spent $35 billion in 1998 
     monitoring and maintaining some 12,500 nuclear warheads.
       Opportunities to protest the latest surge in defense 
     spending will probably be minimal, since the administration 
     and Congress usually push such measures through as a matter 
     of routine.
       There is no sign of hope. Dale Bumpers, longtime arms 
     control advocate, took office Jan. 4 as the new director of 
     the Center for Defense Information. After 24 years as a 
     Democratic senator from Arkansas. Bumpers now head up an 
     organization composed of retired high-ranking military 
     officers devoted to developing a sensible military policy for 
     the United States.
       Widely regarded as a leader on arms control issues, Bumpers 
     will carry forward the center's work seeking a sensible and 
     balanced military policy. Bumpers opposed plans for an 
     elaborate missile defense system, fought against the F-22 and 
     supported procurement reform at the Pentagon.
       The present dominance of the Pentagon and its arms 
     merchants reminds one of the familiar but distressingly true 
     observation of President Dwight Eisenhower in his farewell 
     address of Jan. 17, 1961. The only U.S. general to be 
     president in the 20th century said:
       ``We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted 
     influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-
     industrial complex.''

     

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