[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 143 (Wednesday, October 24, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10919-S10922]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       FOREIGN OPERATIONS, EXPORT FINANCING AND RELATED PROGRAMS 
                  APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2002--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Clinton). The Senator from Kansas is 
recognized.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. Madam President, I rise to speak about an amendment to 
the foreign operations bill. I understand it has been accepted. It 
deals with funding for leadership training for Afghan women. I think 
this is an important amendment. Even though it is not a great deal of 
money that is involved, I think it is important for us to do.
  The proposed amendment funds a specially created training program for 
Afghan women involving civil society development, democracy building, 
and leadership, at a cost of $2 million. It is not a large amount of 
money, but if we can get women involved back in the Afghan society, it 
is an important amount of money.
  This funding has two purposes. First, it helps talented but direly 
disenfranchised Afghan women to strategically participate in nation 
building. Second, this is a symbolic expression of support from the 
Congress for Afghan women under the present Taliban regime.
  The American people are engaged in a war right now. It is a war 
against those who want to destroy our physical well-being, our peace of 
mind, and our way of life. It is a war against the Taliban, which 
continues to provide fertile soil and a shield for terrorists. It is 
not, however, a war against the Afghan people, as the President 
repeatedly stated and as Members of this body have stated. In fact, the 
Afghan people are the victims of the Taliban, and no one group has 
suffered more than the women.
  We have all heard the horrible stories by now: How women are forced 
to hide behind closed doors, prisoners in their own homes, some even 
starving because there is no male relative to take them to market; how 
they are barred from schools and jobs and from desperately needed 
health care; how they are beaten in the streets if their ankles are 
showing; how they are beaten for begging, even though they are 
forbidden to work; how they are beaten for no reason at all; how they 
are continually silenced, hidden, and treated as less than human--all 
of this in the 21st century.
  I am sure some of my colleagues and others recall the images on CNN 
of Afghan women fleeing Afghanistan into Pakistan dressed in burqas 
that completely cover them. All she has is a small mesh area through 
which to look and breathe. That is so dehumanizing, as if this is not a 
person; they are not recognized as a separate individual.
  It has not always been like that in Afghanistan. That is important 
for us to know and remember as well. These same women who now hide with 
fear and are forced into these burqas once had a voice in their 
country. Some choose to wear a certain traditional garb, and that is 
wonderful, but they should not be forced to do it.
  In Afghanistan, women once represented half the students, half the 
civil servants, and 40 percent of the doctors in Kabul were once women. 
Once they were valued members of their society, and they must become 
this again. To accomplish this, they will need our help and support, 
and we should give it.
  I am pleased to offer this amendment with Senator Boxer. She and I 
helped pass a resolution 2 years ago condemning the Taliban regime. 
This amendment has been accepted by the managers of the bill. I am very 
pleased with that.
  This amendment funds $2 million for scholarships for Afghan women. 
There will be approximately 300 women selected to participate in 
training programs for emerging leaders. They will be instructed in 
civil society development, including effective governance, economic 
development, establishing nongovernmental organizations, and an 
independent press, among other fundamentals of a free society, 
including the right to vote for all citizens in Afghanistan and human 
rights, including religious freedom for all citizens and people of 
Afghanistan.
  The Afghan women will learn from top professors and experts in the 
field. Their curriculum will be developed in close consultation with 
Afghan women's groups on the ground in South Asia and in the United 
States. A selection of candidates will be made in close consultation 
with leading Afghan women in exile and leading Afghan women still in 
Afghanistan today, and United States embassies abroad.
  I believe programs such as these can help play a key role in 
stabilizing the region and rebuilding the lives of its citizens. The 
United States is at its best when it stands up for our fundamental 
principles, and that includes the right to vote for everybody, the 
right of participation for everybody, democracy, freedom, religious 
freedom, and human rights.
  This amendment can give the women who have far too long been 
victimized by the Taliban brutality the tools to rebuild a new 
Afghanistan on the foundation of democracy, tolerance, human rights, 
and equality.
  Lastly, this funding not only helps Afghanistan; it also helps 
America. As Afghan women promote democratic values in their society, 
they inherently prevail over the forces of terrorism, extremism, and 
repression which have also victimized us.
  I am pleased my colleagues have accepted this amendment, and I look 
forward to its implementation where we help Afghan women rebuild a 
civil society in their country. As we move forward in the prosecution 
of this war in Afghanistan, it is very important that our next step, 
once we are able to secure the country, is to rebuild a civil society 
with everybody participating.
  I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Madam President, I rise to offer some comments on the 
bill before us, the foreign operations appropriations bill.
  Today we are considering the fiscal year 2002 foreign operations 
appropriations bill. I ask my fellow Senators to consider this: The 
total foreign assistance spending in this legislation represents just 
.79 percent of the entire $1.9 trillion Federal budget. That is less 
than half of what it was just 15 years ago, and it is barely .1 percent 
of GDP. An even smaller amount of the bill's funding is for foreign 
development assistance, less than .6 percent of the budget.
  Anemic U.S. foreign assistance spending is not new news, but it is 
part of a very sad legacy of more than two decades of declining foreign 
assistance spending.
  But at precisely the time when the events of September 11 have driven

[[Page S10920]]

home what an integrated and globalized world we live in, a world that 
requires us, I believe, to reexamine the basic underpinnings of U.S. 
national security policy, it is baffling that the United States remains 
on a course to tie a post-World War II low in foreign assistance 
spending and a 50-year low of overseas assistance as a share of 
Government spending.
  I do not mean this as any criticism of the managers of the bill. 
Given the administration's request and the allocations of the 
subcommittee, they have done an excellent job of putting together a 
$15.5 billion bill. But in light of September 11, I strongly believe 
that the fundamental assumptions regarding how best to safeguard U.S. 
national security interests over the long term require rethinking and 
reexamination.
  As America undertakes a war on terrorism, we must declare war on 
global poverty as well, and we must do so because our national security 
demands no less.
  If we are going to win this war against terrorism, we have to be 
willing to invest in the lives and livelihoods of the people of the 
developing world. For it is the poverty and the resulting political 
instability and institutional weakness of developing countries, many of 
them failed or near failed states, which provide the ecosystem in which 
terrorists, terrorist operations, terrorist recruitment, and terrorist 
organizations are able to flourish.
  The World Bank estimates that 1.2 billion residents of poor nations 
live on less than $1 a day. In South Asia alone, more than 550 million 
people, 40 percent of the total population, live on less than $1 a day. 
In sub-Saharan Africa it is close to 50 percent of the population. I 
know the Chair is eminently familiar with this. Close to 50 percent of 
the population--that is, 291 million people, or more than the entire 
population of the United States--live in that abject, grinding poverty.
  All in all, about 2.8 million people, half of the world's population, 
live in poverty, getting by on $2 a day. That is less than a cappuccino 
at Starbucks.
  The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations 
estimates that nearly 800 million people in the developing world are 
undernourished, 1.2 billion lack access to safe drinking water, 2.9 
billion have inadequate access to sanitation, and over 1 billion people 
are either unemployed or underemployed.
  For all too many of these people, there is precious little hope in 
their daily life, and they experience a world in which progress or 
betterment is virtually impossible.
  Yet, as a recent Congressional Budget Office study on the role of 
foreign aid and development reports: ``U.S. spending on foreign aid has 
fluctuated from year to year but has been on a downward path since the 
1960s.''
  In 1962, the United States spent more than 3 percent of the budget 
outlays on foreign assistance. Today, as I noted, it is barely six-
tenths of 1 percent. This is unconscionable. Interestingly enough, 
people do not understand this. I often ask people: How much do you 
think the foreign operations budget is as a percent of the overall 
budget? Some will say 5 percent, some will say 10 percent, some will 
say 15 percent, but nobody says less than 1 percent.
  Yet that is the fact. The United States spends less than $30 a year 
for each of its citizens helping those in the developing world, 
compared with a median per capita contribution of $70 by other 
industrialized nations. This has not always been the case and, I would 
argue, it is also not becoming of America's position and role in the 
world.
  Between 1950 and 1968, the United States contributed more than half 
of the official development assistance provided by countries in the 
OECD Development Assistance Committee, and by 1978 we were contributing 
less than a third. By 1998, it was less than a sixth, where it 
languishes today.
  Some would question why this matters, or they would argue that it is 
the responsibility of others, not us, to address these development 
needs.
  The short answer is that it matters because development assistance is 
a critical tool for the protection and promotion of U.S. interests 
around the globe. It matters because poverty leads to financial 
instability, infectious disease, environmental degradation, illegal 
immigration, drugs, narcotic trafficking, and it fuels the hatred of 
``have-not'' nations for the ``have'' nations, of which the United 
States heads the list.
  Although not the sole cause of perceived grievances in an 
increasingly unequal and increasingly globalized world, poverty is a 
principal cause of human suffering, and the political instability that 
results as well.
  In its worst form, poverty creates the political, social, economic, 
and institutional instability and chaos that leads to failed states, 
zones of anarchy, and lawlessness, with semi-legitimate governments, or 
no real functioning government, which are unable to offer their people 
a positive vision of the future and instead utilize the United States 
as a scapegoat for their hopelessness.
  It matters because into the void of failed states, and lives without 
hope or the prospect for betterment, step terrorists, fanatics, 
extremists, and others who take advantage of these situations for their 
own ends.
  If a state is unable to educate its young, terrorists and extremists 
will only be too happy to indoctrinate the young, poisoning their 
minds. If a country is unable to offer young men or women the prospect 
of a job and self-respect, terrorists, fanatics, and extremists are 
more than happy to offer conspiracy theories to explain misfortune and 
offer alternative employment in their criminal enterprises. And if a 
government is unable to offer its people a positive prospect for the 
future, terrorists or fanatics are able to offer their own distorted 
view of the world and twisted vision of the future.
  It matters because poverty creates the swamp in which the terrorists 
find protection and sustenance, and it matters in short because our 
national security interests and the lives and safety of our citizens 
depend on us recognizing this. It matters, I strongly believe, because 
self-interest aside, the United States has a strong moral global 
obligation, especially in cases such as Afghanistan and now Pakistan, 
to provide assistance to those who have helped us in the past and who 
stand with us today in this war on terrorism.
  Foreign assistance and development assistance are valuable elements 
in our toolbox to respond to the events of September 11, and in cases 
where diplomacy or military force cannot be used, they may be the only 
tools available.
  When nations who are friends or allies of the United States were 
subject to terrorist attacks prior to September 11, all too often the 
U.S. reaction was to bemoan the rough neighborhood in which these 
nations live and shrug our shoulders as if nothing could be done. But 
September 11 proved with startling clarity all of the globe is a 
neighborhood today, our neighborhood, and we must see what can be done; 
for if we continue to do nothing, it is at our peril.

  I would not argue that the United States should waste foreign 
assistance spending on ineffective programs, or on projects where 
rampant corruption prevents us from assuring that our assistance 
reaches those in need.
  But a report last year by the Overseas Development Council suggests 
that many aid programs have been successful. They have contributed to 
advances in public health, sanitation, and education.
  As a first step in this new war on global poverty, then, it is 
critical that the government, private foundations, and nongovernmental 
organizations come together to identify areas where increased spending 
can make a difference, especially in the world's poorest regions. This 
review must also look at what government and private voluntary donors 
have learned about how to make delivery of assistance more effective.
  This evaluation should also extend to the activities of the World 
Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and other multilateral 
development and lending institutions. Where these institutions need to 
be reformed, and I believe they do, their activities should be 
redefined today.
  Once this evaluation is complete, I believe it is critical we reverse 
the past two decades of a downward trend in U.S. foreign assistance 
spending and dramatically increase funding, including that channeled 
through foundations and nongovernmental organizations.

[[Page S10921]]

  According to the U.N. Development Program, some $40 billion a year--
remember, we are at $15 billion--would provide water and sanitation, 
reproductive health, basic health and nutrition, and basic education 
for all in need in the developing world.
  To help meet our share of this need, I believe and propose we triple 
the foreign assistance budget within 5 years, bringing it back up to 
what it was before, roughly, and this is still a meager amount, 0.3 
percent of gross domestic product. I fully believe such an increase in 
United States foreign assistance spending would be leveraged by 
increases in assistance contributions by other potential public and 
private donors.
  In addition to traditional economic development programs, our renewed 
focus on fighting international poverty must also focus on the creation 
of public goods, democratic institutions, rule of law, functioning and 
legitimate educational systems which allow public and economic progress 
and growth to take root and flourish.
  The image of ``draining the swamp'' of terrorists has become a 
commonplace metaphor, but the metaphor has its limits. The 
environmental elements which contribute to the germination and 
flourishing of terrorists and extremists cannot, in fact, simply be 
drained away. Indeed, I am worried that if we do not act wisely and 
address every dimension and level of this war on terrorism we run the 
risk of fueling a new generation of terrorists.
  Rather, we must adopt a long-term, carefully crafted strategy to 
reduce and perhaps even eliminate factors such as global poverty, which 
underlie and foster terrorism. So I call upon my colleagues to 
recognize that such long-term efforts are as much a part of the burden 
of global leadership and the war on terrorism as cruise missiles and 
aircraft carriers. Meeting this obligation of leadership demands and 
requires a serious, long-term commitment of the necessary resources by 
the United States.
  As one Senator, I am prepared to make that commitment and I hope my 
colleagues are as well.
  I yield the floor.


                           Amendment No. 1940

  Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I send an amendment to the desk, and I 
ask for its immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from California (Mrs. Boxer), for herself and 
     Mr. Brownback, proposes an amendment numbered 1940.

  Mrs. BOXER. I ask unanimous consent reading of the amendment be 
dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

 (Purpose: To express the sense of the Senate regarding the important 
       role of women in the future reconstruction of Afghanistan)

       At the appropriate place, add the following:

     SEC.  . SENSE OF THE SENATE REGARDING THE IMPORTANT ROLE OF 
                   WOMEN IN THE FUTURE RECONSTRUCTION OF 
                   AFGHANISTAN.

       (a) Findings.--The Senate finds that:
       (1) Prior to the rise of the Taliban in 1996, women 
     throughout Afghanistan enjoyed greater freedoms, compromising 
     70 percent of school teachers, 50 percent of civilian 
     government workers, and 40 percent of doctors in Kabul.
       (2) In Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan, women have 
     been banished from the work force, schools have been closed 
     to girls and women expelled from universities, women have 
     been prohibited from leaving their homes unless accompanied 
     by a close male relative, and publicly visible windows of 
     women's houses have been ordered to be painted black.
       (3) In Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan, women have 
     been forced to wear the burqa (or chadari)--which completely 
     shrouds the body, leaving only a small mesh-covered opening 
     through which to see.
       (4) In Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan, women and 
     girls have been prohibited from being examined by male 
     physicians whole at the same time, most female doctors and 
     nurses have been prohibited from working.
       (5) In Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan, women have 
     been brutally beaten, publicly flogged, and killed for 
     violating Taliban decrees.
       (6) The United States and the United Nations have never 
     recognized the Taliban as the legitimate government of 
     Afghanistan, in part, because of their horrific treatment of 
     women and girls.
       (7) Afghan women and children now make up 75 percent of the 
     millions of Afghan refugees living in neighboring countries 
     in substandard conditions with little food and virtually no 
     clean water or sanitation.
       (b) Sense of the Senate.--It is the sense of the Senate 
     that--
       (1) Afghan women organizations must be included in planning 
     the future reconstruction of Afghanistan.
       (2) Future governments in Afghanistan should work to 
     achieve the following goals:
       (A) The effective participation of women in all civil, 
     economic, and social life.
       (B) The right of women to work.
       (C) The right of women and girls to an education without 
     discrimination and the reopening of schools to women and 
     girls at all levels of education.
       (D) The freedom of movement of women and girls.
       (E) Equal access of women and girls to health facilities.

  Mrs. BOXER. For the benefit of my colleagues, I will not take but 
about 7 minutes on this and one other amendment dealing with suicide 
bombing, both of which I believe will be adopted. I will be very brief 
and ask my colleagues' indulgence.
  Madam President, I know you are very well aware of the women in 
Afghanistan under the rule of the Taliban. I give praise to this 
organization called Fund for the Feminist Majority that brought this 
issue to my attention several years ago. I was unaware of what the 
Taliban were, what they were doing to women. My friends came to see me 
and not only told me about the abuses of the Taliban toward women but 
they also told me the women were forced to wear these burqas, 
dehumanizing them, taking away every semblance of humanity from the 
women.
  Therefore, what we try to do in this amendment after we detail the 
condition of women, which the clerk read so beautifully, we talk about 
the fact they have to wear the burqas which completely shroud their 
body, leaving only a small mesh-covered opening through which to see. 
Americans have seen that on TV. Women are completely obscured. If you 
try on one of those burqas, you can barely breathe.
  We know women in Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan have been 
prohibited from being examined by male physicians while, at the same 
time, most female doctors and nurses have been prohibited from working. 
We know women have been brutally beaten and publicly flogged, even 
executed, and we have seen that on CNN on an incredible documentary 
called ``From Beneath The Veil.''
  Senator Brownback and I in this amendment say it is the sense of the 
Senate that Afghan women organizations must be included in planning for 
the future reconstruction of Afghanistan and that the goal of the new 
government should be equality for all.
  That is all I have to say about this amendment. I ask it be laid 
aside, and I ask to call up my second amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Amendment No. 1941

  Mrs. BOXER. I send the amendment to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from California [Mrs. Boxer] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 1941.

       (Purpose: Condemning suicide bombings as a terrorist act)

       At the appropriate place, add the following:

     SEC.  . SENSE OF THE SENATE CONDEMNING SUICIDE BOMBINGS AS A 
                   TERRORIST ACT.

       (a) Findings.--The Senate finds that:
       (1) Suicide bombings have killed and injured countless 
     people throughout the world.
       (2) Suicide bombings and the resulting death and injury 
     demean the importance of human life.
       (3) There are no circumstances under which suicide bombings 
     can be justified, including considerations of a political, 
     philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or 
     other similar nature.
       (4) Religious leaders, including the highest Muslim 
     authority in Saudi Arabia, the Grand Mufti, have spoken out 
     against suicide bombings.
       (b) Sense of the Senate.--It is the sense of the Senate 
     that--
       (1) Suicide bombings are a horrific form of terrorism that 
     must be universally condemned.
       (2) The United Nations should specifically condemn all 
     suicide bombings by resolution.

  Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I think this amendment is very clear. As 
far as we can tell, the United Nations has never passed a specific 
resolution condemning suicide bombings, nor has the Senate done it, as 
far as I can tell. This would be important. Religious leaders of all 
kinds have basically said

[[Page S10922]]

there is never a political reason, a philosophical reason, an 
ideological reason, a racial, ethnic, or religious reason, no reason 
for someone to become a suicide bomber. It demeans life.
  I am very hopeful the managers of the bill will accept this 
amendment. I have no need to speak any longer on it except to say I am 
hopeful it will be passed.
  I ask the Presiding Officer if it is appropriate because I want to 
make sure the amendment is disposed of--if it is appropriate to ask for 
the yeas and nays or simply to lay it aside at this time; what is 
appropriate?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator can do either.
  Mrs. BOXER. I ask this amendment be laid aside. In doing so, I have 
two amendments laid aside, one dealing with the Afghan women and one 
dealing with suicide bombings. I thank my colleagues for their 
forbearance. I am pleased to be on the Foreign Relations Committee 
where I have an opportunity to work on these matters.
  I thank my Republican friend, and I ask unanimous consent that 
Senator Allen be added as the original cosponsor of the suicide bombing 
amendment. I thank him and Senator Brownback for working with me on 
both issues.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The 
amendment is laid aside.
  The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Before the Senator from California leaves, I wonder if 
she would put me on the two amendments, and I thank the Senator for 
recognizing I have been waiting. I do appreciate the brevity.
  Mrs. BOXER. I thank my colleague. I am very proud to ask unanimous 
consent that Senator Domenici as an original cosponsor of both 
amendments.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________