Cynthia McKinney

Ms. McKINNEY

Ms. McKINNEY. You know, we are talking about beauty contests, but the beauty of these districts is that they provide effective representation for the people who reside in them. And I know that we perhaps would not have even had to have an 11th Congressional District of Georgia as a majority-minority district had the residents of the district been properly taken care of when they had other representation. But you can immediately ride into the 11th District and know that you have crossed some kind of threshold, where you have people who live in homes without running water, you have people who are suffering from environmental contamination and dying, you have people who still have their voting rights violated in 1994 and 1995. We cross some kind of time threshold, we cross some kind of socioeconomic threshold, we cross a neglect threshold. And now, for the first time, particularly in Georgia, outside of the city of Atlanta, people have a strong voice fighting for them, providing some relief from their suffering. And the Supreme Court now says that that is unconstitutional. The question, I guess, is not what about Cynthia Mckinney, but what about those people? Because Cynthia McKinney may be gone, but the problems that those people have to endure day after day as they mete out a meager existence will endure. What is going to happen to those people? Who will serve those people? I do not have lobbyists coming into my office asking me to please provide running water for the people who do not have running water in their homes in your district, Cynthia. The lobbyists come by and they have their hands out and they re asking for government largess, but it is not on behalf of the people who are in need. I was sent here by the people who are in need, and I do my darnedest to represent them, as I know you do, and [[Page H 6653]] that is the appropriate balance in this place; that is the appropriate balance for government, that we have all of the people who are in need and all of the various needs represented. And their in the marketplace of political ideas they clash and their values assume a certain kind of value, and some win and some lose, some come out on top, but everybody should not always have to come out on the bottom all the time. That is what these districts were designed to prevent. That is why I believe all of these districts are beautiful districts.

Ms. McKINNEY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Ms. McKINNEY. I would also suggest that the American people do not want a second occurrence of the situation that occurred after reconstruction. And that is that the American people do not want the elected Representatives of the people of choice, of color, expelled because of their color. But it appears to me that if we are not careful that is where we could end up. Tens, hundreds, thousands, of city council people, school board members, county commissioners, legislators, Members of Congress expelled for no other reason than the color of their skin. Is that the future that we want for this country? And is that the kind of democracy that we are supposed to be marching toward? I think this Supreme Court decision has done a tremendous disservice to the people of this country, because instead of moving forward together, now we have the real chance of moving backwards.

Ms. McKINNEY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Ms. McKINNEY. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield. Are you suggesting then that a Pandora's box has been opened, and so now we see that districts that are a majority black and majority minority across this country have been subjected to lawsuits, so we could also now find the majority white districts that look like this, drawn on the basis of race, also subjected to lawsuits?

Ms. McKINNEY. If the gentleman will continue to yield, Mr. Speaker, they call them monstrosities, they call them sprawling, they call them all kinds of names, and here we see that we have white districts that can also be termed as sprawling and huge and monstrosities of districts as well. Districts are districts. The bottom line is do they elect competent people to represent the people of the area of these districts, just as the Fourth District of Louisiana works.

Ms. McKINNEY. If the gentleman would continue to yield, during the reapportionment process, as you know, you were part of the Louisiana Legislature, I was a part of the Georgia Legislature, and people would go and look at these maps on the wall and they would try and affix the names and shapes and all kinds of pejorative terms to these districts that were majority minority. However, I am astounded to see, and this is my first time seeing this, the Fourth District in Tennessee that looks--I mean if I wanted to be pejorative, I would call it all kinds of names, too. However, that is not what we are about. Was this an effective district in electing someone to represent the people of Tennessee?

Ms. McKINNEY. Mr. Speaker, in my eyes that is the most beautiful district in the State of Georgia.

Ms. McKINNEY. If one had a pejorative perspective about this kind of district, one could say it looks like Batman spreading his wings.

Ms. McKINNEY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Ms. McKINNEY

Ms. McKINNEY. Mr. Speaker, a frightening thing happened yesterday. Two votes that would have changed the outcome of House action were denied. In addition to the disenfranchisement of two Members, 1 million American people were also denied representation on that vote. What does this kind of capriciousness do to our democracy? What was so important that the business of the House had to be shut down? Was it the ``Salute to Newt'' that took place in New York last night? What does this say about the integrity of the vote under Republican rule? Republicans want to deny potential voters with the repeal of motor- voter. Republicans want to deny real voters by invalidating election results in California and North Carolina. And how we see that they are willing to even deny elected Members the right to vote on the floor of the House if it does not fit in with their outcome. Mr. Speaker, this bodes ill for the people of America. This is going too far. They are extremists, and they cannot be trusted.

Ms. McKINNEY

Ms. McKINNEY. Mr. Chairman, it appears that some of my Republican colleagues are suffering from spring fever and can't wait to get their hands on women's bodies. In their rush to implement their neo-victorian social experiment, my colleagues are whittling away at the rights of women and minorities one chip at a time. If we are not careful, women will soon find themselves wearing chastity belts and baking cookies.

Ms. McKINNEY

Ms. McKINNEY. Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained on rollcall vote No. 366. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

Ms. McKINNEY

Ms. McKINNEY. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Ms. McKINNEY. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to correct for the record some misstatements and misrepresentations that have been made about this amendment. First of all, this amendment does not ban arms sales to any country. Second, if there is a problem with this amendment in terms of human rights, it is not that this amendment will fail because it does not address human rights well enough; it will fail for other reasons. Let me just begin to say what some of those reasons are. One is that we are spending millions of dollars to quell regional strife that we, in turn, are the fomenters of. First of all, we are fomenting murder and rampage around the world by fueling conflict, by arming potential adversaries, that is the boomerang effect that my colleague just spoke about, by promoting territorial expansion and crossborder aggression and also by facilitating terrorism and repression. And, in fact, as we learned recently, the CIA funded Jihad school over in Afghanistan trained two of the suspects in the World Trade Center bombing. Second, we are violating our own law. The law states that it shall be the policy of the United States to exert leadership in the world community to bring about an arrangement for reducing the international trade in implements of war. We are violating our own policy. And then finally, why is that the case? It is the case because in the Washington Post story by Jeffrey [[Page H5527]] Smith in today's newspaper, it says that the present administration takes the tack that arms transfers can be made to nondemocratic nations if they help to prop up failing U.S. defense companies. So the bottom line, once again, is the amount of money that is being spent in failing U.S. defense industries. Finally, I would just like to compliment and thank those people who have worked so hard on behalf of this amendment. They are the over 200 grassroots organizations that have gone around the country in support of this amendment, the strong support of our colleagues who have spoken here this afternoon and who have cosponsored this amendment, and finally the strong staff work of Robin Sanders who put it all together.

Ms. McKINNEY. Mr. Chairman, today, I will offer the Code of Conduct amendment to H.R. 1561. My amendment seeks to give Congress--for the first time in two decades--a role in U.S. arms export policy. As the law is currently written, Mr. Chairman, it is nearly impossible for Congress to stop an arms sale. Not since 1986 has a floor vote been taken on an arms sale, nor has a sale proposed by the administration formally been disapproved by Congress. In addition to the lack of congressional oversight in arms sales, the economic cost to the American taxpayer is more than $7 billion a year just to support the arms export bureaucracy. U.S. weapons are being used in 90 percent of today's most significant regional and ethnic conflicts. The weapons and technology that devastated the Iraqi Army only a few years ago, are now available to nations that are undemocratic, violate human rights, and are governed by dictators. In 1993, the U.S. Government cornered a colossal 70 percent of the global arms sales market, and in 1994 U.S. foreign military arms sales were a whopping $12.9 billion. America's arms sales have skyrocketed since the end of the cold war. As this first chart shows, Mr. Chairman, U.S. arms transfers from 1990 to 1993 averaged $21.7 billion a year, whereas, from 1986 to 1989, arms transfers only averaged $10.6 billion. It is amazing and shameful that as America solidifies its post-cold war leadership and encourages global democracy, the U.S. Government sold $83.1 billion in foreign military sales to dictators with no congressional review. Despite this enormous dominance of the international arms market and the ``Boomerang Effect'' against U.S. Armed Forces--only a few Members of Congress have worked to restrain this dangerous trade. Additionally, America spends billions of tax dollars to finance exports to tyrants--highlighted by the second chart--while cutting billions from key domestic programs like veterans benefits, Social Security, and student loans. Mr. Chairman, the Code of Conduct amendment would not prohibit arms transfers to any country. Rather it would establish a higher standard of scrutiny for countries receiving U.S. weapons and more congressional oversight of arms sales. The Code of Conduct makes sure that we look before we leap by providing four guiding principles for U.S. arms transfers. History demonstrates that as a result of Siad Barre's Somalia, Cedras' Haiti, and Saddam Hussein's Iraq, our soldiers have paid the price for selling U.S. materiel to dictators. The code would require that both the President and Congress agree that providing assistance to a certain country is in the best interest of the United States. The code also gives the President flexibility. He can request a 1-year waiver for countries not meeting the code's standards, or in cases where vital U.S. interests are in jeopardy, use an emergency authority. The code is endorsed by 275 organizations from Amnesty International to the YWCA and is supported by the European Parliament. Arms sales to unstable governments must end, and the Code of Conduct will be the first step in that direction. There are 102 Members of Congress who support the guiding principles of the code--democracy, respect for human rights, and nonaggression. I urge all of you to cast your vote in favor of the Code of Conduct. Let's ensure that America's leadership is positively reflected in our arms export policy. Vote for the Code of Conduct. [From World Policy Institute, May 1995] U.S. Weapons at War: U.S. Arms Deliveries to Regions of Conflict (By William D. Hartung) executive summary From Richard Nixon to Bill Clinton, it has been an article of faith for executive branch policy makers that U.S. weapons exports are only made to responsible allies who use these systems for legitimate defense purpose. This report puts that thesis to the test by documenting U.S. weapons deliveries to 50 current ethnic and territorial conflicts. Contrary to the conventional wisdom in Washington, official U.S. government data on arms transfers provides overwhelming circumstantial evidence that U.S.-supplied weaponry is at the center of many of today's most dangerous and intractable conflicts: In the past ten years, parties to 45 current conflicts have taken delivery of over $42 billion worth of U.S. weaponry; Of the significant ethnic and territorial conflicts going on during 1993-94, 90% (45 out of 50) of them involved one or more parties that had received some U.S. weaponry or military technology in the period leading up to the conflict; In more than half of current conflicts (26 out of 50), the United States has been a significant arms supplier, accounting for at least 5% of the weapons delivered to one party to the dispute over a five year period; In more than one-third of all current conflicts (18 out of 50), the United States has been a major supplier to one party to the dispute, accounting for over 25% of all weapons imported by that participant in the most recent five year period; Despite the popular perception that it is U.S. policy to cease deliveries of weapons once a conflict is under way, as of the end of 1993 (the latest year for which full statistics are available) the United States was shipping military goods and services to more than half (26 out of 50) of the areas where there were wars being fought; In a number of volatile areas the United States has been the primary supplier to governments that are involved in ongoing conflicts. In Turkey (76%), Spain (85%), Israel (99%), Morocco (26%), Egypt (61%), Chad (27%), Somalia (44%), Liberia (40%), Kenya (25%), Pakistan (44%), the Philippines (93%), Indonesia (38%), Guatemala (86%), Haiti (25%), Columbia (28%), Brazil (35%), and Mexico (77%), the United States has been the primary supplier of imported weaponry in the most recent five year period for which full data is available. Turkey's use of U.S.-supplied fighter aircraft, helicopters, tanks and armored personnel carriers in its recent invasion of Northern Iraq highlights the dangers of a policy of uncritical assistance to allies engaged in ethnic or territorial disputes, as does the employment of U.S.-supplied equipment on both sides of the 1995 Peru-Ecuador border war. Since the end of the Cold War, the continuing U.S. policy of promoting weapons exports as a key element of U.S. security strategy and economic policy has accelerated the incidence of the ``boomerang effect'': the transfer of U.S. weaponry to forces that end up doing battle against U.S. troops. The last four times the United States sent troops into combat in significant numbers--in Panama, Iraq, Somalia, and Haiti--they faced adversaries that had received U.S.- origin arms, training, or military production technology in the period leading up to the conflict. This is a clear sign that something is awry in U.S. arms transfer decision making processes. Last but not least, covert U.S. arms sales have come back to haunt U.S. citizens by inadvertently strengthening terrorist organizations. Two of the men convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing received weapons training in Afghanistan under the direction of fundamentalist Islamic forces that were armed and trained by the CIA. The suspects in the recent murders of several U.S. embassy employees in Karachi, Pakistan are also suspected of having ties to the CIA's Afghan arms pipeline. David Whipple, the former head of counterterrorism at the CIA, has indicated that these are not isolated cases: ``some of the people who are actual or potential terrorists in this country are former guerrilla fighters in Afghanistan.'' And an Algerian official has described the existence of a ``floating army'' of Islamic fundamentalist fighters who were trained with CIA assistance in Afghanistan and are now engaged in organized attempt to overthrow the governments of Algeria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, among others. As President Clinton tries to mobilize world public opinion against Iran, in part for its alleged role in supporting terrorism in the Middle East, it would behoove him to get his own house in order by clamping down on the CIA's covert weapons trafficking operations, which all too often end up hurting innocent people, including U.S. citizens. The recent revelations that a Guatemalan colonel on the CIA payroll is implicated in the murders of Michael DeVine, an American who ran a farm in Guatemala, and Efrain Bamaca Velazquez, a Guatemalan rebel leader who was married to American lawyer and activist Jennifer Harbury, is just the latest example of a covert arms trading culture that is out of control. recommendations The report makes the following specific recommendations for promoting greater accountability in arms transfer decision making (for the full text of the recommendations, see section IV, below): Recommedation 1: Pass the arms transfer Code of Conduct bill In February of 1995, Senator Mark Hatfield (R-OR) and Representative Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) reintroduced legislation calling for the establishment of a Code of Conduct for U.S. weapons transfers. Under the code, governments that engage in aggression against their neighbors, violate the human rights of their own citizens, come to power through undemocratic means, or refuse to participate in international agreements like the United Nations arms register would not be eligible to receive weaponry from the United States. If the President wanted to make an exception for a specific country on national security grounds, he would have to ask Congress to pass a bill providing an exemption for that nation. [[Page H5505]] The benefits of the Code of Conduct would be twofold. First, it would place considerations about the character of a given arms recipient and how that nation might use U.S. weaponry up front in the arms transfer decision making process, preventing sales to unstable regimes in the process. Second, even in cases where the President sought an exemption, members of Congress would be forced to go on the record for or against, providing a measure of public accountability that rarely occurs under current law. Recommendation 2: Provide more detailed reporting on U.S. transfers of arms and military technology, and press for other nations to do the same Up until the Reagan Administration, the State Department issued an annual report under Section 657 of the Foreign Assistance Act that listed most significant items of military equipment delivered from the United States to any foreign country in the prior fiscal year, ranging from rifles and bullets on up to advanced combat aircraft. The section 657 report should be reinstituted as an annual publication, to provide a tool for keeping track of potential abuses of U.S.- supplied weaponry. A full accounting of U.S. arms transfer policy must also include regular, detailed reporting on U.S. transfers of so- called ``dual use'' equipment--items such as advanced machine tools and computers, measuring instruments, or unarmed light helicopters and aircraft. If Congress and the public had been aware of the particulars of the nearly $1.5 billion in dual use export licenses that the Commerce Department granted to companies seeking to sell equipment to Iraq during 1985 through 1990, some of the more dangerous items on the list might not have been approved for sale. Recommendation 3: The Pentagon and the intelligence community should publish regular reports on the use of U.S.- supplied weaponry in ongoing conflicts All too often, U.S. weapons are supplied on a ``fire `em and forget `em'' basis: the decision to sell is made based on short-term political, strategic, or economic considerations, with little thought given to how these arms might be used a few years down the road. In an attempt to prevent this ``boomerang effect'' from repeating itself in the future, Representative Cynthia McKinney sponsored a successful amendment to the Fiscal Year 1995 Department of Defense Authorization bill requiring the Pentagon to report annually on how proposed arms transfers might create ``increased capabilities'' on the part of potential adversaries, and how they might ``pose an increased threat'' to U.S. forces in some future conflict. As a further step in the right direction, the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency should be required to file annual reports on how U.S.-supplied weaponry is being put to use in current conflicts, either by the original recipients, or as the result of unauthorized transfers to third parties. These reports could serve as a running record of the consequences of past U.S. weapons trading activities, and they would hopefully inject a note of caution into congressional debates over new proposed transfers. Recommendation 4: Outlaw covert weapons shipments From Iran/contra to the arming of Iraq to the ongoing proliferation of weapons originally intended for Afghan rebel movements, covert weapons trafficking have been at the center of a series of unmitigated foreign policy fiascos. As part of the effort to restructure the CIA to better meet the realities of the post-Cold War world, covert arms sales by the CIA and other government departments should be strictly outlawed. Recommendation 5: The Clinton Administration (or its successor) should vigorously pursue a policy of multilateral arms transfer restraint designed to limit sales of conventional weaponry to regions of conflict or repressive regimes Contrary to the findings of the Clinton Administraton's new conventional arms transfer policy, Presidential Directive 41, limiting the spread of weaponry to regions of conflict should be the paramount priority governing U.S. arms transfer decisions in the post-Cold War era. Economic and defense industrial base concerns should take a back seat to efforts to construct a multilateral arms export control regime that can serve both as a tool for preventing conflicts, and for limiting their duration and severity once they break out. At a time when the United States controls 72% of new arms sales agreements with the developing world, U.S. leadership remains an essential prerequisite for implementing any meaningful multilateral arrangement for limiting the flow of conventional armaments. I. Introduction: U.S. Arms Transfers--Promoting Stability or Fueling Conflict? ``[T]here is almost no case since World War II in which arms provided by the United States have been used by the country receiving them for purposes of aggression.''--Richard Nixon, ``The Real War,'' 1980. ``[T]here is almost no instance of a country which is primarily dependent upon U.S. weapons using those weapons in an offensive manner.''--Joel Johnson, Aerospace Industries Association, February 1994. ``[T]here is strong evidence that countries relying on American weaponry have not started wars with their neighbors . . . To cite the most egregious example, Iraq . . . purchased its weapons primarily from Russia and France.''-- Ethan Kapstein, ``Foreign Affairs,'' May/June 1994. ``Given the complexities of arms transfer decisions and the multiple U.S. interests involved . . . decisions will continue to be made on a case-by-case basis. These case-by- case reviews will . . . draw the appropriate balance between legitimate arms sales to support the national security of our friends and allies, and the need for multilateral restraint against the transfer of arms that would enhance the military capabilities of hostile states or that would undermine stability.''--Fact Sheet on Clinton Administration, Arms Sales Policy Directive, February 17, 1995. The Arms Export Control Act states that U.S. military equipment and services shall be provided to other nations only for purposes of internal security, ``legitimate self- defense,'' participation in United Nations peacekeeping operations, or involvement in operations consistent with the U.N. Charter.[1] Based in part on this legislative requirement and in part on their ingrained assumptions regarding U.S. weapons sales, several generations of executive branch officials, policymakers, and independent analysts have taken it as an article of faith that U.S.-supplied weapons are primarily used for defensive purposes. Now that the United States controls nearly three-quarters of all weapons exports to the developing world, the question of whether or not U.S. weapons are used aggressively is of more than merely academic interest.[2] As of early 1994, there were 50 significant ethnic and territorial conflicts under way in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America.[3] By the end of 1993, the number of ongoing wars involving more than one thousand battle-related deaths reached 34, marking the first increase in this grim statistic since the end of the Cold War.[4] By early 1995, progress towards peace in South Africa, the Middle East, and Northern Ireland had been offset by the escalation of conflicts in North Africa (Algeria) and Russia (Chechnya), and the outbreak of a border war between Peru and Ecuador.[5] With the exception of Russia, China, and a few other nations that produce a wide array of weapons systems for their own use, the majority of participants in today's armed conflicts depend upon imported weaponry.[6] The conventional wisdom among U.S. policymakers is that the weapons that are actually used in the majority of the world's conficts are supplied by other, less ``responsible'' suppliers. To the extent that U.S. officials raise questions about arms supplies to regions of conflict, the usual targets of criticism are either Russia or China, which have historically been more willing to supply arms and military technology to ``rogue'' states like Iraq, Libya, North Korea, and Iran.[7] In addition, some observers make pointed references to France's allegedly amoral, mercantile approach to arms sales.[8] In contrast, it has been argued that U.S. arms sales are grounded in carefully considered decisions to bolster the security of trustworthy allies in critical regions. The notion that the United States is only arming the ``good guys'' has a long history. In his book ``The Real War,'' Richard Nixon, the architect of the current U.S. role as the world's leading weapons trafficking nation, argued that U.S.- supplied weapons have rarely been used in a belligerent manner, but that ``Soviet arms are the ones that are constantly used to break the peace.''[9] Nixon's blanket claim ignored a series of aggressive actions by major U.S. arms clients during the Nixon/Ford administrations, including Turkey's invasion of Cyprus, Indonesia's invasion of East Timor, Morocco's occupation of the Western Sahara, and General Augusto Pinochet's reign of terror in the wake of his 1973 coup d'etat in Chile.[10] The Reagan Administration presided over one of the most revealing incidents in the history of U.S. policy towards aggressive uses of U.S. military equipment when it responded to Israel's June 1981 bombing of Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor. Initially, U.S. weapons deliveries to Israel were suspended until the State Department could determine whether the bombing, which utilized U.S.-supplied F-15 and F-16 aircraft, violated Israel's pledge to use U.S. systems for defensive purposes. After a ten week review, Secretary of State Alexander Haig decided to resume arms shipments to Israel, arguing that ``I think one in a subjective way can argue to eternity as to whether or not a military action may be defensive or offensive in character.'' Rather than making a specific case that Israel's bombing of Osirak was justified as a defensive act, Haig seemed to be saying, in Alice-in- Wonderland style, that a defensive use of a weaponry is whatever the U.S. government and its allies say it is.[11] Turkey's 1995 invasion of Northern Iraq, which has been justified by Turkish Prime Minister Tansu Ciller on the grounds that Turkish forces are in ``hot pursuit'' of Kurdish terrorists, raises similar questions about what constitutes a genuinely defensive deployment of U.S.-supplied weaponry (for further discussion of Turkey's use of U.S. weapons against its Kurdish population, see section II, below). This ``see-no-evil'' approach to U.S. weapons trading has survived into the 1990s. The last four times the United States has sent troops into combat they have faced adversaries that received U.S. arms or military technology in the period leading up to the conflict, yet the Clinton Administration's arms transfer policy review stubbornly refused to take into account the very real possibility that U.S.-supplied weapons may be used for purposes contrary to U.S. interests. As if to [[Page H5506]] underscore the business-as-usual tone of the Clinton approach, an official involved in the policy review has indicated that under the Administration's new guidelines, not a single one of the hundreds of major U.S. arms sales of the past fifteen years would have been rejected.[12] The administration's decidedly upbeat perspective on arms sales was summed up early on by Lt. General Teddy Allen, the former Director of the Pentagon's Defense Security Assistance Agency, during testimony to Congress in June 1993: ``Many friends and allies depend on U.S. defense equipment, services, and training to deter, and when necessary, defeat, armed aggression.''[13] When it finally released the results of its arms export policy review in February of 1995, the Clinton Administration described the five key goals of its policy as follows: (1) To ensure that our military forces can continue to enjoy technological advantages over potential adversaries; (2) To help allies and friends deter or defend themselves against aggression, while promoting interoperability with U.S. forces when combined operations are required; (3) To promote regional stability in areas critical to U.S. interests, while preventing proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their missile delivery systems; (4) to promote peaceful conflict resolution and arms control, human rights democratization and other U.S. foreign policy objectives; (5) to enhance the ability of the U.S. defense industrial base to meet U.S. defense requirements and maintain long-term military technological superiority at lower costs. [14]. The idea of controlling the spread of U.S. weaponry to ensure that U.S. exports do not sustain ongoing wars, fuel regional arms races, or strengthen potential U.S. adversaries is only obliquely hinted at in the Clinton administration's priority list; the underlying assumption is that U.S. weapons transfers go to potential ``coalition partners'' to be used for strictly defensive purposes. Despite recent evidence to the contrary, the possibility that today's partner could be tomorrow's adversary doesn't seem to enter into the administration's thinking. To further underscore how small a role the potential risks of U.S. weapons exports will play in executive branch decisionmaking, Clinton Administration officials have indicated that the contribution of a given transfer to the defense industrial base will now be an explicit factor in deciding whether to go ahead with the sale. This could mean that the fact that a deal might extend Lockheed's production run for the F-16 fighter or sustain General Dynamics' assembly line for the M-1 tank will carry greater weight than whether these weapons are being provided to unstable regimes. [15]. Not surprisingly, the claim that U.S.-supplied arms are only used defensively has also been made repeatedly by executives and lobbyists in the defense industry. For example, Don Fuqua, president of the Aerospace Industries Association, made the following claim in a November 1994 article entitled ``Merchants of Peace'': ``during more than half a century, no American soldier ever faced any significant American military equipment used by a hostile power.'' [16] This industry argument has been echoed in academic circles as well, most notably in an article by Ethan Kapstein of the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard which appeared in the May/June 1994 issue of Foreign Affairs: ``. . . there is strong evidence that countries relying on American weaponry have not started wars with their neighbors. Contrast that record with the one compiled by countries that have purchased their weapons from Russia, Western Europe, or Third World suppliers. To cite the most egregious example, Iraq, which attacked Iran in 1980 before turning on Kuwait a decade later, had purchased its weapons primarily from Russia and France. ``Why American arms should be used primarily for defensive purposes is an interesting question. The most likely reason is that countries reliant on the United States fear being cut off and forced to look elsewhere if they misbehave.''[17] The question of whether U.S. weapons transfers are as overwhelmingly constructive and stabilizing as this version of the conventional wisdom claims they are deserves closer scrutiny. As the next section will demonstrate, the sheer volume of U.S. arms shipments to areas of conflict calls into question the notion that these transfers have exerted a uniformly positive or predictable influence on local, regional, and international security. II. U.S. Weapons at War A comparison of the Pentagon's own data on deliveries of weapons through the U.S. Foreign Military Sales (FMS) and Commercial Sales (CS) programs over the past decade with a list of 50 significant wars that were under way during 1993- 94 indicates that U.S. weapons exports have played a major role in fueling the ethnic and territorial conflicts that have become one of the most difficult security challenges of the post-Cold War era [18]: In the past ten years, parties to 45 current conflicts have taken delivery of over $42 billion worth of U.S. weaponry; Of the significant ethnic and territorial conflicts going on during 1993-94, 90% (45 out of 50) of them involved one or more parties that had received some U.S. weaponry or military technology in the period leading up to the conflict; In more than half of current conflicts (26 out of 50), the United States has been a significant arms supplier, accounting for at least 5% of the weapons delivered to one party to the dispute over a five year period; In more than one-third of all current conflicts (18 out of 50), the United States has been a major supplier to one party to the dispute, accounting for over 25% of all weapons imported by that participant in the most recent five year period; Despite the popular perception that it is U.S. policy to cease deliveries of weapons once a conflict is under way, as of the end of 1993 (the latest year for which full statistics are available) the United States was shipping military goods and services to more than half (26 out of 50) of the areas where there were wars being fought. The data outlined above demonstrate that contrary to the assertions of key policymakers, academic analysts, and industry lobbyists, the United States is sustaining the warfighting capabilities of a substantial number of the parties to the world's current conflicts. In a number of volatile areas the United States has been the primary supplier to governments that are involved in either internal or regional conflicts. In cases where the United States has supplied a majority of a client government's imported weaponry over an extended period of time, it is likely that some U.S. systems will be utilized in future conflicts involving these nations (see Table I, below) Among the most serious conflicts in which the United States has been the primary weapons supplier are Turkey, Morocco, Somalia, Liberia, Kenya, Zaire, Pakistan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Haiti, Guatemala, Colombia and Mexico. Official U.S. weapons deliveries to Haiti, Guatemala, Liberia, and Zaire were cut off as of the early 1990s, but U.S. deliveries to conflict zones in Turkey, Morocco, Somalia and Kenya have actually increased over the past few years. In the case of Somalia, the increase is explained by the fact that a new government has been installed as a result of a UN peacekeeping mission in that nation. But continuing U.S. deliveries to Morocco, Turkey, and Kenya have no such rationale: in these cases, U.S. arms are shoring up regimes that have been intransigent in their pursuit of military solutions to sensitive ethnica and territorial disputes. Last but not least, in both Haiti and Guatemala, legislative attempts to terminate U.S. military assistance were subverted by the implementation of covert aid programs that were actually larger than the overt programs that were eliminated by Congress (see sections II and III for further discussion).

Ms. McKINNEY. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Ms. McKINNEY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield? I would like to know why he is cutting student loans.

Ms. McKINNEY

Ms. McKINNEY. Congressman Lewis, I just want to commend you for remembering the importance of motor voter to our democracy, and I cannot help but think about I have a 9-year-old son, and I buy books. The most recent book that I purchased for him was a pictorial of the civil rights movement. It has got all of these wonderful, glorious, and infamous pictures about the dogs, and the water hoses, and Bull Connor, and this is a legacy of this country. This is also a legacy of our quest for real and true democracy. You were there. You saw it. I can only rewalk your footsteps. I can only go back and see where you were 30 years ago at Edmund Pettis Bridge and recall in my own new way the contributions of Goodwin, Chaney and Schwerner, and Viola Liuzzo, and, when I go to Montgomery, I never go there without passing by the civil rights memorial at Morris Deze's Southern Poverty Law Center. We have some of our colleagues here who participated in that struggle for American democracy. Bob Filner is one who serves in Congress with us now who was there with the Freedom Riders fighting for a more perfect democracy. I have a question for you. You have a story that you tell about the man with a cattle prod in his hand, and for our viewers tonight I just would like for you to retell that story because this is a part of our history, and this is a history that we cannot forget; lest we forget, we will surely allow those enemies of democracy who want to restrict the American people's right to vote to wane. So please tell the story.

Ms. McKINNEY. And we do not even have all of the counties on line yet. Just imagine what it would be like if we had all of the counties, 159 counties in Georgia, on line for motor voter. When that happens, Georgia will not be last anymore. I am so sick and tired of Georgia being last in most things. Georgia can become first, and it will also be first in democracy.

Ms. McKINNEY. You know you said something about accountability, and the fact that we enlarge the voting pool also indicates that we would enlarge the attentive public; that is, the public that is paying attention to what we do with the laws that we pass and the impact that what we do here has on those peoples' lives. I cannot help but believe that there is a group of people, and I am sure they are a small group of people, who want to escape accountability for the things that they do, and therefore they introduced legislation to repeal Motor Voter, or they try to call it an unfunded mandate in an effort to escape the accountability that the American people would bring on them for the kinds of policies that we are seeing put into play now. Also, I have to say that it has never been so easy, particularly in the South, in Georgia, to register people, as it is today, and that is because of motor voter. We have a simple little form. I remember in 1992, we had Jesse Jackson come down to the 11th district to do some voter registration for us because we knew we needed that. We found all kinds of voting registration barriers. And in one little small town, Milledgeville, I know you know Milledgeville, GA, we had to stage a protest march, because for some reason it was inconvenient for the folks down at the courthouse to register a lot of people in the town, who happened to be African-American and who happened to be students in the town. So we have got these impediments that have been removed. And now it is so easy, all people have to do is want to be registered and they can register. And it sure makes it a whole lot easier for those of us who want them to be registered. I think this new move on the part of this small group of people is perhaps, well, we know it is wrong-headed and ill-founded, but it takes us in the wrong direction. It takes us backwards, and we do not need to be going back. We need to be going forward. Our democracy is stronger when the American people feel that they have an investment in their Government. Right now the American people do not feel that they have an investment, and a lot of people sit on the sidelines at election time because it is so darn hard to go out there and register to vote. We, of course, as you know, have the purges that go on. Motor voter cures all of that. You can register to vote at midnight in your home if you want to, and that is the beautiful thing about motor voter. So I just think this move that is afoot is wrong-headed and ill- founded, [[Page H5566]] but there are 170 cosponsors on the repeal bill, so it is a threat that is imminent. And that is why I am so happy that the gentleman is alerting the rest of us here to the importance of motor voter, and at the same time the American viewing public that is interested and is looking at C-SPAN right now, to let them know that motor voter is good and motor voter is not safe.

Ms. McKINNEY

Ms. McKINNEY. Mr. Chairman, in 1995, there are over 34 wars or acts of aggression raging throughout the world. These wars are all being fought with arms imported from the United States of America, arms used to kill millions of people, arms used to scar the Earth, arms used to inflict irreversible harm to the children around the world. Today, Mr. Chairman, I will offer the code of conduct amendment to the American Overseas Interest Act, H.R. 1561. The code of conduct is the first major reform of America's arms export process in almost two decades. Although the 1976 Arms Export Control Act provided some restrictions on the executive branch's ability to export arms, historically Congress has had little-to-no oversight responsibility on arms sale. As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II, there is a new world order and America is its leader. Some American citizens are testing the legal waters of holding gun dealers responsible for the death and destruction that their merchandise contributes to. Just imagine what could happen if the poor innocents of Third World countries around the world held each one of us liable for the death and destruction that U.S. weaponry, when sold to dictators, contributes to. In 1993 alone, the United States sold more than $23 billion, 73 percent, in arms sales to developing countries. H.R. 1561 prohibits certain assistance to countries promoting regional instability. However, there are no criteria regarding arms sales. The code of conduct amendment provides those criteria. A recent Gallup Poll showed that more than three-quarters of the American public oppose the U.S. Government selling arms. Ninety-six percent of Americans believe that the United States should not sell conventional weapons to undemocratic governments. Our bad decisions have boomeranged already in Panama, Iraq, Somalia, and Haiti. Our men and women in the Armed Forces in each of those instances have faced our own weapons and technology as a result of our own bad policy decisions. I urge all my colleagues to focus on what the American century could really mean as we ponder America's place in the new world order. Join your 102 colleagues and vote for the code of conduct amendment to H.R. 1561.

Ms. McKINNEY

Ms. McKINNEY. Mr. Chairman, I am proud to rise in strong support of a truly alternative budget. This proposal offered by the CBC balances the budget by making those responsible for the deficit pay for a change. Working families have been paying more than their fair share of taxes all along. While the Republicans scapegoat Medicare and student loans as the culprit, the fact of the matter is that corporate welfare stars have been sponging off the American taxpayer family for decades. The CBC budget closes the tax loopholes and giveaways, from which the Rupert Murdoch's of this country have benefited since the trickle-down years of the 1980's. Moreover, the CBC budget strengthens the programs which educate our children and heal our elderly. Mr. Chairman, the CBC alternative budget does not cut Medicare to give the biggest tax grab in history to the privileged few. It is time to go after corporate welfare, not Medicare. Vote for the CBC budget alternative.

Ms. McKINNEY

Ms. McKINNEY. Mr. Chairman, the voo-doo policies of the 1980's should have taught us something about Reaganomics. Yet, here we go again, Republicans are going to cut taxes for the wealthy and pay for them with cuts to student loans and heating assistance for the elderly poor. If you make $200,000 a year, Republicans feel your child is worth $500 dollars. But if you make $12,000 a year, your child is worth zero. We suspected this all along, but with this bill the Republicans have brought our worst nightmare to us live and in color. They go too far. With this bill, the rich are going to make out like bandits, and at the same time, the Republicans are adding another $750 billion to the deficit over the next 10 years. Mr. Chairman, Republicans are so fond of saying that a rising tide lifts all boats. But what they really mean is that a rising tide lifts all yachts, while the working class homes on shore, get washed away.

Ms. McKINNEY

Ms. McKINNEY. We abolutely were.