|
JANUARY 11, 2001 U.S. SENATOR JESSE HELMS (R-SC) at The American Enterprise Institute
Now then, in contemplating the arrival of the Bush administration, the several liberal think tanks in this city are bracing for tough times, thank the lord. (LAUGHTER) Adjusting to life on the sidelines of the public policy debate is not their dish of tea. On the other hand, few institutions in Washington are more threatened by the Bush inauguration than this America Enterprise Institute. Now, if President Bush does the wise thing, he's going to raise your -- what to call it? -- treasure trove of brilliant thinkers and take them all into the administration and appoint all of you to senior positions in the Bush administrations. But I would hope that he will leave at least a few of you here to continue AEI's good work. And I congratulate you on all that you have done down through the years. Now, you may have noticed since the November election that the media have been bubbling in hopeful anticipation of my imminent demise. (LAUGHTER) In the past month, I am told, I have been diagnosed by the media with having pancreatic cancer, terminal prostate cancer, and a host of other life-threatening ailments, and, according to some in the media, I even spent Thanksgiving in Raleigh in a hospital on a respirator, barely hanging on to life, none of which is true. On one occasion, I drove Mrs. Helms to the hospital. She has to take her regular shot. And I vow to you that one of the networks notified the television station to get on it because Helms was in bad shape in the hospital, and we knew it, we got it straight. Well, Dorothy and I went out to have lunch together, and I'm not sick yet, for your invitation to be with you today enables me to rain on their diagnostic parade. Seriously, my purpose in asking John to gather us together is, I think, obvious. We meet at an important moment in the history of this great country of ours. And as we prepare for the inauguration of a fine new president, one of the most important tasks America faces is restoring this nation's foreign policy to the right course. During the past six years, Senate Republicans have had some important foreign policy accomplishments, of which I hope we can all be proud. For example, we enacted into law the LIBERTAD, or Helms- Burton Act, which tightened the noose around the neck of the last dictator in the Western Hemisphere, Fidel Castro. And working with our committee's ranking member, Joe Biden -- and it's a joy to work with Joe -- we took the first steps toward reforming our nation's foreign policy institutions for a post-Cold War world. We passed, as I think most of you know, historic, bipartisan legislation called the Helms-Biden law, a piece of legislation that pays America's so-called U.N. arrears only, only if there are specific, deep-seated reforms at what has been a dysfunctional institution. Now, as we passed the National Missile Defense Act mandating the deployment of missile defenses as soon as the technology is ready, and various other things -- typical important accomplishments of which I think we can be proud -- and I hope you will let us know if we can furnish any information on any of these items. But as we look back on this series of successes, it's worth noting that, without exception, every one of these initiatives began either with presidential opposition or the threat of presidential veto -- every one of them. President Clinton initially vetoed our bipartisan U.N. reform bill. The president and his people refused for almost three years even to sit down with our committee to discuss our proposals for revamping the State Department apparatus. No cooperation whatsoever. President Clinton threatened to veto the LIBERTAD Act until Fidel Castro sent Cuban MiG fighters into the Florida Straits to shoot down two unarmed civilian planes. And on top of that, for eight years, President Clinton did everything in his power to block national missile defense. Now, I repeat for the purpose of emphasis, President Clinton opposed us on every one of our important initiatives. And that's just the legislation that we succeeded in forcing through an unwilling White House. Well then, a week from this coming Saturday, January 20, all that's going to change, as you know. On that day, we will inaugurate a new president on whom we can rely to work with us, not against us, in advancing America's interest in this world. And with the appointment of Colin Powell, Condi Rice and Don Rumsfeld, we will have one of the finest national security teams in the history of this country, in my view. And that will necessarily affect the agenda of the Foreign Relations Committee, because it expands, dramatically and exponentially, the realm of the possible in terms of what can be accomplished for the American people. And, of course, we will continue to work in a bipartisan manner whenever possible, and I must say again that Joe Biden and I have built an excellent working relationship. And while the margin in the Senate has certainly narrowed, to say the least, let's be honest -- unless either party has 60 votes, enough to invoke cloture and stop debate, then very little in going to be accomplished in the U.S. Senate without some measure of bipartisan support no matter who is in control of the Senate or by how narrow a margin. But we cannot and we must not, ladies and gentlemen, ignore the fact that something has changed in Washington. For the first time in five decades -- think of it -- Republicans will control the White House and the Senate and the House of Representatives. And that means Republicans can have an unprecedented opportunity to set the policy agenda, especially in the realm of foreign relations. We must and we will seize that opportunity if I have anything to do with it. One of our first priorities, come January 20, will be to assist the president in implementing his vision of what he talked about so much during the campaign: compassionate conservatism. Those are not just two nice-sounding words. The guy meant them every time he said it. I've sat with him, I've talked with him, and I know that he means it. He has worked that before. And it might surprise you to find compassionate conservatism at the top of the Foreign Relation Committee's agenda, so let me do a little bit of explanation on that. As I've already mentioned and as you well know, President Bush outlined a philosophy of empowering private charities and faith-based institutions to help the neediest of American people. He declared, and I quote, "Government can spend money, but it can't put hope in our hearts or a sense of purpose in our lives." Often he said, over and over again, "When a life is broken, it can be rebuilt only by another caring, concerned human being, someone whose actions say, I love you, and I believe in you, and I'm in your corner'." Now you can be proud of a president who makes that declaration and means it. Mr. Bush continued with this pledge, and I'm quoting him, "In every instance where my administration sees a responsibility to help people, we will look first to faith-based institutions, charities and community groups that have shown their ability to save and change lives. We will rally the armies of compassion in our communities to fight a very different war against poverty and hopelessness. This will not be the failed compassion of towering, distant bureaucracies. It will be a government that takes the side of the faith-based organizations and for private charities who are helping change lives one person at a time." I submit, my friends, that the wisdom of this compassionate- conservative vision must not stop at the water's edge. During the campaign, Mr. Bush talked about some of the many wonderful faith-based institutions with which he has worked and how much he admires them. One of them is a remarkable organization in the state of North Carolina, my home, with which I've been involved, a North Carolina foundation called Samaritan's Purse. Now, Samaritan's Purse is headed by a long-time friend of mine, Franklin Graham, son of another very dear friend, Billy Graham. You've heard of them both. And I'll tell you this, I believe that Franklin Graham and his folks at Samaritan's Purse will do more good with less money for more people around the world than the entire U.S. foreign aid bureaucracy combined. You want an example? In southern Sudan, where a brutal civil war is tearing a nation apart, Samaritan's Purse is running hospitals and clinics which, despite repeated bombings by government forces, provide desperately needed medical and surgical services to the suffering Sudanese people. Not far from the frontlines in the south, in a town called Lui, Samaritan's Purse operates an 80-bed hospital which has treated more than 100,000 patients, some of whom had walked for days across Sudan's plains and swamps to get medical care. And during that same time, more than 40 bombs were dropped on this hospital in March and April of last year, and the hospital was bombed just last week again. But the hospital has remained open. And Franklin Graham reported that the brave doctors and nurses there have saved more than 10,000 lives. Samaritan's Purse has a similar project in more than 100 countries around the world. No tax money is involved, not a penny. The doctors and nurses who go to help him help people go at their own expense and with no pay. That's what you call true compassion. In Central America, after Hurricane Mitch wrecked the region, it was havoc there. Samaritan's Purse moved in, rebuilt more than 5,000 homes. And Samaritan's Purse's project, Operation Christmas Child, tugs at my heartstrings, because it has distributed more than 1 million shoe boxes filled with toys and other gifts to children around the world, most of whom had never had a present before on Christmas or any other time. Now, this is incredible work, particularly to the people who expect government to do everything. But Samaritan's Purse is far from alone in this humanitarian endeavor. Its work is complemented every day by equal efforts of groups such as Catholic Relief Services and Rural Vision and Save the Children, Hadassah, and many, many others that are changing lives all around the world one person at a time. My friends, these are the armies of compassion that President Bush is talking about, and I put it to you: If we can deploy these armies of compassion across America, then we can and we must deploy them around the world. The time has come, I think, to reject what President Bush correctly labels as the failed compassion of towering, distant bureaucracies, and instead empower private and faith-based groups who care most about those in need. And the principle at work here is found in the Christian doctrine of subsidarity, and Pope John Paul II put it this way: "Primary responsibility for helping those in need belongs not to the state" -- not to the government, not to the taxpayers -- "but to individuals and to various groups and associations which make up society." He continued, "By intervening directly and depriving society of its responsibility, government produces a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of public agencies which are dominated more," he said, "by bureaucratic ways of thinking than by concern for serving the needy." Now, I'm just about the strongest Baptist you ever saw, but I agree with the pope. If he keeps on, he's going to make a Catholic out of me. LAUGHTER) Seriously, not since Ronald Reagan and John Paul II took on Soviet communism have a pope and a president been right on target together on an important issue. Too often, however, faith-based charities are dismissed by the U.S. foreign aid bureaucracy. I've seen it happen, and I've become angry about it. For example, my good friend, a Jesuit priest who runs an orphanage for children suffering with HIV/AIDS, and -- let's see if I can pronounce this -- Nu Yung Phani (ph). They call him Father Dag (ph). And Father Dag (ph) approached the Agency for International Development -- you know, that's the foreign aid crowd -- for help in supporting his orphanage. They said, "Oh, no, we can't get involved in that." And he said, "Why?" And they explained that since most of the babies this priest is helping -- since most of the babies would eventually die of AIDS, his project, by definition of the federal agency, did not meet AID's criteria for, quote, "sustainable development." I don't know how you describe it, but the most polite word I could think of is hogwash. I've got news for the AID bureaucrats. What is not sustainable is AID's cold and heartless bureaucratic thinking. And I take the position that I bet you do too, that we must reform the way America helps those in need, by replacing the bureaucracy-laden U.S. Agency for International Development with something new. And it's my intent to work with the new Bush administration to replace the Agency for International Development with a new international development foundation, whose mandate will be to deliver block grants in support of the work of private-relief agencies and faith-based institutions, such as Samaritan's Purse, Catholic Relief Services and countless others like them. We will reduce the size of America's bloated foreign aid bureaucracy, because it's a do-nothing crowd, and then take the money being saved and use every penny of it to empower these armies of compassion to help the world's neediest people. Those who know me are aware that I have long opposed the foreign aid programs that have lined the pockets of corrupt dictators around the world, while funding the salaries of a growing, bloated bureaucracy. But I make this pledge to you today: If we can reform the way in which we deliver aid to the needy based on President Bush's compassionate conservative vision, if we can ensure that the taxpayers' money is going to people like Franklin Graham and Father Dag (ph) rather than funding a wasteful federal bureaucracy, than I will be willing to take the lead in the Senate in supporting an increased U.S. investment in support of the important endeavor we're talking about here today. While we are working to improve the ways America helps those in a material way, I think we must also be attentive to another need, and that is the need for human liberty, because a foreign policy that does not have freedom at its core is neither compassionate nor is it conservative. The 1990s were a decade of enormous democratic advances. In the first years of that decade, we witnessed the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe and, in the final year of that decade, we saw the peaceful transfer of power from long-ruling parties of democratic oppositions in Taiwan in Mexico and the fall of authoritative -- authoritarian leaders in places like Yugoslavia and Peru. Now, this progress notwithstanding, the global movement toward the rule of law and toward democracy and a civil society and a free market still meets resistance in many quarters. And our challenge, I think, all of us, in the start of this new millennium and the start of this new administration must be to consolidate the democratic -- with a small "d" -- advances of the past 10 years while increasing the pressure on those who still refuse to accept the principle that sovereign legitimacy comes from the consent of the governed. And a good place to start is in our own hemisphere and, specifically, just across our own border in Mexico. After 71 years of one-party rule, the corrupt Institutional Revolutionary Party, the initials of which are PRE, has finally been voted out of office. President Fox's victory as president opens avenues for genuine friendship and cooperation between the United States and Mexico, and we better take advantage of it for our own good. President Fox and President Bush already share a constructive vision for dealing with the problems that challenge both of our countries. And while the democracy has finally taken root across the border in Mexico, what's happening just 90 miles off our shores? The last totalitarian dictatorship still sputters on in our hemisphere. They say that Fidel Castro is like a cat with nine lives. Well, I've got news for Mr. Castro: The last of Cuba's cat's nine lives has begun. He'd better watch out. And I don't care how he leaves, horizontally or vertically, just so he leaves. Castro survived the Clinton years for one reason: the Clinton administration never, never made Castro's removal from power a goal of its foreign policy. Embargo opponents correctly sensed that the Clinton people were never really committed to Castro's isolation and removal. And, as a result, as a result, instead of focusing on developing strategies to undermine Castro and hasten his demise, the past several years in Washington were spent wasting precious time and energy on a senseless debate -- I know you agree with me -- a senseless debate about whether to lift the Cuban embargo unilaterally. With Mr. Bush's election the opponents of the Cuban embargo are about to run into a brick wall at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. President Bush is a committed supporter of the embargo of Cuba. Cuban-Americans recognize the real thing when they see it, and they see it in George W. Bush. And that's why they turned out in record numbers to support him in Florida, giving Mr. Bush a margin that secured Florida's 25 electoral votes and the White House. Now then, what this means is that with the embargo finally off the table, the new Bush administration has a golden opportunity to develop a new Cuba policy. The model for such a policy should be the successful policies that the Reagan-Bush administration used back in the 1980s. You remember that? They used them to undermine communism in Poland, and what worked in Poland will work in Cuba. In the 1980s, the United States hastened Poland's democratic transformation by isolating the communist regime in Warsaw while, at the same time, actively lifting the isolation of the Polish people in supporting the democratic opposition and cultivating an emerging civil society with financial and other means of support. I met with a lot of the Polish people about that time, and I can tell you they loved America, because at last, at last they were free. And we must do the same thing in Cuba. That is so obvious. In 1998, you may recall that I introduced legislation in the Senate called the Cuban Solidarity Act which proposed, among other things, giving $100 million in U.S. government humanitarian aid to the Cuban people to be delivered not through the Cuban government but through private, charitable institutions functioning at that time on the island. Such private assistance will help give the Cubans independence from the state -- that is, Fidel Castro -- which now controls their lives by controlling their access to food and medicine and other daily necessities. If we had time, I could discuss the pitiful situation that involves so many of the Cuban people who are laboring to feed their families and households and what a lot of people are doing to try to get enough money to do that. That is a subject for another day. But my point is that we must help the Cuban people regain their freedom. Come January 20, I intend to work with the Bush administration to do for the people of Cuba what the United States did for the people of Poland. And before Mr. Bush's term is over, I believe he will visit Havana. That surprises you, doesn't it? But you know why he's going to Havana, in my judgment? He's going to be present for the inauguration for the new democratic- elected president of Cuba. Fidel Castro will be gone. (APPLAUSE) Another place where democracy desperately deserves renewed American support is Taiwan. A remarkable thing happened in Taiwan at the close of the 20th century. With the election of President Chen, the people of Taiwan presided over the first peaceful transfer of power from a ruling party to its democratic opposition after 5,000 years of Chinese history. Think of it. This was an incredible achievement and an ultimate repudiation of the myth spread by Beijing's dictators and their allies that Western democracy is incompatible, as they put it, with so-called Asian values. I dissent. How sad, therefore, that while Taiwan was undertaking these incredible democratic advances, the Clinton policy of deliberately eroding U.S. support for Taiwan did enormous damage. Clinton repeatedly let down our friends in Taiwan, first by going to China and repeating Beijing's fictitious constrictions on the future of Taiwan. That didn't even make good nonsense, but he did it. And then, by refusing to meet America's legal obligation to provide for Taiwan's self-defense under the Taiwan Relations Act. I shall not forget that action by Mr. Clinton. And this damage must be undone. The military balance of power of the past 20 years is quickly shifting in Beijing's favor and we've got to stop it. And because of the Clinton administration's neglect, Taiwan's self-defense capabilities are not keeping up with Beijing's rapid military modernization. That's known by everybody. It is imperative that we act quickly to reverse that decline. Oh, yes, we must engage, as the word goes, China, the mainland China. We hear that all the time. But Beijing also must be made to understand that its avenues to destructive behavior are closed and that Taiwan will have the means to defend itself and we're going to make sure that that's done. During the campaign, President Bush, as he will be a week from this coming Saturday, he gave his enthusiastic endorsement to the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act, and I intend to work with him to enact what we call the TSEA for short, and to help ensure that Taiwan's democracy remains secure from Chinese aggression. And another place where aggression is being rewarded because of the Clinton administration's neglect is Iraq. Everybody knows that among our military people. For the past eight years we have watched as the Clinton administration has presided over the collapse of our Iraq policy. The Clinton people have abandoned weapons inspections, they've abandoned sanctions, and ultimately they have abandoned the people of Iraq themselves. And that's a gawdawful situation to say about the leaders of our country. We must have a new Iraq policy and such a policy must be based on a clear understanding of this salient fact, ladies and gentlemen: Nothing will change in Iraq until Saddam Hussein is removed from power. With the passage of the bipartisan Iraq Liberation Act, Congress took the lead in promoting democratic opposition to Saddam Hussein, but the Clinton administration again failed to implement that. I look forward to working with a good president, President Bush, to implement effectively the Iraq Liberation Act to help the people of Iraq get rid of that scourge, Saddam Hussein. Perhaps the greatest moral challenge we face at the dawn of this new century is to right the wrongs perpetrated in the last century at Yalta, when the West -- and this is true -- when the West abandoned the nations of Central and Eastern Europe to Stalin and to a life of servitude behind the Iron Curtain. We began the process of righting the wrong in 1998 when the Senate voted to admit Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic into the NATO alliance, and I consider it one of my proudest moments as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to help usher in these three nation's admission to NATO and thus to have helped them secure their rightful place in the community of Western democracy. But the admission of Poland and Hungary and the Czech Republic has not yet fully erased the scars of Yalta. During the Cold War, I was one of a group of senators who fought to defend the independence of what came to be known as the captive nations, the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. We worked to make sure that the United States never recognized their annexation by the Soviets. And with the collapse of Soviet communism, those nations finally achieved their rightful independence from Russia occupation and domination. Yet Russia still looms menacingly over these countries, and looking at the current Russian government one gets the distinct impression that the Russian leadership considers Baltic independence to be a temporary phenomenon. Now, that's an impression that the Russians cannot be allowed to entertain. Just as we never recognized the Soviet annexation of the Baltic states, we must not repeat the mistakes of the 1940s today by acknowledging a Russian sphere of influence in what Russian leaders ominously call the near abroad. These nations' independence will never, never be fully secure until they are secure from the threat of Russian domination, and we are -- we -- I'm groping for a word -- we cannot back off from our obligation. We must see that they are fully integrated into the community of Western democracies. And I intend to work with the Bush administration to ensure that the Baltic states are invited to join their neighbors, Poland and Hungary and the Czech Republic, as members of the NATO alliance. I'm going to move on because I know you have other schedules to keep. We must show Russia's leaders an open path to good relations, while at the same time closing off their avenues to destructive behavior, and that means taking the next step in the process of NATO expansion by issuing invitations to the Baltic nations when NATO's leaders meet for the next alliance summit, which is scheduled for 2002. Then there is the immediate priority of the national missile defense. After eight -- eight, count 'em -- eight long years under President Clinton, we have lost a lot of time, but we have no more time to waste in building and deploying a truly national missile defense capable of protecting the United States and the American people and our allies, protecting all from ballistic missile attack. Now, last year, when President Clinton threatened to negotiate a revised ABM Treaty with Russia that would tie the hands of the new administration, I went to the Senate floor and warned Mr. Clinton that any such agreement would be DOA, dead on arrival, in the United States Senate, and it was. Now, as President Bush prepares to take office, I want to make something perfectly clear to our friends in Russia: The United States is no longer bound by the ABM Treaty. That treaty expired when our treaty partner, the Soviet Union, ceased to exist, and legally speaking the Bush administration faces no impediment whatsoever to proceeding with any national missile defense system it chooses to deploy. Now, President Bush can decide that it is in the United States' diplomatic interest to sit down with the Russians and discuss his plans for missile defense. That's up to him. Personally, I do not think that a new ABM Treaty can be negotiated with Russia that would permit the kind of defense that America needs and must have. But Henry Kissinger told the Foreign Relations Committee this last year, he said, "I would be open to argument, provided that we do not use the treaty as a constraint on pushing forward on the most effective development of a national and theater missile defense." Well, of course. Henry's right. With that caveat by Dr. Kissinger I concur, as I indicated, because President Bush must have and will have, as far as I'm concerned, the freedom to proceed as he sees fit. No liberals need apply. He's going to be the boss as far as I'm concerned, and The Washington Post can go cry in their beer somewhere. (LAUGHTER) I look forward to meeting with this president to ensure that he achieves his goal of rapid deployment of an effective and truly national missile defense. Last but not least, there's the issue of the International Criminal Court. That's one of my favorite subjects. (LAUGHTER) And let me be perfectly clear, as I always try to, particularly on this subject. All of the issues I have discussed today are of enormous importance, but I, if I do nothing else as chairman of the committee this year, I will make sure that President Clinton's outrageous and unconscionable decision to sign the Rome treaty establishing the International Criminal Court is reversed and repealed. Two years ago, President Clinton refused to sign the Rome treaty himself, that was his judgment, and he gave pretty good reasons. I reached for some smelling salt, but anyway. (LAUGHTER) The reason for his refusal, Mr. Clinton's chief negotiator, David Scheffer, told Congress at that time, was simple. Now, listen to this. He said, Ambassador Scheffer, "The Rome treaty purports to establish an arrangement whereby United States armed forces operating overseas could be conceivably prosecuted by the International Criminal Court even if the United States has not agreed to be bound by the treaty. "Not only," he said, "is this contrary to the most fundamental principles of treaty law, it could inhibit the ability of the United States to use its military to meet alliance obligations and participate in multinational operations, including humanitarian interventions to save civilian lives." Now, that was a spokesman of the Clinton administration at that time. Nothing, nothing has changed since Ambassador Scheffer uttered those words to justify the president's signature. The court still claims today, as it did two years ago, to hold the power to indict, try and imprison American citizens, even if the American government refuses to join the court. And this is a brazen assault on the sovereignty of the American people, and as far as I'm concerned it is without precedent in the annals of international treaty law. So I will make reversing this decision and protecting America's fighting men and women from the jurisdiction of this international kangaroo court my single highest priority in the new Congress. We must enact the American Service Members Protection Act, this legislation which Senator Warner and I joined in introducing last year, along with a number of our House and Senate colleagues. It is designed to protect U.S. citizens from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. These, ladies and gentlemen, are my priorities as I believe them to be. As you can see, the Foreign Relations Committee will have a full agenda for the coming year. From revolutionizing the way America delivers foreign assistance, to consolidating the last century's democratic advances and continues the march for freedom in the next, to preserving and protecting and defending the security and sovereignty of the United States, we will have our cut out for us as we seek to restore a foreign policy that is both compassionate and conservative. And to accomplish these tasks we will need your help. And as I said at the outset, AEI is one of the greatly exceptional institutions in the city of Washington. I am genuinely proud of the work you do and honored that you've taken time from your busy schedule to let me come and visit with you this afternoon. I know that we can count on your help and I thank you so much for your patience and your thoughtful invitation.
God bless you. And as Ronald Reagan always said, God bless
America. Thank you. |