In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the American
people are perhaps more aware today than at any time since the end of World
War II of the importance of maintaining strong U.S. international leadership
and a military that is second to none. My lifelong commitment to upholding
these values began as a young man.
I learned from my father, a member of the U.S. Foreign Service, that the
United States has a unique and important role to play in promoting democracy
and respect for human rights around the world. These lessons have greatly
impacted my work over the last 18 years on the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, where I have promoted active and responsible U.S. engagement
in global affairs. I continue to work for full funding of a robust international
affairs budget to give U.S. diplomats the tools they need to develop strong
relationships with our friends and allies and to promote our long-term
economic, political and security interests. As Chairman of the Subcommittee
on East Asia and Pacific Affairs, I continue to work to ensure that U.S.
policies in the region reflect the American commitment to peace, progress
and human dignity.
My commitment to supporting a U.S. military that is second to none is rooted
in my service in the Navy during Vietnam, commanding a swift boat in the Mekong
Delta. My two tours in Vietnam gave me a firsthand understanding of the sacrifice
and courage of those who have served and fought to defend our country. It also
taught me the grave responsibility that America's leaders have to ensure that
we do not demand these sacrifices lightly, nor take them for granted. In my 18
years in the Senate, I have taken this responsibility very seriously, working
to ensure that the military is deployed overseas only when the objectives are
clear, the support of the American people is solid, and the ability of the Armed
Forces to pursue their mission is unrestricted by political considerations. I
am also committed to providing quality health care and housing to our military
families, as well as ensuring competitive wages for those who volunteer to serve
our country. While I believe that our limited defense dollars must be spent wisely
and efficiently, we must provide the training, equipment and technology that
allow our Armed Forces to successfully meet the daunting security challenges
of the 21st century.
Senator Kerry kicked off the 107th Congress by joining other senior foreign
policy makers in a special edition of The Washington Quarterly. The Senator’s
article, “Stopping at the Water’s Edge,” outlined his
agenda for U.S. policy in the year 2001, calling for a bipartisan approach
to key issues such as U.S. relations with our allies in Europe, with China
and Russia, the continuing proliferation challenge posed by North Korea,
and the future of the U.S. approach to Iraq.
Following up on the significant role he played with Vietnamese officials
at the highest levels to encourage conclusion of the U.S.-Vietnam trade
agreement in July 2000, Senator Kerry managed the floor debate on the
accord, which passed the Senate on October 3, 2001 and was signed into
law by President Bush later that month.
After visiting New Delhi in December 2000, Senator Kerry addressed the
Senate on the importance of U.S. relations with India, the world’s
largest democracy. He spoke about the importance of U.S. humanitarian
assistance to the Indian people in the aftermath of devastating earthquakes
in the western state of Gujarat, and he emphasized the great potential
for the United States and India to develop a strong, cooperative relation
across a broad range of issues.
As the senior Democrat – now Chairman – of the Foreign Relations
Subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific, Senator Kerry continued his
leadership on the question of U.S. relations with China and Taiwan. Following
up on a major speech on U.S.-China relations in 2000, Senator Kerry addressed
the question of U.S. relations with Taiwan. In a speech on the Senate
floor, he reiterated the importance of the long-standing U.S. “one
China” policy to maintaining stability across the Taiwan Strait.
While emphasizing the U.S. national interest in preserving democracy
in Taiwan, he outlined the dangers of abandoning the strategic ambiguity
that serves both to deter a cross-Strait attack by China as well as a
precipitous declaration of independence by Taiwan that could provoke
a war.
Senator Kerry also worked on the issue of U.S. relations with South Korea
and the future of our policies toward North Korea. The Senator met with
South Korean President Kim Dae Jung during his March 2001 visit to Washington,
and pressed the Bush administration to continue to support President
Kim’s efforts to normalize relations with Pyongyang. In a speech
on the Senate floor, Senator Kerry also outlined the importance of continuing
talks with North Korea begun during the Clinton administration, which
were aimed at freezing Pyonyang’s long-range missile program.
Continuing to play a major role in the debate on U.S. National Missile
Defense policy, Senator Kerry gave two major floor statements on NMD
developments in the Bush administration. He restated his concerns about
the rush to deploy a system that has not been fully tested, but reiterated
his support for the deployment, in cooperation with U.S. allies and other
nuclear powers, of an effective, limited NMD system. He urged the Administration
to seriously engage Russia in discussions on ways to amend the 1972 Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty (ABM) and to consult closely with U.S. allies in Europe
and Asia, as well as China, to prevent changes in U.S. strategic policies
from destabilizing the international environment.
Following the President’s announcement in December 2001 that he
was notifying Russia of the U.S. intent to withdraw from the ABM Treaty,
Senator Kerry returned to the Senate floor to express his concern that
the Administration continues to emphasize the threat from ballistic missiles
at a time when the United States is confronting the tremendous challenge
of providing for homeland security and fighting the war on terrorism.
Senator Kerry also commended the Administration’s progress on negotiating
an agreement to reduce the U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear stockpiles,
and once again emphasized the importance of continuing to focus on vigorous
arms control and nonproliferation programs as the most effective defense
against the threat from weapons of mass destruction.
In keeping with his commitment to supporting strong U.S. nonproliferation
efforts, Senator Kerry took an active role in opposing the nomination
of John Bolton for Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International
Security. Mr. Bolton has expressed extreme views on a wide range of U.S.
foreign policy issues, including criticizing supporters of the Comprehensive
Test Ban Treaty as “neo-pacifists”and questioning whether
the United States is ever legally bound by its treaty obligations. Both
in hearings before the Foreign Relations Committee and in a statement
on the Senate floor, Senator Kerry outlined his deep concern about confirming
Mr. Bolton for a position responsible for issues on which the nominees
views are contrary to those held by most Americans.
Senator Kerry worked in 2000 with a bipartisan group of Foreign Relations
Committee members to author and pass the then-largest response by the
Federal Government to the AIDS epidemic. Since that time, the Senator
has continued his work in this field by securing Senate support for the
vaccine tax credit to bolster research and development of vaccines against
AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. He is also co-Chair, along with Senator
Bill Frist, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies HIV/AIDS
Task Force. Finally, Senator Kerry continued his efforts to develop legislation
to lay out a strategic U.S. approach to the global HIV/AIDS epidemic.
In the last few months of 2001, the main focus of the Senator’s foreign
policy work was the U.S. response to the events of September 11th. From the beginning,
Senator Kerry has played a leadership role in supporting the U.S. response to
the attacks both at home and abroad. In a speech on the Senate floor on September
12, he said, “...our hearts [are] literally heavy and aching with the pain
of what we have witnessed and what we know so many families are experiencing
today, and also with a sense of outrage at the loss of every innocent citizen...These
losses are felt by all of us in a very searing way.”
In the months since the attacks, the Senator has discussed the U.S. diplomatic,
financial, and military efforts against terrorism in meetings with the President,
Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. In
a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in October, he pressed
Secretary Powell to ensure that U.S. involvement with the Afghan people will
not end when our military objectives have been achieved, and he called for the
UN Security Council to take the lead in ensuring a serious, long-term international
commitment to rebuilding Afghanistan and preventing it from once again becoming
a haven for terror and chaos. He continues to follow these developments closely
through classified briefings and meetings with Administration officials.
In January of this year, Senator Kerry traveled to the Middle East – specifically
to Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Israel – to discuss with high-level
officials the question of the roots of anti-American terrorism, and what steps
we as well as these governments can take to address this problem. In each country,
the Senator had a broad range of discussions on these and other critical issues
in the region, including the Arab-Israeli situation and Iraq.
Senator Kerry has worked hard to guarantee that our national defense remains
second to none. The events of September 11 clearly demonstrated the importance
of strengthening our capacity to confront today’s most pressing security
concerns, particularly the all-too real threat of terrorism against the American
homeland and the potential that rogue states may be willing to employ weapons
of mass destruction delivered by unconventional means. To protect U.S. national
security, it is essential that the United States continue to recruit and retain
highly-skilled personnel by providing our servicemembers with adequate pay, housing,
medical care, and other services and benefits.
The Senator continues to work to ensure that our limited resources are allocated
to defense programs that best safeguard U.S. interests while providing for the
military personnel who defend them. The Senator supported the Department of Defense
Appropriations bill, which the Senate approved on December 20, 2001. This legislation
provides $317.6 billion in funding for national defense programs and $20 billion
in emergency supplemental funding for homeland security, defense activities to
combat terrorism, and aid and recovery programs for victims of the terrorist
attacks.
Senator Kerry continues to work with the technology community to make available
to the Departments of Defense and State the cutting-edge, security-related products
being developed in Massachusetts. While working closely with large, traditional
defense contractors in the state, the Senator continues to promote the work of
the many smaller research and development firms that form the core of the Commonwealth’s
new economy. As a result, the men and women of the U.S. armed forces reap the
benefit of advanced technology in everything from light-weight, hi-tech cold
weather gear to more reliable stores of blood for training and battlefield emergencies.
The Senator also works with various Defense Department agencies to ensure that
environmental and public health concerns arising at former and current DoD use
sites in the Commonwealth are addressed in a timely and proper way. The Senator
supports a U.S. military that is second to none, and is committed to finding
ways to advance this objective without sacrificing the health and environmental
concerns of his constituents.
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