BASIC Comment

In Foreign Territory

The New York Times, 12 June 2006.

The U.S. Senate plans to begin consideration this week of the defense authorization bill for the coming year. One distressing section of the package would reauthorize the Pentagon to arm and train foreign militaries, something it was first authorized to do for 2006. Although the money involved represents only a $200 million piece of the half-trillion-dollar Pentagon budget, it marks the continuation of a dangerous militarization of American foreign policy.

Traditionally, the authority to train and equip foreign forces was the territory of the State Department. Arming a foreign power that does not respect human rights invites disaster. So Congress requires the State Department to verify that a government meets certain standards of human rights and democracy before it can receive assistance.

But no such restrictions impede the Defense Department, and the danger is more than theoretical. Six of the 10 African nations the Pentagon proposes to train and equip this year (Algeria, Cameroon, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Tunisia) have poor human rights records.

Washington has little control over how recipient countries choose to wield their newfound might, so train-and-equip programs must be kept under strict observation to ensure that they adhere to necessary guidelines. But the Pentagon is notorious for not operating transparently, and the congressional committees that are supposed to oversee Pentagon spending are unlikely to spare much attention for such a small piece of the overall military budget.

Congress should return these programs to State Department supervision. If it cannot summon the will to do that, it should at least mandate that the programs financed by the Pentagon conform to the same democratic and human rights standards that apply when they are run by the State Department.