House candidates focus on war
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By ED BARNA Herald Correspondent - Published: September 29, 2006
MIDDLEBURY — Martha Rainville, Republican candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives, was surrounded by Bush administration critics at a debate on foreign affairs with other candidates Tuesday. She managed to hold her ground on the key question of how to deal with Iraq.
The Vermont Council on World Affairs and the Rohatyn Center for International Affairs at Middlebury College held the debate at the college's Mead Chapel.
Middlebury is a liberal-leaning campus in a town with a strong Democratic voting record. That and the presence of four House candidates from smaller parties critical of Republican administration policies gave the two-hour session a decidedly antiwar emphasis.
All six participants had equal speaking time in answering questions from moderator Christopher Graff and written questions from the audience.
Aside from Rainville, debaters included Democrat Peter Welch, the Vermont Green Party's Bruce Marshall, Independent Keith Stern, Liberty Union's Jane Newton, and Dennis Morrisseau, who said that because he had been allowed three words for his party he had submitted "Impeach Bush Now."
A recent intelligence community report apparently suggesting that the Iraq War had worsened this country's problems with terrorists did not sway Rainville from advocating a policy that Welch characterized as "stay the course." Rainville's own summary was that we are close to completing our mission in Iraq and should remain there until that country's internal defense force is up to full strength and the Iraqi government is in control of its country.
Then, she said, the Iraqis will be able to choose their own government, "as provided in their constitution."
Welch contrasted this with his own opposition to the war "from the beginning."
Graff recalled a 2000 statement by Bush that American troops should be fighting wars, not engaging in nation-building, and asked what role the candidates thought the country should play in the world.
Rainville said the National Guard had been involved in nation-building in Bosnia, Kosovo and elsewhere. "We have to recognize first and foremost that military action is the least effective way of influencing world affairs," she said.
The United States is powerful enough not to need to project its power by military force and should instead play a major role "in a moral and ethical way," Rainville said. "There are times when military action is unavoidable," but mainly we should work with organizations around the world to build roads, schools, clinics, and otherwise aid international development, she said.
Welch contrasted the "arrogance" and "go it alone" approach of the Bush administration with the previous tradition of bipartisan foreign affairs policymaking going back to World War II. That tradition must be revived, he said, and only global alliances can solve global problems like security, the environment and terrorism.
Asked to name a non-domestic issue not in the headlines that they would like to have brought forward if they had 20 years in Congress, the way Sen. Patrick Leahy put a spotlight on land mines, Welch contrasted the $30 billion spent annually on non-Iraq problems around the world with the $1.5 billion he said is spent daily on the Iraq war. "We have to have new leadership in Congress to make sure these upside-down priorities are changed," he said.
Rainville said many world problems would be positively affected by improving the status of women. AIDS, hunger, lack of development and more would have a better chance of being addressed by nations that weren't removing half of their population from the efforts to solve them, she said.
Asked about global warming and the Kyoto Protocol for controlling carbon emissions — which the United States has not signed — Welch said this was a good example of why control of the House needs to shift to the Democrats. The chairman of the committee of jurisdiction for the issue, Rep. Joseph Barton, a Texas Republican, has said while he is chairman, the committee will not address global warming legislation, Welch said.
He contrasted that with the Vermont Legislature's passage of a bill that included efficiency standards, a clean energy fund and strong vehicle emission standards.
Rainville said we can't use not signing the Kyoto treaty as an excuse for not taking action. We need to get away from fossil fuels, help China and India avoid damaging the environment while developing and lower carbon emissions in the U.S. through "any way possible," she said.
In a final statement, Rainville emphasized her wide experience — town boards and work for the state as well as military leadership — and emphasized that she would be her own person in Congress. She would not waste time discrediting other politicians, so that in a nonpartisan way "we can restore fiscal responsibility and ethical behavior."
Welch emphasized the need for working together domestically and dealing with new world problems such as global warming, terrorism, AIDS and "failed African states." America has been strong when it has worked with its allies, he said, and even in solving a problem such as how to get out of Iraq, "global problems required global solutions."
But it was the man behind "Lieutenant Morrisseau's Rebellion," as he described his candidacy, whose closing statement produced the evening's most memorable fireworks. He recounted how he had opposed the Vietnam War "from the beginning," even after being forced to enlist under threat of the draft, even while in his officer's uniform — to the point of standing alone before the White House with a sign "125,000 American casualties — why?" Morrisseau refused to board a plane to Vietnam while national TV cameras watched, for which he was tried in a court-martial. Morrisseau said the incident ended with the military discharging him "to avoid publicity."
Turning to Rainville, Morrisseau, in a loud voice, said, "You do have a duty to disobey illegal orders. You don't send troops to an illegal war, I don't give a damn if it was George Bush who told you to do so, General Rainville!"
That confrontation brought the session's loudest applause.
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