Wampum

A week from today Maine's enrolled Dems will have to chose one of five candidates to send to Washington City to represent southern Maine in the Federal legislature. For reasons too tedious to go into, I sent three questions to each candidate's campaign manager, three questions on defense policy. I was looking to see what their views are on the role of the Congress -- a body that funds the policy choices of the Executive branch, or a body that makes policy choices and funds those choices.

I care far less about what any of the candidates think is the magic bullet for the Afghan and Iraq Wars than I care about the independent, politically formed, policy originating role of the Congress. In my mind, the issues central to the English Civil War, the struggle to restrain an arrogant and fiscally irresponsible Crown by the tax paying Commons, are present today -- not just in the transient Bush/Cheney regime and their equally transient blunders, but in the institutional power of the military-industrial complex, a power that has been domestically unchecked since Dwight Eisenhower's administration.

There were three questions: (1) on the BRAC, a general principals question to see which candidates have a theory of Congressional authority, and/or a theory of national interests and military spending, and which want others to decide; (2) on Iraq, a general principals question to see which candidates have a theory of the Occupation, and/or Exit, and which want others to decide; and (3) on the refugees and post-war reconstruction and the US economy, a general principals question to see which candidates were going to vote for costs after the last "combat dollar" is spent, and which want others to decide if any clean-up is affordable, or required by International Law and common decency.

These were their answers to the three questions:

1. Michael Brennan
   
2. Chellie Pingree

I'd hoped for a response from Mark Lawrence, as MB and I hold Michael, Chillie and he in very high esteem. Unfortunately none came.

So here's what's "wrong" with, or under-determined in, these two responses, as policy statements.

The policy core of Michael's response is a reduction of the amount of the budget given to the military-industrial complex. This is wicked good, as the broadest general policy formation of the advocates for the military-industrial complex has been to capture 4% or more of GDP, and Michael's response was towards a 2.7% of GDP figure. A a budget policy view, Michael's is the better response.

As a risk policy view, it could be greatly improved. Surface warships are built at the Bath yard. The reactor engineering for subsurface warships is performed at the Portsmouth yard. Those are "Maine jobs". Both were on the BRAC "cut" list. However, the 8th Air Force, 2nd Bomb Wing (B-52): Hunter AFB GA and Barksdale AFB LA, the 5th Bomb Wing (B-52): Minot AFB ND, the 509th Bomb Wing (B-2): Whiteman SFB MO, the 12th Air Force, 7th Bomb Wing (B-1B): Dyess AFB TX and 28th Bomb Wing (B-1B): Ellsworth AFB SD, the 20th Air Force, 90th Space Wing (500 Minuteman II and 50 Peacekeeper missiles siloed in Colorado, Montana, Nebrasca, North Dakota and Wyoming): Warren AFB WY, Minot AFB NF, Malstrom AFB MT, and the Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay Georgia were not on the BRAC "cut" list.

Peace Action Maine may not be able to distinguish between the degree of risk that 5,600 warheads on 1,600 launchers pose, not just to Maine, but to civilization, and the construction and refit of surface and subsurface combat vessels, but our representative to the Congress must, and must be able to make a case, not for "keeping Maine jobs" but for some greater theory of how much of our treasure is spent on weapons, and on which weapons.

Michael should move from a GDP position that is blind to risk inherent to specific weapons systems and all their doctrinal entanglements to one that gets to the GDP goal while cutting down the rottenest low hanging fruit first.

The policy core of Chellie's response is the construction of a unified view of defense spending and missions so that it is possible to compare the relative effectiveness of different programs and make spending decisions based on which are most effective. This too is wicked good, it restates the objectives of the BRAC process itself -- objective judgment, free from local political pressures, and of the whole, ot just some of the parts temporarily in the news.

Unfortunately, it too fails both the risk assessment test (above), and it fails to recognize the institutional biases in the construction of "effectiveness" -- the central failure of the BRAC process. In this Chellie's policy statement is further from the historic position of the Congress, and before it, the House of Commons, towards the reckless Executive, than is Michael's. Whether nuclear warheads or anti-personnel land mines are "effective" or not, it is a political choice, a choice by Maine people, whether or not to buy them, and whether or not to dispose of them, and because of having bought, and not yet disposed of these weapons systems and their doctrinal entaglements -- the terrible possibility of Maine people choosing to use them.

No analysis of public policy statements on defense should ignore the possibility that gender is present. Chellie is a woman, and the social expectations imposed on women is different from those imposed on men. It is reasonable that women with substantial views on defense, who enter into electoral politics, are less direct about being an agent of change than men with substantively identical policy views.

Both Chellie and Michael are capable of advocacy, of reasoning with representatives of other districts, away from the 4% figure, towards the 2.7% figure, and towards a more effective set of programs and procurement processes. Gender and style should not obscure their common policy, that it is Commons, not the Crown, that pays for, and therefore chooses, the wars and adventures that place the realm at risk, and that the Congress hasn't been doing its oversight job to its historical standards.

A week from today MB and I hope that Michael or Chellie is the choice of the Dems who vote the primaries. MB will be rooting for Chellie, I for Michael.