"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS" by SUSAN PEEK on Aug. 11, 1991 at 13:58 Eastern,
about FULL TEXT RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (3193 notes).
Note 3192 by UMNS on Sept. 26, 1996 at 16:42 Eastern (5954 characters).
SEARCH: world, peace, order, nuclear, Lugar, Myrick, Bumpers
Produced by United Methodist News Service, official news agency of
the United Methodist Church, with offices in Nashville, Tenn., New
York, and Washington.
Contact: Joretta Purdue 478(10-71B){3192}
Washington, D.C. (202) 546-8722 Sept. 26, 1996
Members of Congress voice
concerns about world peace
WASHINGTON (UMNS) -- Two United Methodist senators and a
representative expressed concerns about Russia and defense
spending in a one-day conference on world peace here Sept. 25.
Sen. Richard Lugar, a Republican from Indiana; Rep. Sue
Myrick, a Republican from North Carolina; and Sen. Dale Bumpers, a
Democrat from Arkansas, were among several speakers at the fifth
annual Christian World Order and World Peace Congressional
Conference.
The conference, originated by United Methodist Men, is now
co-sponsored with Presbyterian, Evangelical Lutheran, American
Baptist and Disciples of Christ men's groups.
Lugar said the United States and the former Soviet Union
share the problem of dismantling the nuclear warheads the two
nations formerly had aimed at each other. Of particular concern is
the fissile material.
"The Russians ... are attempting to store it, just as we have
stored it in our country," Lugar reported.
In the United States the cost of storing the deadly nuclear,
chemical and biological material left over from the Cold War is
approximately $800 million a year, he added.
Lugar and Sen. Sam Nunn, another United Methodist who happens
to be a Democrat from Georgia, joined forces to lead a bi-partisan
effort five years ago that resulted in passage of the Cooperative
Threat Reduction Act, better known informally as the Nunn-Lugar
denuclearization program.
In addition to funding the dangerous work of dismantling
nuclear weapons, a provision of the act underwrites the purchase
and conversion of the high-grade fissionable material to low-grade
nuclear material for peace time uses.
"We are barely through a tenth of that work, but the good
news is that we are at it," asserted Lugar, who had been in Russia
the preceding month and who said both the Bush and Clinton
administrations had supported the program. "It is not an easy
process, even as a commercial transaction, but it is a critical
one," he declared, explaining that a nuclear explosion in any part
of the world will have fallout in other areas.
Lugar said that it is ironic that as the big powers try "to
get out of the business" of nuclear weaponry, other countries such
as India and Pakistan are trying to get into it.
The senator, who was one of many candidates for the
Republican Party's Presidential nomination earlier in the year,
said there have been 700 documented attempts to steal nuclear,
chemical and biological material from Russian laboratories during
the last year.
He asserted that "the solution to this dilemma is rigorous
control over this material" and that the task is doable.
"As people of good will, we are trying to work our way
through these problems, and we must be more successful for the
safety of our own people as well as people around the world,"
Lugar stated.
Myrick said she sees "a trend toward global democracy. I
really believe that's going to be attainable."
But while reports from China indicate that the people -- not
the government -- are more entrepreneurial and open to democracy,
she said, in the former Soviet Union doors may be closing.
"I am disturbed about what's happening over there," she
remarked. She said she thinks the hope is in individuals --
businessmen and others -- who are sharing expertise and their
faith, rather than in U.S. government dollars. Myrick urged people
to "reach out" to others across the world and in this country.
Saying that as a society people have stopped looking out for
each other, Myrick advocated each person's reaching out to someone
who is "down on their luck" or to a student who needs mentoring.
Bumpers observed that while the United States is spending
$267 billion in defense in 1997 -- more than all of the other
nations combined -- "we are raising a generation of illiterates!"
Terming education a national disaster, Bumpers said that if
defense spending had not been run up during the years 1980-92, the
country would have "a $100 billion surplus this year."
For the cost of one bomber, the problems of the country's
national parks could be solved, Bumpers asserted. Great numbers of
people use the parks, he said.
People in this country want breathable air and drinkable
water, he added, contrasting these essentials with the Senate's
adding a dozen F-18 fighters to the defense appropriation even
though no branch of the Armed Forces had requested them.
"If we bankrupt the nation, what's left to defend?" he
challenged.
Bumpers argued that the needs of this nation are in upgrading
air traffic systems, controlling terrorism, improving education
and repairing the transportation infrastructure, yet defense
spending is half of the country's entire discretionary spending.
He also faulted Congress for failing to give attention to
revenue as well as expenditure, citing the lapse of the airport
tax and the proposed repeal of the gasoline tax that was being
used for debt-reduction as examples.
Bumpers, who has announced he will not seek re-election, said
that Congress has tried to respond to every complaint and question
from the public and press in regard to finances and ethics, but
instead raising the credibility of elected officials, that has
continued to fall. He blames the media.
There are 500 talk shows on radio, he said, and 95 percent
are ultra conservative. Their content is "calculated to get you
.. to distrust the government," Bumpers maintained.
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