ARMS SALES

AND
MILITARY AID
ARMS SALES AND MILITARY AID

Laurie Dobson’s Responses………..……………………………….3

Herb Hoffman’s Responses……...………………………………….6

Tom Ledue’s Responses……………………………………………..7

2
ARMS SALES AND MILITARY AID

1. Do you support an international treaty to ban cluster bombs?

Absolutely, unequivocally. I also support clear mines initiatives, and
actively support the work of the Clear Mines Organization in
Vermont, a very effective organization with which I’ve participated.

2. Would you vote to make the United States a signatory of the 1997
Convention and Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and
Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and their Destruction better known
as the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty or Ottawa Treaty? Yes. The Treaty of
Westphalia, in place successfully for hundreds of years, operated on
the principle of the 'advantage of the other', each country working
for the good of others. I believe we must return to this policy. It
succeeded in ending longstanding war in Europe and is our answer
today.

3. Do you support eliminating US military aid and weapons sales to

governments using child soldiers? Yes. We must never engage in
making children the agents of war. This includes making our or any
other country dependent upon a weapon manufacturing
economy. We should ban weapon making in our state and work to
end it worldwide. Also, work for the development of better methods
to engage these children which are age appropriate, such as
education projects and incentives for countries to build toward
progress for a more hopeful future.

4. Do you support eliminating US military aid and weapons sales to

Israel? No. I think Israel is over-protected. I do not believe in the
goals of AIPAC and believe that we must create a less warlike
presence of Israel and work more to balance the powers in the
Middle East by focusing on alleviating the suffering of the
Palestinians and other countries we have damaged by our support
of the policies of Israel, in its following our model of bullying
behavior.

3
ARMS SALES AND MILITARY AID

5. Do you support eliminating US military aid and weapons sales to

Pakistan? Yes. I am against the sales of weapons and military aid. I
think we should radically shift to the development of non-military aid
to other countries and work to that end while we draw down the
role we have played as the world's police and international mafia
presence. Extortion is a barbaric practice and it is against the
civilized society which our world is trying to perennially create--a
heaven on the earth. We must advance a new model of world
peace. It is within our means to do so and we must try to do our
best. This is what it means to be fully human and it is our duty to
mankind.

6. Do you support eliminating military aid and arms sales to countries

deemed undemocratic by the U.S. State Department? Yes, for all the
reasons I have articulated in the answer above. I realize that these
are radical departures from our current world policy but our current
strategies are increasingly unworkable. We are being crushed into
the ground by righteous world response, due to the harms we are
advancing in our aggressive policies. This is another reason I have
advanced the effort to call our leaders to account for their war
crimes and to indict them on local, municipal levels--we must show
a clear unequivocal response to war policies perpetuated by the
vile forces at work within our government today. We must show the
world that we retreat from and utterly relinquish these methods and,
instead, turn to a higher and more elevated role of behavior in the
world.

We will, soon enough, be forced by economic circumstance, if not

prevailing worldview, to see, as did Nazi Germany, that our country
is banished as a world leader until it finds a better way to
participate and engage with the other nations of the world. It
would be far better if we came to these understandings on our own
and if our own governmental institutions and 'think tanks' created
the apparatus for helping our people to understand and accept

4
ARMS SALES AND MILITARY AID

this new role in the world, rather than having it enforced upon us
from without.

We created the economic climate which fostered the disastrous

radical climate of the Middle East. These are economic problems
and they must have economic and moral solutions which can
properly alleviate the need for extremism. I call for an international
forum on the immediate return to the intent and extended
application of the Treaty of Westphalia as the solution to the
worldwide problem of the United State's militaristic role in the world.
I believe it is the answer to our times and I would advocate for this
path and others which will lead us back to our original founding
intent to create the maximal means of enhancing life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness.

7. Do you support selling weapons or providing military assistance to

countries in conflict? If it depends on the country, what criteria
would you use to comply with the US Arms Export Control Act? No.
Militarism is the wrong method but a UN Peacekeeping Force could
operate with our support. We should reduce our country's face of
militarism as it does not carry with it the trust upon which true
security depends. We must withdraw from this role and find a way
to increase our presence by means more helpful and ultimately
more workable than those upon which we have presently relied.

5
ARMS SALES AND MILITARY AID

1. Do you support an international treaty to ban cluster bombs? Yes.

2. Would you vote to make the United States a signatory of the 1997
Convention and Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and
Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and their Destruction better known
as the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty or Ottawa Treaty? Yes.

3. Do you support eliminating US military aid and weapons sales to

governments using child soldiers? Yes.

4. Do you support eliminating US military aid and weapons sales to

Israel? Yes.

5. Do you support eliminating US military aid and weapons sales to

Pakistan? Yes.

6. Do you support eliminating military aid and arms sales to countries

deemed undemocratic by the U.S. State Department? Yes.

7. Do you support selling weapons or providing military assistance to

countries in conflict? If it depends on the country, what criteria
would you use to comply with the US Arms Export Control Act? I
would have liked this question to be more specific. I would favor
such sales and assistance to nations who are clearly defending their
sovereignty. I am adamant on the point that the United States
should not be the arms dealer to the world.

6
ARMS SALES AND MILITARY AID

1. Do you support an international treaty to ban cluster bombs? Yes.

When we use these weapons or land mines we declare an open
ended war on civilians as we see in Vietnam and Cambodia.

2. Would you vote to make the United States a signatory of the 1997
Convention and Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and
Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and their Destruction better known
as the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty or Ottawa Treaty? Yes. Would any of
us ever want land mines used in Maine? Our country’s stance on
this issue is both needless and self-defeating.

3. Do you support eliminating US military aid and weapons sales to

governments using child soldiers? No. Whenever we stoop so low
as to arm the antithesis of our ideals, we undercut our moral
authority around the world.

4. Do you support eliminating US military aid and weapons sales to

Israel? Yes. This elimination should be a process that happens over
time. We need to focus on the power of diplomacy. We can lead
toward peace by helping Israel and the countries of the region to
understand that it is in their interests to make peace with each other
that is based upon human rights and shared interests.

5. Do you support eliminating US military aid and weapons sales to

Pakistan? Yes. This elimination should be a process. We need to
focus on the power of diplomacy.

6. Do you support eliminating military aid and arms sales to countries

deemed undemocratic by the U.S. State Department? No. This label
is too subjective. Furthermore, it is not our job to prescribe what kind
of government is best for a people.

7
ARMS SALES AND MILITARY AID

7. Do you support selling weapons or providing military assistance to

countries in conflict? If it depends on the country, what criteria
would you use to comply with the US Arms Export Control Act?
Depends on the country. Generally this is a bad idea. If a gang
were fighting in the streets we would not think that giving them all
baseball bats would make them more secure. We need to invest in
peace, not war. If force is needed for peace-keeping it should be
an international force whenever possible. At the same time, we
needed to supply Britain prior to our entry into WW2. I would
comply with the US Arms Export Control Act.