The Foreign Service Journal, September 2007

vate ties with these abusive mili- taries as “partners in the war on terror.” The administration has sought to evade restrictions often imposed by the Senate Appro- priations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs by routing aid through the Department of Defense rather than the Department of State. This stratagem ignores the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, which gives State primacy over how and when to pro- vide military assistance to foreign governments. Over the years, Congress has added conditions to the FAA that require the State Department to consider the recipient government’s record on human rights and democracy before providing military aid. Congress deliberately placed the responsibility for providing mil- itary assistance with State to ensure that assistance is granted in accordance with long-term foreign policy goals. Congress should resist administration efforts to evade oversight, and act to restore the lead role of the Department of State in assis- tance oversight. In the final analysis, it is for the American people to restore their allegiance to, and faith in, those human rights values rooted in the Bill of Rights and first declared in a foreign pol- icy context by President Franklin Roosevelt. This would entail recalling and recognizing the wisdom in Roosevelt’s words at another time of great national peril: “The mighty action that we are calling for cannot be based on a disregard of all the things worth fighting for.” F O C U S S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 7 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 25 Congress should resist administration efforts to evade oversight of the human rights implications of its foreign assistance programs.