Congress’ approval of a $1.3 billion aid package to Colombia earlier this year caught the attention of senior journalism major Seth Quackenbush.
Supposedly meant to “fight the war on drugs,” the package delegated funds for several different purposes, including human rights work. The biggest chunk of the $1.3 billion went to the Colombian military for the destruction of drugs.
But Quackenbush sensed some inconsistencies in the government’s action and its decision to give so much money to the military.
“What the government was saying didn’t seem to explain what was going on,” he said.
For instance, a bill that would have moved nearly a quarter of a million dollars from the Colombian aid package into rehabilitation efforts in the U.S. was defeated in Congress.
A study commissioned by the Clinton administration in 1995 found that rehabilitation was the most effective of four ways to combat the domestic drug problem. In contrast, source-crop eradication — destroying the drugs where they are grown, as in the case of Colombia — was found to be least effective.
In search of an explanation, Quackenbush joined forces with University alumna and Survival Center volunteer Agatha Schmaedick to create the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) Working Group — a forum for students to discuss U.S. foreign policy and military involvement.
The idea of a military industrial complex has existed for years. Former President Dwight Eisenhower warned against its influence in his farewell speech of 1961, and political critic Noam Chomsky has talked about it as well.
As Quackenbush described it, the military industrial complex is a “web of relationships” that have developed out of the mutual interests of the militaries and industries around the world, especially in the United States.
“A lot of private industries have profited enormously through making weaponry for the U.S. military and so they have a tremendous interest in keeping it pumped up even if it’s unnecessary,” Quackenbush said. “The reason we’re producing weapons is no longer for national defense. It’s to keep the money flowing.”
Schmaedick extends the definition to cover more than just the military weapons industry; she said that key industries such as oil, apparel and cash crops are also connected with oppressive militaries around the world.
“Maintaining this mutually self-serving relationship is more important than respecting the rule of law and governments of the world,” Schmaedick said.
The group’s focus will be on educating themselves, Schmaedick said. That does not mean, however, that it will avoid activity altogether.
A plan is in the works to send six students to Georgia in November for the School of Americas (SOA) protests. SOA is a military training school that has been connected with human rights violators worldwide.
On Oct. 27, the group is sponsoring a speech by an East Timorese woman named Ajiza Magno, who is studying economics at the University. The speech, which Schmaedick said will cover military violence and labor standards in East Timor, will take place at 7 p.m. in Room 100, Willamette Hall.
Schmaedick’s personal focus is East Timor, an issue she has been working on since she was 13 years old, but she emphasized that she wants the group to come up with topics that the members are interested in.
University alumni Takeshi Sengiku, a former co-director of the Colombia Support Network in Eugene, said that his interest in the MIC stems from wanting to know more about U.S. foreign policy while also finding out which companies dictate what happens in other nations.
“One of the things that somehow fascinates me is the structure of the U.S foreign policy, its military aids and the relationship among all nation states in the international arena. [It is all] so far away from us [as] individuals,” he said.