Ronald Dellums: “I sense that we are in the closing moments of this debate and I sense that there is clearly an emerging very strong…”

“I sense that we are in the closing moments of this debate and I sense that there is clearly an emerging very strong bipartisan consensus in support of this amendment. So I would simply, in brief, congratulate and thank both my distinguished colleague, the gentlewoman from Georgia [Ms. McKinney], and my distinguished colleague, the gentleman from California [Mr. Rohrabacher] for their persisting in this effort to establish a code of conduct for this Nation on the transfer and the sale of military arms. In brief, if we continue, Mr. Chairman, to look upon weapons sales as one of our major exports, I believe that it is imperative that, as a great nation, we establish some basic ground rules on such sales. The beauty, the brilliance, and the eloquence of the amendment that is before us lies in the fact that it is both basic and simple. It simply asks that any country receiving U.S. arms meet four very straightforward conditions. I repeat them and underscore them for the purposes of emphasis: One, have a democratic form of government. Two, respect human rights. Three, be nonaggressive. And four, participate in the U.N. register of conventional arms. What could be more fundamental? What could be more basic? What could be more simple? Therein lies the eloquence, the brilliance, and the genius of this amendment.”