Many of my fellow Kossacks are most likely aware of Oregon Senate candidate Jeff Merkley's work in the House on equal rights, workers' rights and combating climate change. Jeff Merkley was the director of Habitat for Humanity and became one of the most effective progressive legislators my state has ever seen. He has a very impressive record on domestic issues, but I'm not sure my fellow bloggers know that Jeff Merkley is one of the strongest national security candidates we've had in a long time. Follow me below the fold to learn about the progressive legislator from Oregon who has serious foreign policy chops.....
Full disclosure, I am the netroots director for OR-Sen candidate Jeff Merkley
Jeff has worked on humanitarian causes around the world, in Africa and in Central and South America. He brought the same passion to his work as a national security analyst for the Pentagon and Congress. Read on to find out about Jeff Merkley; a progressive with top tier international relations and national security experience.
Merkley Travels the World as a Teenager
Merkley took part in a student exchange program through the American Field Service where he spent time in Ghana and Uganda. Randy Stapilus from Riddenbaugh Press interviewed Jeff about his experiences in Ghana:
"For me to go walking into a place like that as a young Caucasian 6-3 kid in villages where probably very few Caucasians had set foot in, it was quite an interesting engagement." He said "it gave me a sense of the diversity of the world," how fortunate Americans were in their freedom, government and prosperity, but also taking note how different each country was from another. He was hooked on the world at large; for the next decade and a half, that would be his professional life, and more.
When Merkley was 19 he attended Stanford, majoring in international relations. He interned with then Oregon Senator Mark Hatfield. A year later, Merkley interned with a non-profit organization in the beltway which focused on negotiations concerning the law of the sea. Here's another snippet from Riddenbaugh Press:
There were more internships and work projects on international relations in the late 70s and early 80s, an extensive list. He worked at one point for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in New York City. He worked for a Quaker organization in a village in Mexico building and operating a camp involved with environmental issues. (While there, in 1980, he and a friend toured much of Central America as well, traveling cheaply; this was a violent period in the region, and Merkley recalls how on one occasion in Guatemala he spotted a man lying in the street to help him up before realizing he’d been gunned to death only moments before.
Merkley spent some time as an intern at Foreign Affairs magazine. After he graduated from Stanford he attended graduate school at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton. He spent a semester working in Italy and then backpacked through the Eastern Mediterranean and on to the West Bank. After his travels, he interned with the Foreign Service in New Dehli. Here's another snippet from Riddenbaugh:
During his internship with the Foreign Service in New Delhi, he said, he found it was becoming an agency simply reporting back to Washington on local conditions, and staffers were discouraged from anything that smacked of "going native"; Merkley said that when he went to another country, he liked to immerse himself in the culture. Instead, he looked toward the policy side, and applied to the Presidential Management Fellows program, and thought it might be more impactful.
Merkley Heads to the Pentagon
To be chosen as a Presidential fellow at the Defense Department a person usually has to have a strong military backround. Merkley was more focused on alleviating global poverty in third world countries and curbing nuclear weaponry. Even though Merkley had no military experience, he stressed that his work around the world was valuable. Here's another snippet:
As he interviewed for the job, he recalled, early questions had to do with his background - working for the Quakers, focus on non-military foreign relations, and notably his internship for the pacifistic Hatfield. "Why would we hire someone like you for the Department of Defense?" he recalled being asked. Merkley said his reply was that national security and defense involves the military but also needs to include much more, taking in a broad understanding of the world, and he contended a voice like his should be part of the mix at the Pentagon.
Merkley got the job and started working on studies related to nuclear deterrence and force survivability. Merkley staffed the steering committee on technology transfer with right wing folks like Richard Perle and the non-right wing scientists. After his stint working at the Defense Dept. he took a job as a nuclear arms analyst at the CBO. One of his major projects at the CBO, was the B2 Stealth Bomber. The Reagan Administration kept the details of the production and investment of the B2 under wraps. Even though Merkley was an analyst who worked for the CBO, he had a hard time getting any details about the project. Here's another snippet from Riddenbaugh:
In the late 80s, he said, "I was waiting for the Reagan Administration and then the [first] Bush Administration to allow there to be this substantive conversation on the B2, and so I took a leave of absence from the Congressional Budget Office, while I was waiting for that. And six months later, it still wasn’t possible to write that study, and so then I resigned from the Congressional Budget Office. It was unusual to have such a major, major investment not vetted through a congressional examination."
After Merkley left the CBO, he penned an editorial speaking out against the secrecy of the B2 project. In the editorial Merkley said, "Until now, military secrecy has choked off serious debate. But if Administration and Congress can no longer duck the issue. If Stealth cannot make contributions to national security proportional to its cost, it should be canceled."
IMO, it showed a lot of character for Merkley to confront the Reagan Administration and their secrecy surrounding the Stealth Bomber. It also showed a lot of character when Jeff decided to work at the Pentagon in the 80's, he chose to live in an African American neighborhood right smack in the middle of the crack epidemic. He did a similar thing when he moved to Portland to become the director of Habitat for Humanity, he lived in a NE neighborhood in the 90's that was overcome by gang violence. No matter where Jeff is, he always has a firm grip on reality. I really respect that.
Merkley Knows the Difference Between a Real Threat and a Manufactured Threat
Jeff's experience working around the world in small villages to the DOD has helped shape his outlook on international relations. He may not be a veteran but he is the type of candidate veterans can depend on. He is fully behind the 21st Century GI Bill. He also fought for veterans in the Oregon House championing legislation that awarded college funding for family members of the fallen. Jeff also opposed the Iraq War from the start. We need more Senators with the kind of sound judgment Jeff has.
I've always admired Jeff's domestic policies and progressive stances on a host of issues. Finding a candidate who is strong on issues like UHC is vital to our movement, but we also need candidates who we can depend on when it comes to foreign policy issues. Jeff Merkley is that candidate. I'll leave you with a quote from Jeff in the Riddenbaugh article on the Iraq War:
Of the current Bush Administration, he remarked - as on the campaign trail that it is "a complete disaster on national security. They have taken and launched us into a war in a nation that did not comprise a terrorist threat to the United States, completely distracting us from real terrorism, setting up an enormous loss of our national resources, enormous loss of our national soft power - response and trust, that other nations want to work with you. They’ve made the world much less safe."
If you'd like to read the full article go here.
I may be on staff now but I'm sure you guys remember that at the heart of it all, I am just another progressive blogger who wants to change the direction of our country. I really believe in Jeff and I hope you guys will join me and help send him to the Senate. I set up an Act Blue page for Jeff awhile back and as of today I've raised $40. I want to do better than that! I want to help the Merkley campaign air ads like Gordon Smith can afford to every week. Please consider throwing $5, $10 or $20 to our campaign. Every little bit helps. Thank you.