[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 104 (Tuesday, August 2, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 2, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                         NAPOLEON OF THE OZARKS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Dornan] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Speaker, I want to do, or I am signed up to do, God 
willing, two special orders tomorrow and the next night, and two on 
Wednesday and Thursday of next week.
  I am getting so many requests for special orders, so I want people to 
know when I am going to do them and when other Republicans are going to 
do them and what the subject matter will be.
  Tonight, during these 5 minutes, I want to touch on Haiti, but I will 
be doing another special order Thursday night for the better part of an 
hour, also on foreign/military affairs.
  Tomorrow, I am going to discuss Joycelyn Elders and why I even went 
so far as to consider drawing up articles of impeachment against this 
Clinton official. Instead, I will suffice to do a special order and ask 
that she be removed or resign.
  My title for that discussion tomorrow will be ``The Condom 
Queen***,'' a title she does not seem to mind, or ``The Condom Queen 
Must Be Deposed.''
  My title for the Haiti-Cuba-Rwanda-North Korea special order on 
Thursday, and I consider each of those nations in ascending importance, 
with North Korea being dominant, I will title that one, ``An Indecisive 
Non-Leader for the New World Disorder.''
  On Wednesday of next week I hope to do one called ``Feeding 
Christians to the Media Jackals.'' this, of course, will cover the 
whole Christian-bashing issue with emphasis on some of the attacks in 
this town by sitting Members of both gender in this House against my 
beloved denomination in the Christian faith.
  And then on Thursday of next week I will do a special order that is a 
quote from Clinton's December 3, 1969, letter to Colonel Holmes, a 
Bataan death march survivor and one-time head of the Arkansas Reserve 
Officer Training Program. I will lift a line from that letter, 
beginning with an ellipsis ``*** come to Loathe the Military.'' It will 
discuss what is now 15 specific Clinton or Clinton staff insults to 
uniformed military personnel. A subtitle might be ``Loathe to Command, 
an Unworthy Chief.''
  Tonight I would call, taking a line from an article by Samuel 
Francis, which I will ask unanimous consent to put in the Record at the 
end of my remarks, ``Napoleon of the Ozarks,'' and it is about this 
rush to invade Haiti.
  Mr. Speaker, here is the concurrent resolution that I was an original 
cosponsor of, by the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Goss], who spoke to 
this subject earlier tonight, called Consideration of U.S. Military 
Action Against Haiti. It reads:

       It is the sense of Congress the United States should not 
     undertake any military action directed against Haiti unless 
     the President first certifies to the Congress that there 
     exist a clear and present danger to the citizens of the 
     United States and the United States' interests require such 
     action.

  Today, there are dozens of sponsors of this concurrent resolution.
  That sentence is very understandable, ``clear and present danger,'' 
which is the title of a movie that is about to open soon that will 
probably be another Tom Clancy runaway box office hit, but we mean this 
quite seriously. Where is the clear and present danger?
  What I will bring out on Thursday night is that Haiti is important 
but fades in importance next to Cuba, a dictatorship where there are 
far greater massacres, far more political prisoners, far more torture, 
and far more cancer in this hemisphere, the Western Hemisphere.
  And don't forget Rwanda, with far more loss of life, a far more 
compelling issue: 500,000 murdered by machetes, and 18,000 still dying 
of disease many of the families of those murdered by machete killers, 
innocent women and children, dying in and around Goma, Zaire.
  But, as bad as that issue is, one North Korean nuclear weapon 
unleashed at South Korea, Japan, or even our ships at sea, would 
produce a far larger death toll in a microsecond than has been killed 
in Rwanda, tragically, since April 5, when the massive killings started 
there.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to put in the Record, again for about the 
eighth time, my 10 commandments expanded upon what I call 7-year 
Secretary of Defense Cap Weinberger's 6 commandments. He did not call 
them commandments. He called them suggestions. I say they should be 
commandments, expanded to 10, on the use of U.S. combat forces.
  Mr. Speaker, in closing, let me say that I am putting in the Record 
at this point the Dornan 10 commandments urging Clinton to avoid 
military intervention in Haiti and two columns by Samuel Francis and 
the brilliant Charles Krauthammer, on why we should not invade Haiti.

                  (From Congressman Robert K. Dornan)

       Dornan Offers 10 Commandments on Use of U.S. Combat Forces

       Washington, D.C.--The United States should not send its 
     troops into combat unless 10 stringent conditions are met, 
     states U.S. Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-CA/46), a member of the 
     House Armed Services Committee.
       ``The potential for armed conflict in violence-ridden areas 
     such as North Korea, Haiti and Bosnia necessitates a 
     reasoned, sound approach for the use of American military 
     forces,'' says Dornan, a former Air Force pilot.
       ``The first year and a half of the Clinton presidency has 
     painfully demonstrated the fallacy of using public opinion 
     polls to determine U.S. foreign and defense strategy. 
     Judicious policy, not politics, should be our guide, 
     especially when American lives are at stake.''
       The first six commandments were adapted from a November 
     1984 speech by Caspar Weinberger, the seven-year secretary of 
     defense during the Reagan administration. Weinberger last 
     month agreed with Dornan on a seventh commandment regarding 
     foreign command of U.S. troops. The congressman had 
     previously authored similar legislation. Dornan developed the 
     last three commandments after visiting U.S. troops in Somalia 
     a few days after the October 3 and 4 ``firefight from hell'' 
     in which 18 young soldiers were killed in action.
       The 10 commandments for committing U.S. combat forces are 
     as follows:
       (1) Thou shalt not commit U.S. combat forces unless the 
     situation is vital to U.S. or allied national interests;
       (2) Thou shall not commit U.S. Combat forces unless all 
     other options already have been used or considered;
       (3) Thou shall not commit U.S. combat forces unless there 
     is a clear commitment, including allocated resources, to 
     achieving victory;
       (4) Thou shall not commit U.S. combat forces unless there 
     are clearly defined political and military objectives;
       (5) Thou shall not commit U.S. combat forces unless our 
     commitment of these forces will change if our objectives 
     change;
       (6) Thou shall not commit U.S. combat forces unless the 
     American people and Congress support the action;
       (7) Thou shall not commit U.S. combat forces unless under 
     the operational command of American commanders or allied 
     commanders under a ratified treaty;
       (8) Thou shall not commit U.S. combat forces unless 
     properly equipped, trained and maintained by the Congress;
       (9) Thou shall not commit U.S. combat forces unless there 
     is substantial and reliable intelligence information, 
     including human intelligence; and
       (10) Thou shall not commit U.S. Combat forces unless the 
     commander in chief and Congress can explain to the loved ones 
     of any American soldier, sailor, Marine, pilot or aircrewman 
     killed or wounded why their family member or friend was sent 
     in harm's way.
                                  ____


    Concurrent Resolution Concerning Consideration of United States 
                     Military Action Against Haiti

       Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate 
     concurring), That it is the sense of the Congress that the 
     United States should not undertake any military action 
     directed against Haiti unless the President first certifies 
     to the Congress that there exists a clear and present danger 
     to the citizens of the United States and that United States 
     interests require such action.
                                  ____


                  (From Congressman Robert K. Dornan)

         Clinton Urged To Avoid Military Intervention in Haiti


       representatives say north korea is greater security threat

       Washington, DC.--Military intervention in Haiti would be an 
     ill-advised diversion from the situation in North Korea, 
     which poses a greater threat to U.S. national security, says 
     U.S. Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-CA/46).
       ``Foreign policy and military decisions should be made 
     using a sound, well-reasoned approach based on the vital 
     interests of the American people,'' Dornan says.
       ``Even though Clinton and his political advisors are 
     addicted to public opinion polls, it's not the proper way to 
     govern, either on domestic or foreign affairs issues. I hope 
     the president will avoid this tendency regarding Haiti and 
     North Korea.''
       Dornan and over 20 of his House colleagues are urging 
     President Clinton to avoid sending U.S. troops to solve 
     Haiti's political crisis. The president has not ruled out 
     military intervention in Haiti, and the Navy is sending four 
     amphibious assault ships to the area to assist in any 
     evacuation efforts.
       ``We believe that an invasion of Haiti would be a tragic 
     mistake, not only in and of itself, but in the context of the 
     looming crisis in Korea,'' the representatives write in a 
     letter to Clinton.
       ``We strongly believe that the greatest threat to our 
     security at this point is North Korea, and that this is where 
     our military attention should be focused. Regardless of our 
     negotiating strategy with the North, the need for a buildup 
     of the combined U.S.-South Korean forces is critical, for 
     both deterrence and to save lives in the event of 
     hostilities. This buildup will require a significant amount 
     of manpower, equipment and financial resources.''
       The representatives say military intervention is not the 
     answer to the situation in Haiti. ``In the overall scheme of 
     things, Haiti must rank lower than North Korea as a U.S. 
     military priority,'' the letter to Clinton states. ``The 
     tragedy in Haiti certainly deserves our attention, but it 
     does not lend itself to military solution.''
                                  ____



                                     House of Representatives,

                                    Washington, DC, June 17, 1994.
     Hon. Bill Clinton,
     The White House,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. President, we are deeply concerned over reports 
     that an invasion of Haiti is imminent and urge you in the 
     strongest possible terms to refrain from any such action.
       Mr. President, we feel that an invasion of Haiti would be a 
     tragic mistake, not only in and of itself, but in the context 
     of the looming crisis in Korea. We strongly believe that the 
     greatest threat to our security at this point is North Korea, 
     and that this is where our military attention should be 
     focused. Regardless of our negotiating strategy with the 
     North, the need for a comprehensive buildup of the combined 
     U.S.-South Korean forces is critical, for both deterrence and 
     to save lives in the event of hostilities. This buildup will 
     require a significant diversion of manpower, equipment and 
     financial resources. With the defense build-down, diversion 
     of defense funds to non-military purposes and multiple 
     commitments around the world, we fear that our forces may 
     already be stretched too thin. And needless to say, should 
     hostilities breakout in Korea, it will demand all of our 
     attention and resources. Thus, we don't need diversions.
       Invading Haiti, in our view, would be a diversion. In the 
     overall scheme of things, Haiti must rank lower than North 
     Korea as a U.S. military priority. The tragedy in Haiti 
     certainly deserves our attention, but it does not lend itself 
     to military solution. The junta in Port-au-Prince, however 
     repugnant to our ideals, poses no military threat to us. They 
     have no military ambitions outside their borders. And even if 
     we can vanquish the junta, what next? Any military campaign 
     in Haiti would involve us in the complex politics of this 
     historically undemocratic country and, we fear, bog us down 
     there indefinitely. ``Nation-building'' or any variant 
     thereof would be futile and may end in a Somalia-like 
     disaster.
       Mr. President, we in Congress stand ready to work with your 
     administration to resolve both of these issues. However, we 
     are implacably opposed to an invasion of Haiti. It would 
     represent a massive perversion of our priorities. We implore 
     you to drop any invasion plans for Haiti and to immediately 
     order a comprehensive buildup of our forces in Korea.
           Sincerely,
     Gerald B. Solomon.
     Robert K. Dornan.
     Porter J. Goss.
                                  ____


               [From the Washington Times, July 12, 1994]

                Excuse for a Military Invasion of Haiti

                          (By Samuel Francis)

       William Gray hastened to say it wasn't so. ``There is no 
     military invasion imminent,'' he pronounced. The next day the 
     New York Times reported recent military maneuvers by U.S. 
     Army Rangers involving the simulated seizure of the Port-au-
     Prince airfield. Haiti being such a perennial menace to our 
     national security, probably the Rangers just practice 
     invading it as a routine matter all the time.
       Meanwhile, U.S. refugee policy was also wobbling, with the 
     president abandoning the more liberal approach he started a 
     few weeks ago by announcing that no longer would we accept 
     Haitian boat people for resettlement here. Last month, he 
     announced we would consider their refugee claims aboard navy 
     vessels and settle those who convinced us they really were 
     refugees. That proved to be such a boondoggle that Mr. 
     Clinton was forced to impose the no-admissions policy last 
     week.
       Somehow you get the impression that on Haiti the president 
     doesn't know what he's doing--as opposed to all those other 
     areas of grand policy in which the Napoleon of the Ozarks is 
     such a star.
       The proximate cause of the Haiti catastrophe is the 
     insistence of the U.S. government that the country's military 
     despots abdicate and let poor little Father Jean-Bertrand 
     Aristide return to his democratically elected position as 
     president. The despots, of course, have no intention of 
     letting that happen. Whatever else may be said of them, they 
     know something about Haiti that few Americans, liberal or 
     conservative, seem to grasp.
       One thing they know is that letting Father Aristide return 
     will do nothing to advance ``democracy,'' let alone justice, 
     which is not necessarily the same as democracy. What the good 
     father really wants to do is to make use of his mass 
     political base to smack around the Haitian oligarchy the 
     despots represent.
       That is more or less what he did in the few months he was 
     in power, when he presided over, if he did not actually 
     encourage, the most vicious butchering and terrorization of 
     his political opponents, and today he would have even more 
     scores to settle than then. The insistence of the Clinton 
     administration, following the Bush administration, that all 
     would be swell if the mean old despots departed and the good 
     father returned is nothing more than a legend born of a 
     childishly excessive credulity in what ``democracy'' can 
     accomplish.
       The despots also know that the very concept of 
     ``democracy'' in Haiti is a joke. I am not quite prepared to 
     say that in the 200 years since black Haitian slaves chopped 
     up as many whites as they could lay their hands on, only one 
     Haitian head of state has actually managed to die in his bed 
     naturally, but after searching various encyclopedias on the 
     subject, I am unable to name any more who did.
       That one, possibly the most brutal of the whole bunch, was 
     the late Francois ``Papa Doc'' Duvalier, who achieved this 
     triumph of Haitian statecraft by making certain everybody who 
     even looked like a political rival died before he did. Hain 
     has not seen statesmanship of his caliber since.
       I do not say Haiti is not capable someday of evolving a 
     stable and decent government, and maybe democracy too. I say 
     only that there is no evidence that it can, that what Father 
     Aristide offers is not that and that to base a ``policy'' (if 
     that is the proper term for the dismal and disastrous record 
     of incompetence Mr. Clinton has so far chalked up) on 
     ``restoring,'' ``creating'' or ``building'' ``democracy'' on 
     the island, and to involve American troops in a war to do so, 
     is irresponsible.
       In the United States in the 1990s, we talk about going to 
     war with a different country just about every month and for 
     the most banal of reasons; but in Haiti, it's beginning to 
     look like Mr. Clinton might do more than just talk. If he's 
     serious about an invasion, he needs to be stopped now, and 
     Congress and the American people need to let him know he will 
     be.
                                  ____


                [From the Washington Post, Aug. 2, 1994]

                        Goodbye Monroe Doctrine

                        (By Charles Krauthammer)

       The Clinton administration, preparing for a possible 
     invasion of Haiti, went to the United Nations to ask for 
     prior approval. Sunday it got it. Seems like a simple act of 
     international propriety. On the face of it, Clinton is merely 
     aping what George Bush did before the gulf war.
       But Iraq is very different from Haiti. Iraq is far away. It 
     had a formidable army that threatened serious fighting. The 
     United States needed allies to share the perhaps considerable 
     burdens ahead. It needed Saudi territory to stage a 
     counterinvasion. To induce others to sign up, it needed 
     international cover.
       Cover, leverage, allies: In Haiti none of this applies. It 
     is a pushover perched on a tiny nearby island. The invasion 
     will be almost unopposed. There is no need for allied 
     soldiers or foreign staging rights.
       In fact, the appropriate analogy is not Bush in Iraq but 
     Bush in Panama. Bush determined that Noriega was a threat to 
     American interests. Confident that he had right, power and 
     American interests on his side, he did the job and asked 
     questions later.
       The Clinton administration is deeply uncertain about right, 
     distrustful of American power and disoriented regarding 
     American interests. It is, accordingly, the first 
     administration in U.S. history to ask United Nations approval 
     for intervention in our own hemisphere.
       And Clinton did not just ask permission. He had already 
     dealt away American interests in order to get it. In a deal 
     largely unremarked except by Lally Weymouth in The Post [op-
     ed, July 24], the United Nations last month quietly approved 
     Russian ``peacekeeping'' troops in formerly Soviet Georgia. 
     Russia had threatened to veto U.N. approval of a Haiti 
     invasion if refused a free hand in its former colony.
       These are the same Russian troops that stirred up the 
     Georgian trouble they are now charged with pacifying. 
     Their role is less to keep peace than to restore a small 
     piece of the old Soviet empire and signal Russia's intent 
     to reestablish hegemony over the rest.
       The Russians might restore their hegemony regardless, but 
     they covet international recognition of their power grab. And 
     in the Security Council we gave it to them. In return for 
     what? For Haiti--a living hell for which we have no desire 
     and even less need.
       Only last month, Clinton led off a string of justifications 
     for intervention in Haiti by saying, ``First of all, it's in 
     our back yard.'' One does not ask permission to put out a 
     fire in one's own back yard.
       We come here to the root weakness of the Clinton foreign 
     policy: It has no conception of the prerogatives of power. It 
     appreciates the obligations of power--in Rwanda, for example, 
     the world cries out for someone to ``do something'' and 
     Clinton (rightly) rushes in. But with obligations come 
     prerogatives. And to these prerogatives the administration is 
     dead.
       It is the prerogative of a great power to do what it must 
     to secure its interests without asking. China sends warships 
     to secure a South China Sea oil patch it claims from Vietnam. 
     Deng Xiaoping does not ask for U.S. approval. Yet Clinton, 
     absurdly, seeks Deng's approval to act in Haiti, (Sunday, at 
     the Security Council, he got an abstention.)
       Moreover, unlike China, we are a global superpower. We 
     shoulder unique responsibilities. We are not a country like 
     any other. Yet the Clinton administration, running around the 
     U.N. gathering signatures for our Haitian send-off, acts as 
     if we are.
       Such thinking comes naturally to the lawyers who make up 
     the Clinton team. After all, here everyone is equal under the 
     law. When Warren Christopher represented his clients, the 
     rules applied to everyone.
       But the international system is utterly different. In that 
     arena, the players are radically unequal, the law is but a 
     piece of paper, and there is no outside source of 
     enforcement. In fact, the only enforcer is the big guy on the 
     block, the superpower, which in this post-Cold War era 
     happens to be us.
       It is we who take the risk to restore order when disorder 
     arises. It is we who bear the brunt of war to secure the oil 
     supplies of Japan and Germany and the world's other free 
     riders. It is we who mount the great air relief to Rwanda.
       We are not an ordinary player. We are the world's fireman, 
     on whose exertions the rest of the world rides free. In 
     return, we are entitled to certain prerogatives. When our 
     interests are threatened, we have well earned--from those who 
     benefit from our actions elsewhere--room to maneuver. A 
     nation with such global burdens both needs and is owed the 
     prerogative to act expeditiously and independently to secure 
     its own interests.
       A great power does not ask for such prerogatives. (Once 
     you've asked for it, you've forfeited it.) A great power 
     feels it, asserts it, exercises it. Yet this administration 
     does not move unless the United Nations nods, Micronesia 
     applauds and a dozen allies hold our hand.
       I happen to believe that invading Haiti is a bad idea. But 
     if Clinton thinks Haiti is an important national interest, he 
     should act. Scrounging for prior approval from Security 
     Council members Djibouti and Oman is not an act of propriety. 
     It is an act of flaccidity. It betrays not just a lack of 
     self-confidence but a profound misapprehension of America's 
     place in the world.

                          ____________________