[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 132 (Tuesday, September 20, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: September 20, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                NATIONAL RADIO RESPONSE TO THE PRESIDENT

                                 ______


                          HON. BOB LIVINGSTON

                              of louisiana

                    in the house of representatives

                      Tuesday, September 20, 1994

  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, this past weekend, Minority Leader Bob 
Michel gave me the honor of making the official Republican response to 
the President's weekly radio address. The subject was the impending 
invasion of Haiti. I thank the Leader, and I include that address for 
the Record:
  Hello, this is Congressman Bob Livingston of Louisiana.
  The President has made an impassioned argument for why the United 
States is invading the tiny island of Haiti. He has been eloquent in 
affirming America's desire for democracy and freedom.
  Unfortunately, his case is not strong. The United States national 
interests are still not clear--if in fact they exist at all--and 
certainly not clear enough for us to put at risk the prestige of the 
U.S. military or, more importantly, the lives of our servicemen and 
women.
  Now I'll take a back seat to no one in my advocacy of democracy. If I 
had the power to quickly make Haiti democratic, I would. But I can't, 
and neither can the President.
  Ensuring a stable democracy in Haiti is especially troublesome. Mr. 
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, to whom President Clinton intends to hand the 
reigns of power, is neither a saint nor a particular friend of the 
United States. In fact, he is a radical Leftist who has spewed anti-
American venom for years, and the CIA reports that he is unstable. Even 
worse, he has shown brutal dictatorial tendencies of his own, contrary 
to the standards of the entire civilized world.
  I am speaking of his statements promoting the use by his followers, 
against their opponents, of a terroristic torture called 
``necklacing,'' which involves putting a gasoline-filed tire around 
someone's neck and lighting it on fire. It is barbaric. Yet Aristide 
said in a speech to followers in Haiti before he was thrown out--and I 
quote--that it is ``cute, it's pretty, it has a good smell.'' And in 
another speech, to student supporters, he said; ``You will have to use 
it when you must.''
  Support for this fanatic is just not in America's national interest. 
And yet President Clinton is putting him back into power by force of 
arms with American troops. This could be one of the most foolish acts 
of foreign policy of the last century.
  But even if Mr. Aristide were more to our liking, Haiti still would 
be a quagmire not worth hundreds of millions of dollars of our tax 
money, much less American lives. It's not important strategically; it 
has no history or tradition of democracy, and its culture has proven 
resistant in the past to lengthy American efforts at nation-building.
  I recall my own experience in 1963 aboard a U.S. Navy aircraft 
carrier, steaming for two months off the coast of Haiti after riots 
broke out against the dictator Papa Doc Duvalier. Half a century before 
that, U.S. troops invaded Haiti, and it took them 19 years to get out.
  On neither occasion did our military involvement do any sustained 
good for the poor people of Haiti.
  The President ignores this history. Instead, he says that our action 
in Haiti is just like the action President Reagan took when we kicked 
out a band of revolutionary Communists from Grenada in 1983. Nothing 
could be further from the truth, and the failure of President Clinton 
to understand the difference raises deep questions about his foreign 
policy judgment.
  In Grenada, there was a Communist coup d'etat which murdered the 
ruling tyrant and threatened the lives of dozens of American medical 
students. Meanwhile, the Soviets and Cubans were busy building a major 
military air strip on Grenada, and planning to make the island into a 
Soviet submarine base. It was part of their cold war ``master plan'' to 
export Communist revolution throughout the Caribbean Basin and Central 
America.
  Stopping those plans and rescuing our students provided compelling 
reason to send in our troops, and the people of Grenade welcomed us 
with open arms as heroes. None of those reasons apply in Haiti, which 
threatens no other country and is part of no master plan.
  Make no mistake; it should not be hard to quickly overpower Haiti's 
meager armed forces. The problems will come later, when we try to 
maintain order in an unstable country. And mark my words, it will take 
a long time. Attacks with machetes to the throats of our soldiers, 
knives or screwdrivers in the ribs, voodoo-like attacks: all have been 
promised by Haitian thugs who will blend into the towns and countryside 
between intermittent acts of terrorism.
  I supports our troops, and so should we all. But in the case of 
Haiti, the best support we can give them is not to put them in harm's 
way for no good reason. That's why I truly hope the Carter-Powell-Nunn 
mission will be successful. But if it's not, I ask President Clinton 
now, as I have asked for more than a full year; How will you explain to 
the mother of even one young American in uniform that Jean-Bertrand 
Aristide's restored Haitian throne is worth her son or daughter being 
carried home in a body bag?
  Thank you for listening.

                          ____________________