[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 96 (Tuesday, June 13, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H5763]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          U.S. FOREIGN POLICY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Hayworth] is recognized 
during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, like so many other Americans, I listened 
with great interest Sunday afternoon to the dialog between the 
President of the United States and the Speaker of the House of 
Representatives in New Hampshire. I believe that for the most part, it 
reaffirmed an observation that I have made on this floor many times, 
that good people can disagree.
  I think there are candidly some profound points of disagreement. But 
there was one characterization from the President with which I take 
issue and I thought I would share with you today. During the course of 
his remarks, the President characterized the new majority in this House 
as isolationists. Let me humbly suggest that there is nothing 
isolationist about putting legitimate American interests first on the 
world stage. Indeed, our foreign policy should be one that operates 
under the principle of enlightened self-interest, working together with 
the international community, through the United Nations, not to place 
some international creed in a position of preeminence to American 
policy but to work in concert with other nations, understanding full 
well our role in the world community as indeed perhaps the world's lone 
remaining superpower.
  I thought the Speaker was very gracious in characterizing the 
President's efforts in many ways. I think quite frankly, Mr. Speaker, 
it is a tribute to our fighting men and women that they can take on 
missions of great difficulty, such as the one in Haiti, when in essence 
our fighting men and women were called upon to be social workers in 
olive drab. They were placed in harm's way not to defend the legitimate 
interest of the United States but to try and referee a potentially 
explosive situation.
  I thought the Speaker put it succinctly when he described the 
difficulty in the Bosnian theater confronting the U.N. peacekeeping 
force. As the Speaker pointed out, military troops are not introduced 
into a theater to become hostages. They are there to free hostages. 
They should be there to liberate, not to find themselves enslaved. 
Indeed, I believe it was that great internationalist President and that 
great war leader Dwight David Eisenhower who recognized the reality of 
operating in an international setting within the international 
community but also said, and it was reflected in his actions in the 
White House, that we should define our legitimate self-interests.
  I applaud the fact that a young pilot, Captain O'Grady, is back out 
of harm's way. I applaud the efforts once again of our Armed Forces to 
free him. But again putting Americans in harm's way is not the answer 
to the problem.
  Mr. Speaker, lest there are some who think this is a partisan 
harangue, let me pause at this juncture to welcome what I believe to be 
the bipartisan initiative of one of my preceding speakers this morning, 
the gentleman from Maryland, who once again renewed his call for a 
lifting of the arms embargo in Bosnia. For in the final analysis, it is 
the oppressed who must rise against the oppressor to fight for freedom. 
In the final analysis, it is the legitimate national self-interests of 
others that help define their place in the world. Again, I take issue 
with the notion that it is somehow isolationist or xenophobic to always 
insist that the United States should execute its foreign policy with 
its legitimate national interests preeminent in the formulation of 
same.


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