[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 127 (Wednesday, August 2, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1592]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


            BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA SELF-DEFENSE ACT OF 1995

                                 ______


                               speech of

                        HON. PETER G. TORKILDSEN

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, August 1, 1995

       The House in Committee of the Whole House on the State of 
     the Union had under consideration the bill (S. 21) to 
     terminate the United States arms embargo applicable to the 
     Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina:

  Mr. TORKILDSEN. Mr. Chairman, just last week here in Washington we 
dedicated a new memorial--albeit some decades late--to the veterans of 
the Korean war. This new monument sits directly across the Reflecting 
Pool from another great monument, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Both 
monuments offer moving testimony to the sacrifice of American service 
men and women who fought in those far away foreign lands.
  My colleagues, with the memories of United States intervention in 
both Korea and Vietnam fresh in our minds, I stand before you today in 
opposition to unilaterally lifting the embargo on Bosnia.
  Sometimes the United States should be looking at committing armed 
forces to an area. More recently, the commitment of United States 
troops to fight in the Persian Gulf war was just such an example. But 
Bosnia is not the Persian Gulf, or Vietnam, or Korea.
  Lifting the current embargo could ultimately drag America, and 
American soldiers, into a no-win situation.
  The Clinton administration has already pledged to our European allies 
that United States troops will be committed to assist U.N. or NATO 
forces withdraw from the region.
  If we lift the embargo now--a move which, granted, may be politically 
attractive--we run the risk of escalating an armed war prior to United 
States and allied withdrawal. This is, sadly, a very real scenario--and 
one I hope we avoid.
  As difficult as it seems, we must return to advancing diplomatic 
initiatives to end the violence in Bosnia. Lifting the arms embargo 
will only assure an increase in violence, and sadly, may draw U.S. 
soldiers into that fight as well.
  I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to oppose this 
measure to lift the arms embargo on Bosnia.


                          ____________________