[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 169 (Monday, October 30, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H11381-H11382]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   THE UNITED STATES SHOULD STAY OUT OF THE BAFFLING BOSNIAN CONFLICT

  Mr. HORN. Mr. Speaker, it is the time in a Presidential term when, 
whether Republican or Democrat, Presidents and their advisers begin to 
think about major feats that might be accomplished in foreign affairs. 
Sometimes, there are achievements. Often, it is mostly symbolism. It is 
much easier than staying in town and relating to Congress.
  Some Presidents have seen themselves as Franklin Roosevelt, with cape 
flying, standing on the bridge of a naval vessel in the North Atlantic. 
Others have seen themselves as Winston Churchill, the lone voice 
alerting the world to the rising power of Adolf Hitler and the danger 
to all Europe in the mid-1930's.
  Sometimes our Presidents are right, but sometimes they are very, very 
wrong.
  If I were to give advice to our current President, I would ask him to 
read the brilliant memoir of General Colin Powell. The General provides 
some very wise advice in ``My American Journey.'' At page 291 he says:

       What I saw from my perch in the Pentagon was America 
     sticking its hand into a thousand-year-old hornet's nest with 
     the expectation that our mere presence might pacify the 
     hornets.

  In 1991, when ``well-meaning Americans thought we should do something 
in Bosnia,'' General Powell remembered ``the shattered bodies of 
Marines at the Beirut airport,'' and he argued ``for caution.''
  At pages 291 and 292, he comments:

       Foreign policy cannot be paralyzed by the prospect of 
     casualties. But lives must not be risked until we can face a 
     parent or a spouse or a child with a clear answer to the 
     question of why a member of that family had to die. To 
     provide a ``symbol'' or a ``presence'',

  The General added, ``is not good enough.''
  Those are wise words.
  Where is the defined mission of American forces in Bosnia? Many of us 
have argued for years--under two Presidents of the United States, one 
of each party--for lifting the arms embargo and letting the Bosnians 
fight for their own freedom. That has not been done.
  Our executive and legislative energies should be on the major 
problems we have. The major problem where the American interest is 
directly affected is the world's remaining superpower, which is the 
Soviet Union, now the former Soviet states, now Russia. That is the 
country that should occupy our interest in relation to NATO, in 
relation to ties to the West in the years ahead. if we fail in that, 
all else we do will be for naught.
  At page 577, General Powell says:

       No American President could defend to the American people 
     the heavy sacrifice of lives it would cost to resolve this 
     baffling conflict, the Bosnian baffling conflict. Nor could a 
     President likely sustain long-term involvement necessary to 
     keep the protagonists from going at each other's throats all 
     over again at the first opportunity.
       American GI's are not toy soldiers,

  Powell observed,

     to be moved around on some sort of global game board. [page 
     576]

  We have to ask, where is the American interest? What are our 
objectives? What are our tactics? Are they worth endangering American 
lives?
  Mr. Speaker, I say it is not worth endangering American lives, even 
though we can all grieve for the tragedies we see in the former 
Yugoslavia, in Bosnia. But when Bosnians are willing to pretend to be 
Serbs and Croatians are willing to pretend to be Serbs and Bosnians and 
Serbs pretending to be Croatians and Bosnians, it would be rather 
confusing to send American troops into that chaotic situation. And we 
must not do it.
  Mr. Speaker, the article of Charles Krauthammer this last Friday in 
the Washington Post entitled ``Clinton's Folly'' also provides quite a 
bit of wisdom on this subject.
  Mr. Speaker, I include the article for the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Post, Oct. 27, 1995]

                            Clinton's Folly

                        (By Charles Krauthammer)

       The first law of peacekeeping is that when you have real 
     peace, you don't need peacekeepers. When both parties are in 
     military equilibrium and have no intention of fighting each 
     other--Israel and Egypt, for example--peacekeepers are nice 
     to have around but they are mere window dressing.

[[Page H 11382]]

       The second law of peacekeeping is that were there is no 
     peace, sending peacekeepers is a disaster. When the parties 
     remained unreconciled--as in Beirut and Somalia, for 
     example--peacekeepers simply become targets.
       The third law of peacekeeping is that Americans make the 
     best targets. If you are unhappy with the imposed peace, 
     there is nothing like blowing up 241 Marines or killing 18 
     U.S. Army Rangers to make your point. Killing Americans is a 
     faster way to victory than killing your traditional enemy.
       From which follows one of the rare absolutes in foreign 
     policy: Never send peacekeepers--and certainly never send 
     American peacekeepers--to police a continuing, unsettled war. 
     Yet President Clinton long ago committed the United States to 
     sending 25,000 peacekeeping troops to police a Bosnian peace.
       He made this offer in his usual foreign policy way: 
     unreflective offhandedness in the service of expediency. And 
     now, as a Bosnian agreement of sorts approaches, his bluff is 
     about to be called. Must the country go along with his folly?
       If in the coming peace talks at an Air Force base in 
     Dayton, Ohio, Richard Holbrooke can manage to get the Serbs, 
     the Croats and the Bosnians to agree to a real peace--one 
     they will be satisfied with and truly respect--that would be 
     wonderful. But why would we need Americans to police such a 
     peace? Such a peace could be policed by Fijians or Pakistanis 
     or Canadians wearing U.N. blue helmets or some other 
     multinational attire.
       Why are the Bosnians demanding American ground troops 
     instead? Because none of the three vengeful, irredentist 
     parties expects anything resembling a real peace. They are 
     not even pretending. Croatia, for example, announced just 
     Tuesday that if it does not get Eastern Slavonia it will go 
     to war with Serbia at the end of November to get it.
       At Dayton, the parties may grudgingly sign on to a 
     ``peace'' that all know will amount to a limited, temporary 
     cessation of hostilities--a hiatus long enough to allow the 
     quick interposition of heavily armed NATO and American ground 
     troops. And then what?
       And the, insanely, we have made ourselves parties to the 
     conflict. There will be no avoiding it.
       Whom are we going to fight? Congress asked administration 
     spokesmen at hearings last week. The administration answer: 
     just rogue elements of the different militias who might 
     violate the agreements their political leaders had signed. 
     But if any of the three parties sent regular troops against 
     us, we would presumably just give up and get out.
       As if giving up and getting out can be accomplished without 
     needless casualties, self-inflicted humiliation and grave 
     tensions with allies who might be left behind. And as if the 
     job of housebreaking overambitious ``rogue'' militias is the 
     job of the U.S. Army and not of the Balkan parties' own 
     political and military leadership.
       And what kind of neutrality--the one indispensable for any 
     peacekeepers--are we bringing to the conflict? Our sympathies 
     for the Bosnian government side are pretty obvious, 
     particularly to the Serbs who have been on the receiving end 
     of NATO air strikes and U.S. Navy cruise missiles. Even more 
     absurd, the administration intends to simultaneously ``peace-
     keep'' and arm and train the Muslims.
       Let's be clear: U.S. troops will be in Bosnia not to 
     peacekeep but to protect the Bosnian government side. Our job 
     will be to serve as human tripwires for the Bosnians. If 
     Serbs or Croats move against the Bosnians, they will 
     henceforth have to roll over the bodies of Americans first--
     and risk involving the United States even more heavily on the 
     side of the Sarajevo government.
       Bosnia is about to see the transformation of an impotent 
     UNPROFOR (U.N. Protection Force) into a heavily armed 
     USPROFOR (U.S. protection force). And the administration 
     knows it. Secretary of Defense William Perry boasts that our 
     force in Bosnia will be ``the meanest dog in town.'' But real 
     peacekeepers are not supposed to be mean dogs. Real 
     peacekeepers, like the ones in Sinai or Cyprus, are warm 
     puppies. Their job is to carry binoculars and smile and 
     reassure everyone. You send heavily armed infantry when you 
     are going to protect and enforce.
       It is hard to think of a greater folly than trying to 
     enforce a peace among unreconciled Balkan enemies. It is a 
     folly that Clinton's fitful meanderings on Bosnia have backed 
     us into, a folly that must be firmly rejected now before it 
     is too late.

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