[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 170 (Tuesday, October 31, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H11572-H11573]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  AMERICAN POLICY IN BALKANS A FAILURE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Rohrabacher] is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, we have witnessed 3 years of failure as 
far as the policy of the United States concerning the ongoing tragedy 
in the Balkans. During this 3 years, we have heard the screams of agony 
and horror. And what has American policy been? An arms embargo against 
the criminals who are committing the aggression and the victims alike.
  This formula of treating the victims and the criminal alike had left 
the aggressor with all of the tanks, all of the heavy artillery, and an 
overwhelming superiority in arms. It led to 100,000 deaths or more. The 
aggressor was, naturally, not deterred by an arms embargo that 
prevented the victims from arming themselves and defending themselves 
against aggression.

[[Page H11573]]


                              {time}  1930

  We have seen mass rapes, ethnic cleansing and genocide. It has been a 
tragedy. It has been a fiasco on the part of the Western democracies. 
It has been a lack of moral leadership from the United States in that 
we have put the victims and the aggressors in the same category. Yet 
the victims even though they have been raped and murdered and seen 
their families destroyed and their homes burned and destroyed have 
never come to the United States and asked us for ground troops, to put 
our young people in their place. They have not asked for our ground 
troops to be deployed, and they still are not asking for our ground 
troops to be deployed.
  The plan that we are hearing about today that President Clinton is 
suggesting of sending 25,000 young Americans to the Balkans has not 
come as a result of a request from the victims. It is instead a product 
of the fuzzy thinking and moral relativity of those people who have 
formulated America's disastrous policy for the past 3 years. They have 
failed for 3 years, and now they ask us to trust their judgment in 
sending 25,000 young Americans into a Balkan meat grinder that has been 
getting nothing but worse due to their leadership.
  No, no, hell, no. Twenty-five thousand Americans put in the Balkans. 
Part of their plan is to put 20,000 Russians into the Balkans at the 
same time. Putting 20,000 Russians and 25,000 Americans into a conflict 
situation like that? That is total insanity.
  We have another alternative. We are not talking about isolationism 
versus international activism here. What we need to do is have a policy 
that is rational and responsible and not putting our people at maximum 
risk.
  We have the alternative. Let us lift the arms embargo on these 
victims, on the Croatians and on the Bosnians who have been victimized 
by the aggressor, clearly the aggressor who is grabbing territory in 
the Balkans. We have invested in smart weapons. We have invested in 
bombers and aircraft. We have done this to permit us to exercise our 
influence while minimizing the risk.
  The idea of sending so many young Americans to the Balkans carries 
little chance of success and an incredibly high chance of failure. 
Failure in this case means a major loss of American lives. The screams 
and agony that we will hear will not just be coming from the Balkans 
but will be coming from American homes when their loved ones are lost, 
when they find out that their loved one has been torn apart by a land 
mine or by some sort of artillery barrage. Thanksgiving dinner with 
empty seats. Wives without husbands. Children without fathers.

  We should not be putting Americans at risk for such a fiasco, an 
adventure that has such little chance of success.
  I yield to my colleague the gentleman from San Diego.
  Mr. HUNTER. I think the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I was 
attracted to his very articulate statement. He reminds me that when we 
have the Secretary of Defense before us, the Secretary of State and 
other leading members of the Clinton administration, the one question 
they could not answer was, what happens when that one car bomb occurs 
and you lose 12 or 15 or 20 people? Do you stay there? Do you show 
resolve? Do you move out immediately?
  They offered no answer beyond what has happened already in Somalia 
and other places. That is, that we are driven out. If we are driven out 
because of terrorism, then we have lost all of the important things 
that they talked about. Like holding NATO together, maintaining our 
credibility with our European allies, et cetera. They never answered 
that question.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. It is sad and an appropriate question to ask, 
because I was in the White House in the 1980's when Ronald Reagan made 
the worst decision of his Presidency, which was to introduce U.S. 
Marines into the Lebanon conflict. I remember during that time when 
Ronald Reagan issued the order and the Marines landed, I ran all over 
the White House, asking, pleading with people, why are we there? What 
are we doing? How can we possibly succeed?
  I went to every office of the decision-markers in the National 
Security Council, my friends who are in various positions in the 
government and they said, ``Dana, here is the formula. If we do this, 
this, and this, it will eventually lead to peace in the Middle East.''
  I said, ``This, this and this. For all of these things to happen, the 
chances of that happening are very small.'' The chances of this turning 
into a fiasco, a horrible situation where we lose maybe 100 American 
lives, the chances are very high.
  I thought they would take care of it. I thought that some of the 
people who understood the implications of what was going on would 
handle the situation. But instead we got mixed up in the Lebanon 
situation, in the crisis. We were mixed up in local politics. Our 
Marines were actually, people do not understand this, the political 
situation was so complicated the Marines were ordered not to have 
bullets in their rifles.
  The situation in Bosnia is far more complex than what was in Lebanon. 
We lost 240 young Marines in Lebanon. Let me say, I will never forget 
the day when it was announced that this bomb exploded, this care bomb 
exploded and it was not just 20 Americans, and it was these young 
Marines and the first name on the list was my brother's best friend 
from high school, who I grew up with, and I vowed that day that I would 
never sit back and watch a senseless operation go forward without 
trying my best to save the lives of those young Americans.
  Today we have that opportunity. If we try our hardest and we spread 
the word, this is a democracy, the President is not going to send 
troops overseas into a risky situation without the support of the U.S. 
Congress and the American people. We can deter this, we can bring some 
sense to this, and we can save some American lives.
  I ask the American people, I hope everyone contacts their Congressman 
and the White House saying no troops to Bosnia, no American troops to 
Bosnia, unless the Congress approves of this operation.

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