[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 189 (Wednesday, November 29, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Page S17767]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 BOSNIA

  Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. President, I come to the floor of the Senate this 
evening to address an issue which is of great concern to this Nation 
and to many of my colleagues--and that is Bosnia. This past Monday, the 
President took his proposal to the American people and he appears to 
have listened to the majority of Americans by coming forward and 
stating his case for the United States' involvement in Bosnia.
  Although the President was wise to come to the American people, I 
like many of my colleagues, cannot support the President's decision to 
send troops because I do not know that he has fully explained what 
``American values'' are at stake in Bosnia.
  In my home State of Colorado, I have five offices. Without exception, 
the phones have been ringing and my constituents have been voicing 
their concerns, their fears, their anger, and their opposition to the 
President's proposal. Today they see no threat to our national security 
or to our way of life, although they do have great empathy for the 
people in Bosnia.
  Bosnia has proven to be a quagmire time and time again. I, like many 
of my colleagues, do not want to see our troops placed in harm's way in 
this region. We surely do not want to repeat the problems that we had 
in either Vietnam or Somalia.
  I believe the new-found peace in Bosnia is untenable and cannot be 
guaranteed. I believe there are 120,000 Serbs over there who basically 
said the same thing.
  It is foolish for us to believe that there will not be mission 
changes during our proposed 12-month involvement in the region. The 
environment in Bosnia will continue to change as time goes on, and we 
cannot predict what will be asked of us during the next 12 months. What 
starts out to be a peacekeeping mission will certainly became a nation-
rebuilding mission at the expense of the American taxpayers.
  I do not believe the President fully appreciates the fact that you 
cannot, under the best of circumstances, give a definitive end date for 
involvement in that military mission.
  By nature, military missions are unpredictable. We have no way to 
determine how long it will take before peace is freestanding in the 
region. In 12 months, the Bosnian peace may be at a pivotal stage so 
that we cannot pull out, we cannot bring our troops home, and that is 
what I fear the most.
  That region has a history of internal struggles. The country is torn 
and has always been torn by deeply held religious beliefs, and we 
cannot socially engineer a peace. Peace will never come easily to this 
region, and there are still those today who oppose the agreement.
  I am most concerned that the United States will be making up 30 
percent of the NATO force in addition to all of the air support and the 
logistics of the mission. This is far more than any of the other 15 
NATO members. As a result, we will also be contributing a large part of 
the funds for this mission. In this time of fiscal restraint of asking 
everyone to do more with less, I cannot understand how the President 
can ask us to ante up for this commitment, continue to insist on 
increased levels of domestic spending, and still work to balance the 
budget in 7 years as he has indicated he would.
  I support our treaty obligations to NATO. However, in this instance I 
feel our obligations simply do not outweigh our concerns for our 
American youngsters that we have to send into harm's way.
  We all support the efforts to end the atrocities and suffering. 
However, I do not believe that we have any vital national security 
interests in that region, as we did in the Gulf war. I also believe 
that we have a humanitarian interest in the region, but I do not think 
the American people solely support the humanitarian rationale as 
justification for sending our ground troops into Bosnia. Certainly 
Coloradans do not.
  Above all, we cannot afford to forget the reality of the situation we 
are sending our troops into: A newly founded and untenable peace. In 
that environment, there will undoubtedly be continued hostilities. I am 
absolutely convinced that we will have American dead by Christmas, if 
not by hidden enemy, certainly from one of the 6 million buried mines 
that still exist.
  The parents and families of these Americans we are asking to go to 
Bosnia are those the Congress and the President must answer to. I 
believe that we should be most thoughtful before this administration 
puts us in a position where we might have American youngsters dead by 
Christmas.
  With that, I yield the floor, Mr. President.

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