[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 194 (Thursday, December 7, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H14209-H14210]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           THE REAL ISSUES REGARDING AMERICA'S ROLE IN BOSNIA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Horn] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HORN. Mr. Speaker, the tragedy in Bosnia is very much on the mine 
of every Member of this Chamber. Bosnia is not a partisan matter. Our 
policy in Bosnia, in my judgment, has been the error of two 
administrations, one of one party and one of another party. The embargo 
was put on by one, said that it would be lifted by another, but that 
still has not been done.
  The result is that the Bosnians, who were aggressed against, 
attacked, have not had the weapons to defend themselves when they 
wanted to defend themselves. Now we say in the Dayton agreement that we 
will make sure the Bosnians are finally armed. The embargo still 
exists. It needs to come off. Of course, it never should have been put 
on.
  Mr. Speaker, the issue in this debate is not who is an 
internationalist and who is an isolationist. I would like to think the 
issue is who is a realist.

[[Page H 14210]]

  The issue is also one of the power of the Congress and the power of 
the President. Under the Constitution, Presidents may wage war. It is 
Congress that declares war.
  As we know from studying the Constitution in elementary school, high 
school, college and university, there are approximately 200 conflicts, 
large and small, that we have been in since 1789 when the First 
Congress met in New York. In only five of those did Congress declare 
war, but it certainly gave support to a number of others through 
appropriations and through authorization.
  But that power of the President to wage war is not a mandate to be 
Super Cop to the world at either the whim or the policy of the 
President. The question is: ``Where is our vital interest?''
  Usually the vital interest has been, in most of those 200 
engagements, where the lives of citizens of the United States have been 
involved. Citizens of the United States are not being held captive in 
Bosnia and the lives of American citizens have not been involved.
  We hear Members of the administration saying, ``This is not going to 
be another Vietnam,'' even though one of the top negotiators at Dayton 
had a slip of the tongue in talking to a few of us and mentioned 
Vietnam in the place of where he meant Bosnia, Whether that is 
significant I leave to the psychoanalysts.
  Our troops are on the ground to separate the warring parties, who now 
are tired, presumably, and want peace after 500 years of acrimony, war, 
and conflict based on ethnicity as well as on religion. What happens 
when those supposedly tired warring parties decide they do not want 
peace anymore and the American forces are in the middle, presumably 
trying to separate them? The American forces thankfully do have the 
power to respond, and to respond promptly.
  But I worry when a President, any President, Republican or Democrat--
and this is a not a new thought with me--does something in foreign 
affairs in an election year. We all agree that handling foreign affairs 
is, frankly, a lot easier than dealing with domestic policy and all the 
different factions there.
  The lives of American military men and women are too valuable to be 
an election year photo opportunity. The President does not have the 
power to deploy troops anywhere on either whim or long-thought-out 
policy. It is the Congress that must face up to the issue as to whether 
the President has the right to deploy troops in the former Yugoslavia, 
primarily in Bosnia. I would suggest that the President does not have 
the right. He has not shown us that there is a vital interest in Bosnia 
for America.
  Certainly there is a humanitarian interest. There are dozens of 
humanitarian interests where people are being butchered by their 
neighbors in the same country, be it in Africa, be it in parts of 
Europe, be it in Asia. We cannot be, as I said earlier, Super Cop to 
the world. Congress needs to face up to this issue and not duck it as 
it has been ducking it for the last 2 weeks.

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