[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 50 (Tuesday, April 13, 1999)]
[House]
[Page H1905]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page H1905]]
            THE FOLLY OF COMMITTING GROUND TROOPS TO KOSOVO

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gillmor). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, as we approach the decision to send ground 
troops into the war in Kosovo, it is important for us to look at the 
historical events surrounding that particular area and to then look at 
the request that is being made, that will probably be made for this 
Congress to approve in some fashion or other, a request from the 
administration to commit American troops to this folly.
  During the break, I was given an article that I found quite sobering, 
from an individual in my district. The title of the article is 
``Serbia: The lesson of Army Group E.'' It came off of the net, World 
Net Daily, Friday, March 26. The author, a gentleman by the name of 
Joel A. Ruth. And I quote from this article because I think it needs to 
be widely read and widely heard, again, as we approach this potential 
decision to send American troops in. It says:

       Before we engage the Serbs in a limited war over Kosovo, it 
     would be wise to review the experiences of the 22 German 
     divisions that were committed to stamping out Serb resistance 
     between 1941 and 1945. While the Germans also had the help of 
     200,000 Croatian, Slovenian and Bosnian Moslem volunteer 
     auxiliaries, they still could not do the job, and with a 
     combined army of over 700,000 men willing to commit 
     atrocities that the United States and her allies would never 
     contemplate in this, quote, civilized day and age.
       In the end, and without direct Allied help, the Serbs 
     succeeded, through extreme human sacrifice and one of the 
     bloodiest partisan wars ever fought in history, in 
     recapturing over half their country by the time the war had 
     ended on all the other fronts.
       Army Group E surrendered to the Serbs and was subsequently 
     force-marched the length and width of Serbia without food 
     until every German soldier had dropped dead by the wayside.
       The fate of the Croatian Slovenians and Moslems who had 
     helped the Germans was mass murder; all prisoners were taken, 
     shot and clubbed or tortured to death and dumped in mass 
     graves. Over one half million soldiers and their families 
     were thus exterminated by the Serbs, over 1 million murdered 
     if one counts the victims of the German Army Group E.
       After the war the Serbs under Marshal Tito were determined 
     that no outside aggressor would ever enjoy an advantage in 
     occupying any part of Serbia ever again. Therefore, for the 
     next 40 years, a massive system of underground defenses were 
     constructed deep under the mountains, atomic bomb-proof and 
     capable of maintaining a million-man army underground for 
     several years while guerilla warfare would rage against any 
     future aggressors. These underground facilities contain 
     massive quantities of munitions, field hospitals, food 
     stocks, fuel and consist of thousands of miles of tunnels 
     which can enable a guerilla force to strike and vanish to 
     safety during bombing and artillery strikes.
       Believe me, if the Germans who utilized the most brutal 
     tactics could not subdue the Serbs in 5 years when they did 
     not possess such a defensive infrastructure, how much harder 
     is it going to be now that they have spent 50 years in 
     preparing for the next invaders?

  The article goes on to claim that any attempt on the part of NATO and 
this administration to participate in any such venture would be just as 
full of folly and certainly would be just as bloody. And the idea that 
we can bomb Milosevic into submission is, of course, if you are taking 
this at face value, if the information supplied in this particular 
article is correct, then that theory, that strategy, is idiotic.
  For if there is such a system of caverns and caves within Serbia 
where a million men could be housed and probably are being housed even 
at the present time, then how can we possibly expect to really cripple 
him through any amount of bombing that we can possibly do? It will, of 
course, take armed forces on the ground, and it will, of course, turn 
into the same sort of bloody situation that preceded us there some 50 
years ago.
  So I ask my colleagues once again to reconsider, when we are asked to 
commit American forces to this area, that we consider the lessons of 
history as it is so often difficult for us to understand. But it is 
important for us to realize that history does repeat itself, that this 
is a bad place for us to be with no particular reason for us to be 
there.

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