[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 62 (Monday, May 3, 1999)]
[House]
[Page H2551]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               EVERYONE IS WORSE OFF BY STARTING THIS WAR

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DUNCAN. Madam Speaker, I read this weekend an article from The 
Washington Post that said our bombs have done $50 billion worth of 
damage to Yugoslavia. Also, the article said that this was more bombing 
than that country had sustained during all of World War II when it was 
bombed by both sides, and that unemployment there is now over 50 
percent.
  Yugoslavia is a relatively small country geographically, with a 
population about equal to that of Tennessee and North Carolina 
combined. It is obvious that Yugoslavia and especially an economically 
devastated Yugoslavia cannot hold out much longer against the massive 
firepower we have unleashed. Then the President will be able to declare 
a great victory. But what will we have accomplished, really?
  As I have said before and many syndicated columnists from liberal to 
conservative have written, we made the situation and especially the 
refugee crisis many times worse by everything we have done there. I 
read Friday in the Washington Post that one of our bombs missed and hit 
a house where 11 children were killed. Also, we hit a bus where even 
more children were killed.
  We are making enemies out of friends, creating a reputation around 
the world for the U.S. as a bully state or, as one person said, the 
largest rogue nation.
  All of this at tremendous expense of many billions to the American 
taxpayer thus far and many billions more to resettle and reconstruct 
the country after the bombing stops.
  All of this in a vain and hopeless attempt to stop a civil war where 
ethnic and religious fighting has gone on for centuries and will come 
back once again unless we stay there forever at a tremendous cost to 
our children and grandchildren.
  I do not agree with Reverend Jessie Jackson on very much, but I 
commend him for getting our prisoners released, and I join him in 
urging our leaders to show a little at least humility and attempt to 
settle this mess and get us out of there, the sooner the better.
  Madam Speaker, one of the best summaries of this situation came not 
from a syndicated columnist but from a letter to the editor of the 
Washington Times by a man named Steven Costello of Lake Jackson, Texas.
  Mr. Costello wrote, ``it concerns me that the President has ordered 
U.S. war planes to bomb a sovereign country where we have no national 
security interest. It concerns me that the President has involved 
America in a civil war that has lasted for centuries over religious and 
national disagreements that a few cruise missiles cannot possibly 
resolve. It concerns me that this bombing is being conducted under the 
auspices of NATO, even though no member country of the NATO alliance 
has been attacked. It concerns me that Russia has condemned the NATO 
attacks against Yugoslavia.
  ``But what concerns me the most,'' Mr. Costello continued, ``is the 
real possibility that President Clinton, by misusing his authority as 
commander in chief in an apparent effort to manipulate media attention 
away from his shortcomings, is cultivating a generation of America-
haters across the globe. By his indiscriminate bombing of Iraq, 
Afghanistan, the Sudan and Yugoslavia, is there a growing generation of 
disgruntled fathers, sons and brothers of those killed by our cruise 
missiles who are vowing to extract vengeance some day by shedding 
American blood?
  Are our innocent sons, being raised today on Main Street USA, the 
future private Ryans who some day will face the disgruntled generation 
on the battlefield, all because of Mr. Clinton's present and past 
indiscretions?''
  These are good questions and serious questions that need to be asked 
for as long as we continue to fund and carry out this very unjust war.
  In a column in last Thursday's USA's Today, Charles Colson gave 
several reasons why this war could not be called a just war, among 
which he wrote, quote, the damage inflicted by a just war must be 
proportionate to the objectives of the war. So far, Mr. Colson said, we 
are not preventing suffering in proportion to what we are causing. As 
anyone should have reasonably expected, our attacks only emboldened 
Milosevic, resulting in more suffering and more ethnic Albanians being 
driven from their homes, unquote.
  Mr. Colson is right. No one is defending Milosevic, the Communist 
dictator, but he never threatened us or any other country in any way. 
We made everyone worse off by starting this war.
  If our President and Secretary of State were attempting to improve 
their legacies as great world leaders, they have not only failed, they 
have failed miserably.

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