[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 35 (Monday, March 27, 2000)]
[House]
[Page H1410]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         AIR WAR AGAINST SERBIA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, in today's Scripps-Howard newspapers around 
the Nation is an editorial entitled ``Unhappy Anniversary.'' It reads 
in part, ``after its ill-advised air war against Serbia that started a 
year ago this month and concluded with the deaths of many innocent 
civilians, NATO finds itself administering a stalemate with no evident 
means of disengaging. The outcome certainly has not been a happy one 
for NATO.''
  All around the world, NATO is seen as the U.S., and I think it is 
obvious that this war would never have been started if the White House 
had not insisted on it.
  How easily, how cavalierly we say those words ``air war'' that 
``concluded with the deaths of many innocent civilians.''
  We made the situation much worse and many thousands more were made 
homeless or killed by what we did there. Billions of dollars of U.S. 
taxpayer money down the drain and billions in damage done by U.S.-NATO 
bombs. And around the world, the U.S. is seen more and more as a big 
bully trying to run the whole world instead of taking care of our own 
country.
  The globablist elites in this administration who are not satisfied 
just running the U.S. are making more enemies than friends for this 
country. We are being seen around the world as continually butting our 
nose into situations that are known of our business.
  As the Scripps-Howard editorial says, ``Kosovo is basically a problem 
for Europe and its institutions,'' or at least it should be, and it 
always was.
  Many months ago, at the end of the air war, William Ratliff and David 
Opponheimer wrote a column in The Washington Times which said in part, 
``NATO's bombings precipitated floods of refugees and other disasters 
that have destabilized the region in political, economic, and other 
terms far beyond what Mr. Milosevic could have ever done on his own.''
  They added, ``Since for most people NATO is a America, this war has 
reignited anti-Americanism and suspicion of U.S. intentions from 
Argentina to China. Most people do not believe this war was to defend 
human rights, particularly since we harmed so many innocent people in 
and far beyond the Central Balkans.''
  The Washington Post reported a few days ago that our soldiers are now 
having to fight and take weapons away from the ethnic Albanians, the 
very people we supposedly went in originally to help.
  Today's Scripps-Howard editorial says, ``the Serbians weren't killing 
as many ethnic Albanians as contemporary accounts claimed,'' adding 
this ``in Kosovo today, the ethnic Albanians are intent on revenge on 
the dwindling number of remaining Serbs, Kosovar courts and police are 
corrupt and inefficient, and the still heavily armed Kosovo Liberation 
Army is staging cross-border raids into parts of Serbia.''
  In other words, Mr. Speaker, the situation is a mess, and as Scripps 
Howard says today, ``Kosovo is a tragic example of where President 
Clinton ordered bombs instead of continuing with diplomacy.''
  Why is it important that we talk about these things now since this 
air war ended months ago? Well, for two very important reasons.
  First, we need to talk about this so we will not make these mistakes 
again. There are always numerous shooting wars going on around the 
world, some right now worse than Kosovo was when we went in.
  Second, this week, presently scheduled for Wednesday, the House is 
scheduled to take up a $9 billion supplemental appropriations bill, 
$4.95 billion, almost 5 billion of which is for our expenses in Kosovo.
  This 5 billion is on top of all the billions this stupid war cost us 
when we were doing all the bombing. We are told that we have to pass 
this supplemental bill because the military has already spent this 
money by taking it from other accounts. However, we gave the Pentagon a 
huge increase in spending with the fiscal year that started just 5 
months ago, about a $17 billion or $18 billion increase.
  This supplemental bill, just a couple of months ago, when people 
started talking about it was less than half what it is now with all the 
things that have been added to it.
  What we need now, though, is what syndicated columnist Doug Bandow 
calls a foreign policy for a Republic not an Empire, one that puts our 
country and its security first and does not have us wasting billions 
and making millions of enemies trying to be the policeman of the world.
  We will make many more friends by bombing only as an absolute last 
resort and only when our own national security is threatened or a very 
vital U.S. interest is at stake, neither of which was the case in 
Kosovo.




                          ____________________