[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Pages 7293-7294]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                 KOSOVO

  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, on the eve of the gathering of all of 
NATO to celebrate the successful completion of our first 50 years, I 
wanted to take this opportunity to comment on the current situation in 
Europe.
  As you know, we are blessed to live in a country which enjoys a 
deeply rooted democracy and a deeply rooted sense of equality. However, 
these same characteristics and qualities which make America a model for 
the world also present very real challenges in times like these.
  It is often said that the most difficult task for any democracy is 
deciding to go to war. The reasons are self-evident. When you live in a 
nation that believes all people are created equal, how do you ask some 
citizens to sacrifice so much so that others may continue to enjoy 
their freedom? When you live in a nation where human life is sacred, 
where, in fact each individual life has dignity, how do you build a 
consensus for the sacrifices that may be necessary to achieve the 
victory that we hope for?
  The task is even more complex when the challenge to American freedom 
is more indirect, as it is in this case. We have confronted this 
reality since the beginning of the war in Kosovo. No one in America 
believes that Serbia intends to invade the United States. We will never 
look out of the window and see Yugoslavian tanks driving down 
Pennsylvania Avenue to squelch American liberties. It remains, then, 
for those of us in the leadership of this Nation who support NATO 
operations in Kosovo to explain why we are prepared to ask American 
troops to make the sacrifices that may be necessary, in this seemingly 
remote and distant land.
  I believe there is one central reason that justifies our actions, and 
that is the price, the tremendous price, we have already paid for 
freedom in America and in Europe.
  Our parents' generation and their parents were asked to risk their 
lives to fundamentally alter the way the world operates. In World War 
I, President Wilson asked our grandparents to fight to make the world 
``safe for democracy,'' and they did. In World War II, when fascism 
threatened to conquer the democracies of Europe, President Roosevelt 
asked America to become ``the arsenal of democracy,'' and we were. 
During the cold war, President Kennedy called on Americans to ``pay any 
price, to bear any burden,'' to meet the threat of communism, and we 
have. Finally, President Reagan said insisted that we ``tear down that 
wall,'' and it was.
  We emerged victorious from World Wars I and II, as well as the cold 
war, but not without a price. American blood was spilled in the 
trenches of World War I and on the beaches of Normandy during World War 
II. Americans fought and died in Korea and Vietnam to contain communism 
during the Cold War. So, for more than three generations, Americans 
have been making the sacrifices necessary to change the world in which 
we live and to maintain democracy in Europe and, yes, indeed, to help 
spread it throughout the entire world.
  It is important to remember that this sacrifice has not been in vain. 
It is easy today to be cynical about human nature and the prospects for 
lasting peace in Europe. After all, these feuds in Europe predated 
America's existence by many centuries. But to dwell on the

[[Page 7294]]

worst instincts of Europe and Western civilization is to ignore the 
very real progress and the tremendous victories that have been made 
possible by our allied unity and American intervention.
  Who would have imagined that in a little over 50 years, since the end 
of World War II, bitter enemies like France and Germany, England and 
Italy, would be joined by a common currency, a common market, and a 
pledge to defend one another against a common enemy? It was the 
sacrifice of many, including Americans, that made it possible for 
Europe to turn its back on a history of bloody conflict and embrace a 
vision for peace and democracy across its great continent.
  Ironically, as NATO expands to the east and the European Union 
incorporates still more of Europe, we are faced with a war in 
Yugoslavia that threatens to undo all of this good work. It is ironic 
because that is how this century began, with an act of violence from 
Serbia which sparked a world war.
  The President is fond of saying that the war in Kosovo will either be 
the last war of the 20th century or the first war of the 21st. What I 
believe he is trying to say is, that we can defeat Milosevic and give 
meaning to nearly 100 years of American struggle and effort to bring 
peace to Europe and secure the gains of our parents and grandparents, 
or we can turn our backs on their sacrifice, ignore the human tragedy, 
ignore the tremendous financial investment that has already been made. 
Then we will hope against our experience that the conflict in Kosovo 
will simply fade away.
  Many have remarked that the 20th century has been the most bloody in 
human history. It is hard to verify such claims. Nevertheless, it is 
true that we live in an era where the efficiency of industry and 
technology has been matched, unfortunately, by our expert ability to 
kill one another. We must, however, stay the course and join with our 
NATO allies to finish our work and eliminate military aggression and 
ethnic cleansing as a legitimate tool of national policy.
  There is a sleepy little town in Austria, near the German border 
called Branau am Inn. It is not one of those towns at the crossroads of 
Europe; it is not the home of kings and emperors. In fact, no one in 
Branau, if it were not for a small event, no one in the world would 
have ever heard of Branau. But it is the birthplace of Adolf Hitler. 
The sad legacy of this town is not marked with any great monument. 
Instead, above the home where Hitler was born, two simple words are 
written: Never again.
  Those two words represent a solemn pledge that this country and all 
civilized nations made at the close of World War II: Never again would 
we stand idly by while innocent men, women, and children were 
massacred. Never again would we allow a nation to invade its neighbors 
without consequences.
  Some of my colleagues here in the Senate are consistently remind us 
that Kosovo is not the Holocaust. I agree. What has occurred in the 
last few months, does not yet compare to the crimes the Nazi's 
perpetrated. But this is a senseless justification for inaction. Should 
we wait for another Holocaust to occur before we act decisively? What, 
then, is the point of action? How many children must be traumatized? 
How many homes need to be destroyed? How many women need to be victims 
of brutality before we can act? I say the words ``never again'' mean 
that we should not wait and we will be decisive in our action. That is 
why I support using whatever means is necessary to accomplish the goal 
set out by NATO. The President and our NATO allies believe we can 
achieve this purpose through air attacks. I certainly hope this is 
correct. But I also agree with many of my colleagues, led by Senators 
McCain and Biden, that we cannot rule out other measures that can 
assure our victory and success. I am proud to join them in cosponsoring 
an important resolution that they introduced earlier this week, which 
seeks to give the President the authority and tools necessary to win 
this war. I urge my colleagues to consider joining with us to send this 
powerful and much-needed message of resolve during the conflict.
  The only way that we can have peace in the Balkans is for people like 
Milosevic and the thugs underneath him to understand that there are 
real and personal consequences for their barbaric atrocities.
  The reports are very disturbing and it is very hard for me to repeat 
them. I predict, unfortunately, that more and more horror stories will 
be appear in our papers, as more survivors escape to tell their 
stories. As NATO spokesman, Jamie Shea, explained, the Serbs are 
engaging in a sort of ``human safari" where they methodically flush out 
their victims from their homes using tear gas and herd them like 
animals out of Kosovo. There have been repeated reports of the 
systematic rape of girls and women. Very conservative NATO estimates 
indicate that over 100,000 people have simply disappeared, many of them 
men who have been separated from their families--probably many to their 
early deaths. When we pledged ``never again,'' these were the sorts of 
atrocities that we were talking about.
  As a result of these reports that, I intend to introduce a resolution 
in the Senate calling on the President to ask for war crimes 
indictments against the Serbian leadership before the International 
Criminal Tribunal for the former republic of Yugoslavia. The chief 
prosecutor has already announced that the jurisdiction of the tribunal 
extends to Kosovo.
  We must ask ourselves what kind of situation will we have if 
Milosevic and his allies go unpunished. Will we have another rogue 
nation, this time in the heart of Europe, with little else motivating 
them besides age-old desires for revenge and an interest in interfering 
with the stability and prosperity of the United States and the entire 
European continent? We simply cannot allow another Iraq in the middle 
of Europe. One of the central tenets of our policy must be that these 
individuals will be brought to justice. Only then will these hundreds 
of thousands of refugees have any chance of returning to their homes. 
Only then will we have peace and democracy in the Former Republic of 
Yugoslavia, and only then will we have at least begun to live up to our 
solemn promise of ``never again.'' I wish the best of success for the 
gathering here in Washington of our NATO allies.

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