[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 7]
[House]
[Page 9177]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                       THE BOMBING OF YUGOSLAVIA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Brady of Texas). Under a previous order 
of the House, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan) is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, many people have felt right from the start 
that the President and Secretary of State made a horrible mistake in 
starting the bombing of Yugoslavia. The President and Secretary 
Albright have made this horrible mistake even worse by escalating the 
bombing so much. Now Yugoslavia has been bombed far more than in World 
War II when it was bombed by both sides.
  This war has been and is so unpopular that I read last week that the 
main White House spin doctor had gone over to try to help improve 
NATO's public relations. We certainly did not have to have White House 
spin doctors to convince us to go to war after Pearl Harbor. At that 
time, only one Member of Congress voted against the U.S. entering World 
War II, but at that time the people were solidly behind the war effort 
because we and our allies had been attacked.
  In Yugoslavia, for the first time ever, the U.S. has become an 
aggressor nation. Our foreign policy has been turned upside down.
  Tony Snow, the columnist-commentator, wrote last Friday: ``Three 
features distinguish the war in Kosovo from every other in American 
history. This is the first in which we have been the unambiguous 
aggressor; the first in which we've had no discernible national 
interest at stake; and the first in which we have let others act as our 
sovereign.''
  Paul Harvey, in his Friday newscast, said someday this will be called 
``Monica's War,'' meaning many people believe the President was in part 
attempting to improve his image as a world statesman after the 
embarrassment of the impeachment scandal.
  Now the party line coming out of the White House is simply to label 
anyone who opposes the war as doing so because of hatred for the 
President.
  Well, while I strongly disagree with the President over all these 
bombings, I do not hate him or even feel any personal animosity toward 
him. But anyone who uses this hatred argument is simply trying to avoid 
discussing the case on its merits or lack thereof. They are appealing 
to emotion and prejudice and resorting to name calling when they accuse 
people of opposing the war simply because of hatred for the President. 
It is so obvious that an argumentative ploy like that is simply an 
attempt to avoid discussing the merits of the war.
  We bombed Afghanistan and the Sudan just 3 days after the President's 
apology about the Lewinsky scandal was such a flop.
  We started bombing Iraq on the afternoon before the House was 
scheduled to begin impeachment proceedings.
  When bad publicity started coming out about the Chinese espionage, on 
the eve of the Chinese Premier's visit, we started bombing Yugoslavia.
  We should not be so eager to bomb people. We should only go to war 
when absolutely forced to and when our national security is threatened 
or our very vital national interest is at stake. Neither is present in 
Yugoslavia.
  The U.S., using NATO for a political cover, has now done over $50 
billion worth of damage to Yugoslavia, a very small country with less 
than 4 percent of our population.
  It is obvious that Milosevic cannot hold out much longer, but we have 
already spent billions which we are taking from Social Security, and we 
will have to spend many billions more on this stupid war before it is 
all through, all to make a bad situation much worse than it was before 
we started. We are creating enemies all over the world, giving up our 
reputation as a peace-loving nation by attacking a country that had not 
attacked us nor had even threatened to do so. And apparently this was 
done mainly to help improve the President's legacy and because NATO was 
desperately seeking a new mission.
  Very soon this war will be settled, I hope, and then the President 
and his spin doctors will declare a great victory. But, in reality, it 
will take us many years to recover from the damage that we are doing to 
ourselves and our country, both financially and diplomatically.
  Don Feder, the nationally syndicated columnist of the Boston Harold, 
summed it up this way:

       President Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright 
     set the stage for the catastrophe in Kosovo. If there were a 
     Nobel Prize for ineptitude in diplomacy, they would be its 
     joint recipients.

  He continued:

       The military will be so exhausted by doing social work with 
     bombs and troops that resources won't be there to defend the 
     United States when our vital interests are at stake. When 
     China confronts us in Asia, we can tell our allies there that 
     we have spent all of our missiles in the Balkans.

  He wrote this before we bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.
  Finally, Mr. Feder, wrote this:

       Kosovo was an avoidable tragedy. Clinton and Albright 
     should toast marshmallows over the flames of Kosovo. They lit 
     the fire.

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