[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 7]
[House]
[Pages 9502-9505]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                        STAY TO COURSE IN KOSOVO

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Saxton). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Speaker, on Saturday night, I was at JFK airport in 
New York to welcome the first group of Kosovar-Albanian refugees who 
were coming to the United States to be reunited with their families. A 
number of those families reside in my district in Bronx, New York; and 
a number of those families have told me about the atrocities that have 
gone on in a firsthand basis.
  This morning I had the pleasure of listening to President Clinton 
deliver a speech on the whole situation in Yugoslavia. It was an 
excellent speech. Essentially what the President said was that we will 
stay the course, as we must, and that we have already told Mr. 
Milosevic what he needs to do in order for us to stop the bombing.
  I cannot understand some of our colleagues who say that we ought to 
unilaterally stop the bombing when ethnic cleansing and genocide is 
still going on, when people are being raped and murdered and ordered 
from their homes, when an entire people is trying to be wiped out.
  They want to make Kosovo free of Albanians when Albanians have lived 
there for years and years and years.
  I will include for the Record President Clinton's speech. I want to 
particularly read a couple of things that the President said, because 
some of my colleagues previously have said certain things.
  The President said: ``There are those who say Europe and its North 
American allies have no business intervening in the ethnic conflicts of 
the Balkans. They are the inevitable result, these conflicts, according 
to some, of centuries-old animosity which were unleashed by the end of 
the Cold War restraints in Yugoslavia and elsewhere.''
  The President says, ``I, myself, have been guilty of saying that on 
an occasion or two, and I regret it now more than I can say. For I have 
spent a good deal of time in these last 6 years reading the real 
history of the Balkans. And the truth is that a lot of what passes for 
common wisdom in this area is a gross oversimplification and misreading 
of history.
  ``The truth is that for centuries these people have lived together in 
the Balkans and Southeastern Europe with greater or lesser degree of 
tension, but often without anything approaching the intolerable 
conditions and conflict

[[Page 9503]]

that exist today. And we do no favors for ourselves or the rest of the 
world when we justify looking away from this kind of slaughter by 
oversimplifying and conveniently, in our own way, demonizing the whole 
Balkans by saying that these people are simply incapable of civilized 
behavior with one another.''
  He goes on, ``There is a huge difference between people who can't 
resolve their problems peacefully and fight about them, and people who 
resort to systematic ethnic cleansing and slaughter of people because 
of their religious and ethnic background. There is a difference. There 
is a difference.''
  I say to my colleagues there absolutely is a difference. We need to 
show Mr. Milosevic that ethnic cleansing will not be tolerated. We need 
to stay the course. We need to keep the bombing until he agrees to the 
demands of NATO. All options ought to be on the table, including the 
options of troops on the ground. We ought not to tell this dictator 
what we will or will not do. We ought not to give him a plan of what we 
intend to do. All options should be on the table.
  We must win this war. It goes beyond what is happening in the Balkans 
today. It goes beyond the ethnic cleansing. The entire credibility of 
the United States and NATO is at stake. If NATO is to have any 
relevance in the world, we need to show that NATO can win this war.
  Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. ENGEL. I yield to the gentleman from Rhode Island.
  Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island. Mr. Speaker, I just want to commend the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel) for his persistence on this matter. 
I can recall well before the Milosevic ever invaded Kosovo it was the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel) who was talking to this Congress 
about the impending problems that we were going to have with Mr. 
Milosevic.
  He is clearly the greatest authority on this issue in the United 
States Congress. When he speaks, he speaks from long-held experience 
and belief in this issue. I want to commend him for all the good work 
that he does.
  Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Rhode Island for 
his kind words, and I appreciate his comments very, very much.
  My colleague previously, the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Cunningham) said, ``What are the Kosovars afraid of?'' That is an easy 
question. They are afraid of being killed. They are afraid of being 
ethnically cleansed. The are afraid of their women being raped. They 
are afraid of wiping out their whole history, burning their villages, 
shooting children, destroying any kind of papers that they have so they 
are a people that do not exist. That is what they are afraid of. We 
thought we saw an end to that in the Nazi era. We are seeing it again.
  Let me just say in conclusion, I think we must stay the course. I 
think we must win this war. I am proud of the United States of America. 
I am proud of President Clinton for standing up and saying we will not 
tolerate ethnic cleansing. We will not stand idly by while genocide is 
going on.
  Mr. Speaker, the President's speech that I referred to is as follows:

       Washington, May 13/U.S. Newswire--Following is a transcript 
     of remarks made by President Clinton today to veterans groups 
     on the Kosovo situation (Part 1 of 2):


                      Eisenhower Hall Ft. Mc Nair

       The PRESIDENT: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank 
     you, Commander Pouliot, I am grateful to you and to Veterans 
     of Foreign Wars for your support of America's efforts in 
     Kosovo.
       General Chilcoat, Secretary Albright, Secretary Cohen, 
     Secretary West, National Security Advisor Berger, Deputy 
     Secretary Gober, General Shelton and the Joint Chiefs, and to 
     the members of the military and members of the VFW who are 
     here. I'd also like to thank Congressman Engel and 
     Congressman Quinn for coming to be with us today.
       I am especially honored to be here with our veterans who 
     have struggled for freedom in World War II and in the half-
     century since. Your service inspires us today, as we work 
     with our allies to reverse the systematic campaign of terror, 
     and to bring peace and freedom to Kosovo. To honor your 
     sacrifices and fufill the vision of a peaceful Europe, for 
     which so many of the VFW members risked your lives, NATO's 
     mission, as the Commander said, must succeed.
       My meeting last week in Europe with Kosovar refugees, we 
     allied leaders, with Americans in uniform, strengthened my 
     conviction that we will succeed. With just seven months left 
     in the 20th century, Kosovo is a crucial test: Can we 
     strengthen a global community grounded in cooperation and 
     tolerance, rooted in common humanity? Or will repression and 
     brutality, rooted in ethnic, racial and religious hatreds 
     dominate the agenda for the new century and the new 
     millennium?
       The World War II veterans here fought in Europe and in the 
     Pacific to prevent the world from being dominated by tyrants 
     who use racial and religious hatred to strengthen their grip 
     and to justify mass killing.
       President Roosevelt said in his final Inaugural Address: 
     ``We have learned that we cannot live alone. We cannot live 
     alone at peace. We have learned that our own well-being is 
     dependent on the well-being of other nations far away. We 
     have learned to be citizens of the world, members of the 
     human community.''
       The sacrifices of American and allied troops helped to end 
     a nightmare, rescue freedom and lay the groundwork for the 
     modern world that has benefited all of us. In the long Cold 
     War years, our troops stood for freedom against communism 
     until the Berlin Wall fell and the Iron Curtain collapsed.
       Now, the nations of Central Europe are free democracies. 
     We've welcomed new members of NATO and formed security 
     partnerships with many other countries all across Europe's 
     East, including Russia and Ukraine. Both the European Union 
     and NATO have pledged to continue to embrace new members.
       Some have questioned the need for continuing our security 
     partnership with Europe at the end of the Cold War. But in 
     this age of growing international interdependence, America 
     needs a strong and peaceful Europe more than ever as our 
     partner for freedom and for economic progress, and our 
     partner against terrorism, the spread of weapons of mass 
     destruction, and instability.
       The promise of a Europe undivided, democratic and at peace, 
     is at long last within reach. But we all know it is 
     threatened by the ethnic and religious turmoil in 
     Southeastern Europe, where most leaders are freely elected, 
     and committed to cooperation, both within and among their 
     neighbors.
       Unfortunately, for more than 10 years now, President 
     Milosevic has pursued a different course for Serbia, and for 
     much of the rest of the former Yugoslavia. Since the late 
     1980's he has acquired, retained, and sought to expand his 
     power, by inciting religious and ethnic hatred in the cause 
     of greater Serbia; by demonizing and dehumanizing people, 
     especially the Bosnian and Kosovar Muslims, whose history, 
     culture and very presence in the former republic of 
     Yugoslavia impede that vision of a greater Serbia.
       He unleashed wars in Bosnia and Croatia, creating 2 million 
     refugees and leaving a quarter of a million people dead. A 
     decade ago, he stripped Kosovo of its constitutional self-
     government, and began harassing and oppressing its people. He 
     has also rejected brave calls among his own Serb people for 
     greater liberty. Today, he uses repression and censorship at 
     home to stifle dissent and to conceal what he is doing in 
     Kosovo.
       Though his ethnic cleansing is not the same as the ethnic 
     extermination of the Holocaust, the two are related--both 
     vicious, premeditated, systematic oppression fueled by 
     religious and ethnic hatred. This campaign to drive the 
     Kosovars from their land and to, indeed, erase their very 
     identity is an affront to humanity and an attack not only on 
     a people, but on the dignity of all people.
       Even now, Mr. Milosevic is being investigated by the 
     International War Crimes Tribunal for alleged war crimes, 
     including mass killing and ethnic cleansing. Until recently, 
     1.76 million ethnic Albanians--about the population of our 
     state of Nebraska--lived in Kosovo among a total population 
     of 2 million, the others being Serbs.
       The Kosovar Albanians are farmers and factory workers, 
     lawyers and doctors, mothers, fathers, school children. They 
     have worked to build better lives under increasingly 
     difficult circumstances. Today, most of them are in camps in 
     Albania, Macedonia and elsewhere--nearly 900,000 refugees--
     some searching desperately for lost family members. Or they 
     are trapped within Kosovo itself, perhaps 600,000 more of 
     them, lacking shelter, short of food, afraid to go home. Or 
     they are buried in mass graves dug by their executioners.
       I know we see these pictures of the refugees on television 
     every night and most people would like another story. But we 
     must not get refugee fatigue. We must not forget the real 
     victims of this tragedy. We must give them aid and hope. And 
     we in the United States must make sure--must--make sure their 
     stories are told.
       A Kosovar farmer told how Serb tanks drove into his 
     village. Police lined up all the men, about 100 of them, by a 
     stream and opened fire. The farmer was hit by a bullet in the 
     shoulder. The weight of falling bodies all around him pulled 
     him into the stream. The only way he could stay alive was to 
     pretend to be dead. From a camp in Albania, he said,

[[Page 9504]]

     my daughter tells me, ``Father, sleep. Why don't you sleep?'' 
     But I can't. All those dead bodies on top of mine.
       Another refugee told of trying to return to his village in 
     Kosovo's capital, Pristina. ``On my way,'' he said, ``I met 
     one of my relatives. He told me not to go back because there 
     were snipers on the balconies. Minutes after I left, the man 
     was killed--I found him. Back in Pristina no one could go 
     out, because of the Serb policemen in the streets. It was 
     terrible to see our children, they were so hungry. Finally, I 
     tried to go shopping. Four armed men jumped out and said, 
     we're going to kill you if you don't get out of here. My 
     daughters were crying day and night. We were hearing stories 
     about rape. They begged me, please get us out of here. So we 
     joined thousands of people going through the streets at night 
     toward the train station. In the train wagons, police were 
     tearing up passports, taking money, taking jewelry.''
       Another refugee reported, ``the Serbs surrounded us. They 
     killed four children because their families did not have 
     money to give to the police. They killed them with knives, 
     not guns.''
       Another recalled, ``The police came early in the morning. 
     They executed almost a hundred people. They killed them all, 
     women and children. They set a fire and threw the bodies 
     in.''
       A pregnant woman watched Serb forces shoot her brother in 
     the stomach. She said, ``My father asked for someone to help 
     this boy, but the answer he got was a beating. The Serbs told 
     my brother to put his hands up, and then they shot him ten 
     times. I saw this. I saw my brother die.''
       Serb forces, their faces often concealed by masks, as they 
     were before in Bosnia, have rounded up Kosovar women and 
     repeatedly raped them. They have said to children, go into 
     the woods and die of hunger.
       Last week in Germany, I met with a couple of dozen of these 
     refugees, and I asked them all, in turn, to speak about their 
     experience. A young man--I'd say 15 or 16 years old--stood up 
     and struggled to talk. Finally, he just sat down and said, 
     ``Kosovo, I can't talk about Kosovo.''
       Nine of every 10 Kosovar Albanians now has been driven from 
     their homes; thousands murdered; at least 100,000 missing; 
     many young men led away in front of their families; over 500 
     cities, towns and villages torched. All this has been carried 
     out, you must understand, according to a plan carefully 
     designed months earlier in Belgrade. Serb officials 
     prepositioned forces, tanks and fuel and mapped out the 
     sequence of attack: what were the soldiers going to do; what 
     were the paramilitary people going to do; what were the 
     police going to do.
       Town after town has seen the same brutal procedures--Serb 
     forces taking valuables and identity papers, seizing or 
     executing civilians, destroying property records, bulldozing 
     and burning homes, mocking the fleeing.
       We and our allies, with Russia, have worked hard for a just 
     peace. Just last fall, Mr. Milosevic agreed under pressure to 
     halt a previous assault on Kosovo, and hundreds of thousands 
     of Kosovars were able to return home. But soon, he broke his 
     commitment and renewed violence.
       In February and March, again we pressed for peace, and the 
     Kosovar Albanian leaders accepted a comprehensive plan, 
     including the disarming of their insurgent forces, though it 
     did not give them all they wanted. But instead of joining the 
     peace, Mr. Milosevic, having already massed some 40,000 
     troops in and around Kosovo, unleashed his forces to 
     intensify their atrocities and complete his brutal scheme.
       Now, from the outset of this conflict, we and our allies 
     have been very clear about what Belgrade must do to end it. 
     The central imperative is this: The Kosovars must be able to 
     return home and live in safety. For this to happen, the Serb 
     forces must leave; partial withdrawals can only mean 
     continued civil wars with the Kosovar insurgence.
       There must also be an international security force with 
     NATO at its core. Without that force, after all they've been 
     through, the Kosovars simply won't go home. Their 
     requirements are neither arbitrary nor overreaching. These 
     things we have said are simply what is necessary to make 
     peace work.
       There are those who say Europe and its North American 
     allies have no business intervening in the ethnic conflicts 
     of the Balkans. They are the inevitable result, these 
     conflicts, according to some of centuries-old animosity which 
     were unleashed by the end of the Cold War restraints in 
     Yugoslavia and elsewhere. I, myself, have been guilty of 
     saying that on an occasion or two, and I regret it now more 
     than I can say. For I have spent a great deal of time in 
     these last six years reading the real history of the Balkans. 
     and the truth is that a lot of what passes for common wisdom 
     in this area is a gross oversimplification and misreading of 
     history.
       The truth is that for centuries these people have lived 
     together in the Balkans and Southeastern Europe with greater 
     or lesser degree of tension, but often without anything 
     approaching the intolerable conditions and conflicts that 
     exist today. And we do no favors to ourselves or to the rest 
     of the world when we justify looking away from this kind of 
     slaughter by oversimplifying and conveniently, in our own 
     way, demonizing the whole Balkans by saying that these people 
     are simply incapable of civilized behavior to one another.
       Second, there is--people say, okay, maybe it's not 
     inevitable, but look there are a lot of ethnic problems in 
     the world. Russia has dealt with Chechnya, and you've got 
     Abkhazia and Ossetia on the borders of Russia. And you've got 
     all these ethnic problems everywhere, and religious problems. 
     That's what the Middle East is about. You've got Northern 
     Ireland. You've got the horrible, horrible genocide in 
     Rwanda. You've got the war, now, between Eritrea and 
     Ethiopia. They say, oh, we've got all these problems, and 
     therefore, why do you care about this?
       I say to them there is a huge difference between people who 
     can't resolve their problems peacefully and fight about them, 
     and people who resort to systematic ethnic cleansing and 
     slaughter of people because of their religious or ethnic 
     background. There is a difference. There is a difference.
       And that is the difference that NATO--that our allies have 
     tried to recognize and act on. I believe that is what we saw 
     in Bosnia and Kosova. I think the only thing we have seen 
     that really rivals that, rooted in ethnic or religious 
     destruction, in this decade is what happened in Rwanda. And I 
     regret very much that the world community was not organized 
     and able to act quickly there as well.
       Bringing the Kosovars home is a moral issue, but it is a 
     very practical, strategic issue. In a world where the future 
     will be threatened by the growth of terrorist groups; the 
     easy spread of weapons of mass destruction; the use of 
     technology including the Internet, for people to learn how to 
     make bombs, and wreck countries, this is also a significant 
     security issue. Particularly because of Kosovo's location, it 
     is just as much a security issue for us as ending the war in 
     Bosnia was.
       Though we are working hard with the international community 
     to sustain them, a million or more permanent Kosovar refugees 
     could destabilize Albania, Macedonia, the wider region, 
     become a fertile ground for radicalism and vengeance that 
     would consume Southeastern Europe. And if Europe were 
     overwhelmed with that, you know we would have to then come in 
     and help them. Far better for us all to work together, to be 
     firm, to be resolute, to be determined to resolve this now.
       If the European community and its American and Canadian 
     allies were to turn away from, and therefore reward, ethnic 
     cleansing in the Balkans, all we would do is to create for 
     ourselves an environment where this sort of practice was 
     sanctioned by other people who found it convenient to build 
     their own political power, and therefore, we would be 
     creating a world of trouble for Europe and for the United 
     States in the years ahead.
       I'd just like to make one more point about this, in terms 
     of the history of the Balkans. As long as people have existed 
     there have been problems among people who are different from 
     one another, and there probably always will be. But you do 
     not have systematic slaughter and an effort to eradicate the 
     religion, the culture, the heritage, the very record of 
     presence of the people in any area unless some politician 
     thinks it is in his interest to foment that sort of hatred. 
     That's how these things happen--people with organized 
     political and military power decide it is in their interest 
     that they get something out of convincing the people they 
     control or they influence to go kill other people and uproot 
     them and dehumanize them.
       I don't believe that the Serb people in their souls are any 
     better--I mean, any worse--than we are. Do you? Do you 
     believe when a little baby is born into a certain ethnic or 
     racial group that somehow they have some poison in there that 
     has to, at some point when they grow up, turn into some vast 
     flame of destruction? Congressman Engel has got more 
     Albanians than any Congressman in the country in his 
     district. Congressman Quinn's been involved in the peace 
     process in Ireland. You think there's something about the 
     Catholic and Protestant Irish kids that sort of genetically 
     predisposes them to--you know better than that, because we're 
     about to make peace there, I hope--getting closer.
       Political leaders do this kind of thing. You think the 
     Germans would have perpetrated the Holocaust on their own 
     without Hitler? Was there something in the history of the 
     German race that made them do this? No.
       We've got to get straight about this. This is something 
     political leaders do. And if people make decisions to do 
     these kinds of things, other people can make decisions to 
     stop them. And if the resources are properly arrayed it can 
     be done. And that is exactly what we intend to do.
       Now, last week, despite our differences over the NATO 
     action in Kosovo, Russia joined us, through the G-8 foreign 
     ministers, in affirming our basic condition for ending the 
     conflict, in affirming that the mass expulsion of the 
     Kosovars cannot stand. We and Russia agreed that the 
     international force ideally should be endorsed by the United 
     Nations, as it was in Bosnia. And we do want Russian forces, 
     along with those of other nations, to participate, because a 
     Russian presence will help to reassure the Serbs who live in 
     Kosovo--and they will need some protection, too, after all 
     that has occurred.

[[Page 9505]]

       NATO and Russian forces have served well side-by-side in 
     Bosnia, with forces from many other countries. And with all 
     the difficulties, the tensions, the dark memories that still 
     exist in Bosnia, the Serbs, the Muslims, the Croats are still 
     at peace, and still working together. Nobody claims that we 
     can make everybody love each other overnight. That is not 
     required. But what is required are basic norms of civilized 
     conduct.
       Until Serbia accepts these conditions, we will continue to 
     grind down its war machine. Today, our allied air campaign is 
     striking at strategic targets in Serbia, and directly at Serb 
     forces in Kosovo, making it harder for them to obtain 
     supplies, protect themselves, and attack the ethnic Albanians 
     who are still there. NATO actions will not stop until the 
     conditions I have described for peace are met.
       Last week, I had a chance to meet with our troops in 
     Europe--those who are flying the missions, and those who are 
     organizing and leading our humanitarian assistance effort. I 
     can tell you that you and all Americans can be very, very 
     proud of them. They are standing up for what is right. They 
     are performing with great skill and courage and sense of 
     purpose. And in their attempts to avoid civilian casualties, 
     they are sometimes risking their own lives. The wing 
     commander at Spangdahlem Air Force Base in Germany told me, 
     ``Sir, our team wants to stay with this mission until it's 
     finished.''
       I am grateful to these men and women. They are worthy 
     successors to those of you in this audience who are veterans 
     today.
       Of course, we regret any casualties that are accidental, 
     including those at the Chinese Embassy. But let me be clear 
     again: These are accidents. They are inadvertent tragedies of 
     conflict. We have worked very hard to avoid them. I'm telling 
     you, I talked to pilots who told me that they had been fired 
     at with mobile weapons from people in the middle of highly-
     populated villages, and they turned away rather than answer 
     fire because they did not want to risk killing innocent 
     civilians.
       That is not our policy. But those of you who wear the 
     uniform of our country and the many other countries 
     represented here in this room today, and those of you who are 
     veterans, know that it is simply not possible to avoid 
     casualties of noncombatants in this sort of encounter. We are 
     working hard. And I think it is truly remarkable--I would ask 
     the world to note that we have now flown over 19,000 sorties, 
     thousands and thousands of bombs have been dropped, and there 
     have been very few incidents of this kind. I know that you 
     know how many there have been because Mr. Milosevic makes 
     sure that the media has access to them.
       I grieve for the loss of the innocent Chinese and their 
     families. I grieve for the loss of the innocent Serbian 
     civilians and their families. I grieve for the loss of the 
     innocent Kosovars who were put into a military vehicle that 
     our people thought was a military vehicle, and they've often 
     been used as shields.
       But I ask you to remember the stories I told you earlier. 
     There are thousands of people that have been killed 
     systematically by the Serb forces. There are 100,000 people 
     who are still missing. We must remember who the real victims 
     are here and why this started.
       It is no accident that Mr. Milosevic has not allowed the 
     international media to see the slaughter and destruction in 
     Kosovo. There is no picture reflecting the story that one 
     refugee told of 15 men being tied together and set on fire 
     while they were alive. No, there are no pictures of that. But 
     we have enough of those stories to know that there is a 
     systematic effort that has animated our actions, and we must 
     not forget it.
       Now, Serbia faces a choice. Mr. Milosevic and his allies 
     have dragged their people down a path of racial and religious 
     hatred. This has resulted, again and again, in bloodshed, in 
     loss of life, in loss of territory, and denial of the Serbs' 
     own freedom--and now, in an unwinnable conflict against the 
     united international community.
       But there is another path available--one where people of 
     different backgrounds and religions work together, within and 
     across national borders; where people stop redrawing borders 
     and start drawing blueprints for a prosperous, multiethnic 
     future.
       This is the path the other nations of Southeastern Europe 
     have adopted. Day after day, they work to improve lives, to 
     build a future in which the forces that pull people together 
     are stronger than those that tear them apart. Albania and 
     Bulgaria, as well as our NATO ally, Greece, have overcome 
     historical differences to recognize the independence of the 
     Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Romania, Bulgaria, 
     Macedonia and others have deepened freedoms, promoted 
     tolerance, pursued difficult economic reforms. Slovenia has 
     advanced democracy at home, and prosperity; stood for 
     regional integration, increased security cooperation, with a 
     center to defuse land mines left from the conflict in Bosnia.
       These nations are reaffirming that discord is not 
     inevitable, that there is not some Balkan disease that has 
     been there for centuries, always waiting to break out. They 
     are drawing on a rich past where peoples of the region did, 
     in fact, live together in peace.
       Now, we and our allies have been helping to build that 
     future, but we have to accelerate our efforts. We will work 
     with the European Union, the World Bank, the IMF and others 
     to ease the immediate economic strains, to relieve debt 
     burden, to speed reconstruction, to advance economic reforms 
     and regional trade. We will promote political freedom and 
     tolerance of minorities.
       At our NATO Summit last month we agreed to deepen our 
     security engagement in the region, to adopt an ambitious 
     program to help aspiring nations improve their candidacies to 
     join the NATO Alliance. They have risked and sacrificed the 
     support of the military and humanitarian efforts. They 
     deserve our support.
       Last Saturday was the anniversary of one of the greatest 
     day in American history and in the history of freedom--VE 
     Day. Though America celebrated that day in 1945, we did not 
     pack up and go home. We stayed--to provide economic aid, to 
     help to bolster democracy, to keep the peace--and because our 
     strength and resolve was important as Europe rebuilt, learned 
     to live together; faced new challenges together.
       The resources we devoted to the Marshall Plan, to NATO, to 
     other efforts, I think we would all agree have been an 
     enormous bargain for our long-term prosperity and security 
     here in the United States--just as the resources we are 
     devoting here at this institution--to reaching out to people 
     from other nations, to their officers, to their military, in 
     a spirit of cooperation are an enormous bargain for the 
     future security of the people of the United States.
       Now, that's what I want to say in my last point here. War 
     is expensive; peace is cheaper. Prosperity is downright 
     profitable. We have to invest in the rebuilding of this 
     region. Southeastern Europe, after the Cold War, was free but 
     poor. As long as they are poor, they will offer a less 
     compelling counterweight to the kind of ethnic exclusivity 
     and oppression that Mr. Milosevic preaches.
       If you believe the Marshall Plan worked, and you believe 
     war is to be avoided whenever possible, and you understand 
     how expensive it is and how profitable prosperity is, how 
     much we have gotten out of what we have done--then we have to 
     work with our European allies to rebuild Southeastern Europe, 
     and to give them an economic future that will pull them 
     together.
       The European Union is prepared to take the lead role in 
     Southeastern Europe's development. Russia, Ukraine, other 
     nations of Europe's East are building democracy--they want to 
     be a part of this.
       We are trying to do this in other places in the world. What 
     a great ally Japan has been for peace and prosperity, and 
     will be again as they work to overcome their economic 
     difficulty. Despite our present problems, I still believe we 
     must remain committed to building a long-term strategic 
     partnership with China.
       We must work together with people where we can, as we 
     prepare--always--to protect and defend our security if we 
     must. But a better world and a better Europe are clearly in 
     America's interests.
       Serbia and the rest of the Balkans should be part of it. So 
     I want to say this one more time: Our quarrel is not with the 
     Serbian people. The United States has been deeply enriched by 
     Serbian Americans. Millions of Americans are now cheering for 
     some Serbian Americans as we watch the basketball play-offs 
     every night on television. People of Serbian heritage are an 
     important part of our society. We can never forget that the 
     Serbs fought bravely with the allies against fascist 
     aggression in World War II; that they suffer much; that 
     Serbs, too, have been uprooted from their homes and have 
     suffered greatly in the conflicts of the past decade that Mr. 
     Milosevic provoked.
       But the cycle of violence has to end. The children of the 
     Balkans--all of them--deserve the chance to grow up without 
     fear. Serbs simply must free themselves of the notion that 
     their neighbors must be their enemies. The real enemy is a 
     poisonous hatred unleashed by a cynical leader, based on a 
     distorted view of what constitutes real national greatness.
       The United States has become greater as we have shed 
     racism, as we have shed a sense of superiority, as we have 
     become more committed to working together across the lines 
     that divide us, as we have found other ways to define meaning 
     and purpose in life. And so has every other country that has 
     embarked on that course.
       We stand ready, therefore, to embrace Serbia as a part of a 
     new Europe--if the people of Serbia are willing to invest and 
     embrace that kind of future; if they are ready to build a 
     Serbia, and a Yugoslavia, that is democratic, and respects 
     the right and dignity of all people; if they are ready to 
     join a world where people reach across the divide to find 
     their common humanity and their prosperity.
       This is the right vision, and the right course. It is not 
     only the morally right thing for America, it is the right 
     thing for our security interests over the long run. It is the 
     vision for which the veterans in this room struggled so 
     valiantly, for which so many others have given their lives.
       With your example to guide us, and with our allies beside 
     us, it is a vision that will prevail. And it is very, very 
     much worth standing for.


       Thank you, and God bless you. (Applause.)

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