[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 4807]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



     WE NEED TO BRING AMERICA HOME FROM ITS INTERVENTION IN KOSOVO

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Washington (Mr. Metcalf) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. METCALF. Mr. Speaker, we have no business in Kosovo. Our policy 
is a misguided excursion into the danger-laden Balkans. We have no 
overriding national interest there.
  We have heard vaunted allegations of human rights violations leveled 
against the Serbian government. Once again, we come to find out that an 
administration determined to mire us in overseas turmoil has greatly 
exaggerated the situation to win over a skeptical public and stampede 
the Congress.
  We were told several months ago that as many as 100,000 Albanian 
Kosovars were brutally murdered. We were being misled. Now we know the 
figure was much, much smaller.
  What of our continual bombing that eventually included not only 
public transportation but medical facilities, nearly 100 schools, 
churches, and homes? What of the innocent deaths we inflicted with tax 
dollars of the citizens of the United States? Bombing is by definition 
an act of war.
  What have we done? What are the objectives of our bombing, our 
President's most recent adventure, and what are the results?
  We were told we went into Kosovo to stop ethnic cleansing. It 
continues with a vengeance, this time with the acquiescence of our own 
forces. The KLA not 2 years ago was classified by our own State 
Department as a heroin-financed terrorist organization. Now they are 
soon to be vaunted by the Clinton administration as freedom fighters. 
They roam the countryside brutalizing innocents, not only Serbs but 
gypsies, Muslim Slavs, and Albanians opposed to their thuggishness.
  We were told when we went into Kosovo we wanted to stabilize the 
Balkans. Initially, the ambiguity of our policy gave the green light to 
separatist movements around the region. Today in both Bosnia and Kosovo 
we are committed into the future as far as the eye can see.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask, what stability have we achieved in the Balkans? 
At what price to this Nation? In the Kosovo region, news reports 
continue to tell us that Kosovar militias still refuse to disarm and 
are now destabilizing southern Serbia. A new confrontation with 
Milosevic and a new refugee crisis is feared.
  Can anyone share with this Congress a realistic exit strategy from 
this quagmire? I agree with Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison's assessment 
of our Balkan interventions, recently published in the Financial Times: 
``NATO has to get off of this merry-go-round. It must acknowledge that 
imposing multicultural democracy at the point of a gun is not 
working.''
  We were told we went into Kosovo to thwart the Serbian ruler, Mr. 
Milosevic. What have we accomplished? Milosevic is still firmly in 
place. We were told we went into Kosovo to insure the credibility of 
NATO. But did we do this by violating the first section of the NATO 
charter, by launching a war against a sovereign Nation that had 
committed no aggression against any of its neighbors?
  NATO's strength was that it was a shield, not a sword, a shield, not 
a sword. Some skeptics suggest NATO's actions were ones of 
justification, considering their original mission was to protect Europe 
from a Soviet Union that no longer exists.
  What are the costs of Kosovo? Displacement of hundreds of thousands 
of Kosovars, displacement of hundreds of thousands of Serbs, expansion 
of the conflict into Serbia proper, the potential of instability in 
Macedonia, and, tragically and needlessly, a new and probably undying 
hatred for the United States on the part of the Serbians, and, from 
what we have seen recently, Albanian Kosovars as well, as a result of 
this foolish and foolhardy intervention.
  Mr. Speaker, we need to bring America home.

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