Political Quotes

“these four important votes concerning NATO Operation Allied Force in Kosovo cause me tremendous difficulty. We hold this debate today because the mission, the means and the mentality behind this operation are unclear. There are no good options before us, only some less bad than others. People speak of winning, people speak of losing. People speak of sins of omission and sins of commission. But, we have no agreed definitions for those terms so we stutter and speak similar words with disparate meanings. Look at the history of the Balkans and you can understand one thing--no one's hands are clean and everything is colored in shades of gray. We must look to the President of the United States to lead and give us common definitions and meaning for our involvement, to define the political objectives we seek to achieve, and to determine how we can best achieve them. On March 11, over a month ago, we debated our interests in Kosovo. At that time I had not heard from the President an unambiguous statement of our interests and goals in Kosovo. Today, we cover some of the same ground and yet still do not have an articulation of the central strategic national interest involved. That suggests at best an unfortunate lack of communication, consultation and evolution, at worst, a complete muddle on the part of the administration. Given this environment, it is proper that we pass legislation that puts a check on escalation to ground forces.”