Political Quotes

“there are few issues that this body debates which are of consequence equal to what we are debating today. We are literally talking about the life and death of thousands of people, including possibly American personnel, American soldiers. I have been here for 27 years, and on those occasions when I have been put in the position of having to vote on matters that relate to whether or not someone will live or die, I have tried my level best to be as intellectually honest and rigorous with myself as I possibly can. I have listened to the debate on the floor today with great interest and with some disappointment. It comes as no surprise to my colleagues that have served with me in the last 10 years or so, or even those in the last year or so, how strongly I feel about the Balkans. I am given blame, or credit, depending on the place from which you come, for getting us as involved in Bosnia as we are. I came back in the early nineties from a long, several-hour meeting late in the night in the office of Slobodan Milosevic, the President of Yugoslavia, and I came away convinced that this was a man with an agenda that was anathema to our interests and was literally genocidal. I wrote a report years ago, referred to as "lift and strike," whereby I urged us to change our policy. And so I don't want to attempt to hide in any way the intensity of my feelings about what the appropriate action for the United States, NATO, and the world is relative to Mr. Milosevic.”