Political Quotes

“I rise to begin a discussion of the tremendous strategic consequences which may flow from events now underway on the Korean Peninsula. As we debate spending on non-proliferation programs--including support for the Korean Energy Development Organization created by the 1994 Agreed Framework, which was significantly reduced in the Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill just passed by the Senate--it is important to keep the big picture in mind. We need to remain flexible in the face of a changing world, avoiding the twin pitfalls of rigidity and what Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan refers to as ``irrational exuberance.'' Our decisions today will help shape the strategic environment that our children and grandchildren will live with tomorrow. I don't pretend to have all the answers, but I think I have a good handle on some of the key questions, and I hope my colleagues will bear them in mind as we move forward. A decade after the end of the cold war, the American people are entitled to feel puzzled and dismayed by the continued hostile division of the Korean peninsula along the 38th Parallel. More than a million soldiers, including 37,000 Americans, thousands of artillery tubes, and hundreds of tanks, are clustered along a heavily-fortified border 155 miles long. If ever a place were ill-named, it would be the so-called ``Demilitarized Zone'' on the Korean Peninsula. Today, the two Koreas could not be more different.”