Political Quotes

“one of the most important foreign policy issues with which the Congress must deal in the coming months is continued American involvement in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Last December, President Clinton announced his decision that the United States should maintain ground troops in an international force that will replace SFOR, whose mandate expires in June. Soon, he will ask the Congress for the funding to support this operation. I support the President's decision as being squarely in the national self-interest of the United States. As I have said on many other occasions, the stability of southeastern Europe depends on the ability of the Bosnians, working with the international community, to create a self-sustaining, peaceful, democratic system in their country. Failure to achieve this goal would inevitably restart the violence that produced the worst bloodletting in Europe since World War II, and would almost certainly ignite the ethnic tinderbox that is smoldering in neighboring countries. Other potential Radovan Karadzics cannot be encouraged to believe that they can get away with similar crimes. The devil's work of the mass murderers, ethnic cleansers, and rapists in Bosnia must not be allowed to stand in that country or, worse still, to be repeated there and elsewhere. Moreover, as President Clinton said in his State of the Union address, staying the course in Bosnia is a test of American leadership in Europe in general, and in NATO in particular.”