Alcee Hastings: “most respectfully I rise to oppose the gentleman's amendment, and I share with him a recent travel with reference to the…”

“most respectfully I rise to oppose the gentleman's amendment, and I share with him a recent travel with reference to the actions of the United Nations. The chairman of the Subcommittee on Africa, along with the ranking member of that committee, myself and three other Members of the House of Representatives were just in South Africa and in Angola and in Zaire and in Zimbabwe. We needed to get to Zaire, and we were ferried there on a United Nations airplane. While there we saw United Nations efforts ongoing, and I remind the gentleman from Texas to not give the impression that only United States troops are involved in our methods of the United Nations, but the largest United Nations contingent in the world today is in Angola, and they have saved millions of lives and have kept the peace, at least momentarily, in that country. I need not carry my colleague around the world, but this amendment in the final analysis would require, as the gentleman says, the United States to withdraw from the UN how much does he feel that we should contribute to peacekeeping efforts? How much should we be involved in ensuring that the vital interests of the United States around the world are protected? I am glad the gentleman from Texas offered the amendment because it offers us the opportunity for a real debate on the United Nations. This amendment clarifies that debate.”