Jeremiah Smith: “Clearly, yes. It clearly had the capability to send an army into Western Europe if it so chose, if we had not stood up…”

“Clearly, yes. It clearly had the capability to send an army into Western Europe if it so chose, if we had not stood up to stop it. I think the issue, though, of dividing lines--I believe the Senator used the term ``dividing line'' or ``artificial lines'' or ``demarcations in Europe,'' saying, ``See, I think it's the opposite.'' I think by doing this, we are creating artificial lines in Europe, and we are picking winners and losers. These three--why these three nations and not six, seven, eight others? And I think we are going to have a permanent sense of disruptions, if you will, now in Europe over the next several years as this debate comes up over and over and over again as to who is next and who would be the next country to go in. As far as going back to 1939 and what happened--we have 100,000 troops in Europe today. If we had 100,000 troops in 1939, Hitler may not have come into Poland with his panzer divisions. I think that is a very important point here. It is not that we are sitting there in a sterile vacuum in Europe with nothing there. We have NATO now. We have armed forces there. And, again, my objective here is to see to it that we create an environment that, hopefully, will see a peaceful relationship between the United States and Russia which will enhance the protection of these very nations that we talk about.”