Political Quotes

“it seems clear that the crisis in Kosovo is nearing a decision point. It is obvious that last weekend's NATO summit in Washington was a watershed. Now the administration and other NATO governments are talking openly of at least planning for the introduction of ground troops to secure Kosovo, something that the administration had until then denied it was even planning. Officials are using euphemisms like ``troops in a nonpermissive environment,'' but the meaning ought to be plain. At the same time, however, there have been high-level meetings between U.S. and Russian officials about the substance of Russian Envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin's mission to Belgrade over the weekend. There are contradictory reports coming out of Belgrade and Moscow about exactly what constitutes a basis for negotiation. The Russians are saying that a UN-authorized force that included elements from NATO would be acceptable to Milosevic, but Milosevic later denied he had agreed to that. But yesterday the Yugoslavian Deputy Prime Minister insisted that such an international force was acceptable. NATO governments have downplayed the significance of the Russian peace proposal. But before we consider the step of introducing ground forces into a conflict that I believe was unwise for America to have become militarily involved in to begin with, we ought to test such peace proposals before we think about military escalation.”