Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, for years our policy in this country has been one of containment, of deterrence, of collective security, of diplomacy. We contained and we deterred Joseph Stalin and the Soviets for decades. We have contained and deterred Fidel Castro and the Cubans for 40 years. We have contained and deterred Communist China in its expansionist tendencies for 5 decades. Now this President wants to radically change our decades-old foreign policy of containment and deterrence to a policy of first strike. What does that tell the world? Does it embolden Russia to attack Georgia to better deal with Chechnya? Does it set an international precedent for China to go into Taiwan or deal even more harshly with Tibet? Does it embolden India or Pakistan, or both, each with nuclear weapons, from going to war in Kashmir? The whole point of the Security Council is to prevent member states, including veto-wielding permanent members, perhaps especially veto-wielding permanent members, to prevent those member states from launching first strike, unilateral, unprovoked war. Resolution 678, which authorized the Gulf War, called explicitly for countries cooperating with the exiled Kuwaiti loyals to create a coalition to use force. No country, no country in international law, has the unilateral right to decide Iraq has not complied with U.N. requirements, let alone what the U.N. response should be.”