Joe Cunningham: “this is exactly the time to have this discussion, exactly the time. It may not be the time for negotiators and bean…”

“this is exactly the time to have this discussion, exactly the time. It may not be the time for negotiators and bean counters but it is for our troops. I remember Somalia, where the President did not come to Congress when he changed going after Aideed, and we lost 22 rangers because they failed to give armor which the military wanted; or Haiti, that we are today spending $25 million a year in building schools and roads out of the defense budget. Kosovo is like any of the United States is to Greater Serbia. It is not a separate entity. It is the birthplace of the Orthodox Catholic religion. It is their home. It was occupied by 100 percent Serbs, and the Turks and the Nazis eliminated and desecrated and ethnically cleansed Jews, Gypsies and Serbs and now the population is Albanian. Albania does not want just Kosovo. They want part of Greece. They want Montenegro. This is only a beginning. Listen to George Tenet's brief. Bin Laden is working with the KLA, the terrorists, that is going to hit the United States. If we do not want to stop this, then do not talk about it, but if we go in there, we are going to lose a great number of people. For what? They have been fighting for 400 years. This debate is well timed. Maybe not for my colleagues on the other side but for the kids that have to put those backpacks on and carry rifles. It is the time to stop this. Take a look at the number of military deployments. It was 300 percent during the height of Vietnam.”