Political Quotes

“I want to express my full agreement with and admiration for the distinguished leader of the Republicans and the Senator from Connecticut [Mr. Lieberman]. It is long past time, it seems to me, that we should be dealing with these wonderful abstractions of how an arms embargo will lead to some kind of peace, of how another bombing raid or two will change the minds of the aggressors in connection with this case. If my understanding is correct, some 100,000 sortie missions were flown by the United States and its allies in the war in the gulf, and yet after those 100,000 missions, in order to conclude that conflict, it was required that ground troops go in and actually win a war. To think that a handful of additional raids, to think another in a series of threats, which have gone on in hollow fashion for 2 entire years now, will suddenly change the minds of those who engaged in systematic slaughter and ethnic cleansing is, I think, to believe in the tooth fairy. It simply is not going to happen. There is no one in our Military Establishment who believes that the course of action being proposed by the President to NATO is going to work. And, of course, there is no historic precedent for it working at all. We, this country and the United Nations, recognized the independence of Bosnia some 2 years or more ago. The Bosnians, like the residents of any other nation, have the right to defend themselves.”