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| DEBATE OVER KOSOVO | |
 March 11, 1999 
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The White House administration is asking Congress to commit U.S. troops to Kosovo in order to revive the troubled Serb-Kosovar peace negotiations. After a background report, Elizabeth Farnsworth and guests discuss the necessity of such a plan.
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ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And we are joined now by two members of the House International Relations Committee: California Democrat Tom Lantos, and California Republican Dana Rohrabacher. Thank you both for being with us. REP. TOM LANTOS, (D-CA): It's a pleasure. |
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| Should the U.S. play peacekeeper? | ||||||||||||||||||||
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ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Congressman REP. DANA ROHRABACHER, (R-CA): The troops shouldn't go to Kosovo, American troops shouldn't go to Kosovo either on their own or as part of a NATO force. The fact is the United States today is stretched thin throughout the world. We were promised, for example, just four or five years ago that our incursion into Bosnia would last one year and cost $2 billion. That was, of course, almost five years ago and $12 billion later. Our pilots now are experiencing shortages of equipment and their planes are crashing because we don't have the money to keep them up. This would stretch our forces even thinner and put many people's lives at risk because we're going too far. And the Europeans should take care of this problem. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Congressman Lantos, should the Europeans take care of this and not the U.S. Or the U.S. shouldn't be part of it? REP. TOM LANTOS: Well, ideally the Europeans should have taken care
of the whole Yugoslav problem. And when in 1991 they said they would
do so, we let them try. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: So you're saying this needs to happen in Kosovo too or there will be many more losses? REP. TOM LANTOS: Well, the Kosovo situation is incredibly interesting because what you hear throughout the halls of Congress is the voices of isolationism. This is a collective peacekeeping mission. If the Albanians and the Serbs agree, and they first have to agree, and they invite NATO, then out of a NATO force of 28,000, there will be 4,000 Americans to keep the peace. Now what more effective way of engaging in burden sharing and of discharging our responsibilities? There is one other thought I'd like to share with you, Elizabeth, if I may. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Yes. REP. TOM LANTOS: Tomorrow, a number of us will be at the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri, with the representatives of the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary as they formally join NATO. What do we tell them; that NATO is a paper tiger; that NATO is unprepared to engage in a peacekeeping operation in the Balkans, the most turbulent area of Europe, even though all of our European friends and allies are ready to participate? The British are going to send 8,000 people. We are requested to send 4,000. |
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| NATO's relevancy in a post-Cold War world. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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ELIZABETH
FARNSWORTH: Let me ask Congressman Rohrabacher about that. What should
we tell them, Congressman Rohrabacher? REP. DANA ROHRABACHER: Well, what we should tell them is NATO has served its purpose. NATO during the Cold War was very important and the United States played a role because it was in our interest to stop Communism, to deter a Soviet thrust through Europe. That mission is accomplished. For us now to have some sort of nostalgic attachment to NATO, to make commitments into far reaches of the world and especially on the fringes of Europe - are we going to tell the Czechs and the Poles and the Europeans, oh, yes, we'll get involved in the Moldova fight, or whatever little bickering about international boundaries that take place in the far stretches of Eastern Europe? No way. The United States wanted to deter war with the Soviet Union through NATO. It served its purpose. We should not now use keeping NATO going as an excuse to deploy our forces when it has nothing to do with our national security and, in fact, American lives are being put on the line. They might not have been lost in Bosnia, even though we've spent $12 billion there. But our American personnel -- they are flying equipment that's not maintained, their lives are being lost because we've stretched our forces so far that our forces no longer have the ability to do their job without risk to their own lives. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: I want Congressman Lantos to respond to that. But first Congressman Rohrabacher, are you voting for a resolution which would say U.S. troops should not go to Kosovo under any conditions? Is there a red light you are putting up for the administration or a yellow light saying maybe under some conditions they could go; for example, in there was a definite date of withdrawal? REP. DANA ROHRABACHER: I personally don't think |
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| A region of political instability. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Congressman Lantos, you've spent time in this area. Why is it so important? Why should U.S. troops go there? REP. TOM LANTOS: I hate to remind my good friend, ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Congressman Rohrabacher. REP. DANA ROHRABACHER: Yes. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Let me just go on to one thing. I don't know
if you heard the news summary, but I reported that late today President
Clinton in Guatemala REP. DANA ROHRABACHER: No, what Congress is doing is stating that American
involvement doesn't mean that it has to -- that we have to send American
troops. This idea that it's either isolationism or sending troops -
or our willingness to send troops everywhere in the world to create
stability is a false dichotomy. The United States can have influence
-- and, like I say, we sat there for five years, as the Serbians committed
every kind of atrocity, with an arms embargo, rather than saying, "Let's
help those people who are fighting for their own freedom, and recognize
people who should be independent because they have a vast majority of
people in a given area." But we don't need to become not only the policemen
of the world, |
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| Where to draw the line? | ||||||||||||||||||||
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ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. We are just about out of time but very briefly Congressman Lantos, what about that point about grave threats elsewhere? REP. TOM LANTOS: Well, nobody is arguing that we should be the policemen
of the world. We are talking about Kosovo now -- the region where two
world wars began and where we are now in a position to prevent REP. DANA ROHRABACHER: Well, I will have to say that - ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Well, gentlemen, thank you - REP. DANA ROHRABACHER: -- this has nothing to do with Republican versus Democrat. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Thank you so much. We have to go but thank you very much for being with us. REP. DANA ROHRABACHER: Thank you. REP. TOM LANTOS: Thank you. |
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Rohrabacher,
should U.S. troops go to Kosovo as part of a NATO peacekeeping force?
And
of course they failed. And 200,000 innocent people in the former Yugoslavia,
most of them women and children, lost their lives; 2 1/2 million people
became refugees until the United States agreed to participate in a NATO
force in Bosnia. We haven't lost, thank the Lord, one single soldier.
I visited our troops in Bosnia on several occasions. Their morale is
high and not one American soldier was lost.
the
United States should be the ones sending our troops into place like
the Balkans, so the Europeans can do this; however, let us just note
that the agreement that they are searching for this administration and
our allies are so timid, they have not even come up with a peace plan.
They've come up with a plan that would require us to be in there forever
in order to police the Balkans and to police Kosovo. If they were serious
about this, they would recognize that, of course, Milosevich is trying
to oppress the people of Kosovo, 90 percent of whom want to be free
of Serbia, and just recognize the Kosovars' right to self-determination,
just as we did the Croatians, the Slovenians and Bosnians. The reason
why there was bloodshed before is our allies and the United States just
sat back and said we're either going to have to send troops in or do
nothing. No, we can recognize those people as independent and give them
the means to fight their own battle. And they don't want American troops
there. They'd like to be able to fight their own battle for their own
freedom. 
Dana
Rohrabacher, that the First World War started in Sarajevo, which was
just as remote at the time as it is now. The Second World War basically
started with the invasion of another small Central European country,
Czechoslovakia. And I want to remind him that, of course, this is not
a partisan issue. The man who perhaps deserves the greatest credit is
Senator Dole, who testified before our committee yesterday strongly
supporting the President's position. As a matter of fact, Elizabeth,
it's sort of interesting. President Bush, the last Republican President,
just before he left, said we draw a line at Kosovo, we will not let
Kosovo go the way Bosnia went, a blood bath. Our current President,
a Democrat, says the same thing. And Dana's presidential candidate in
1996, Bob Dole, has now been in the region six times in the last twelve
months fighting for peace, and he has my highest respect. I'm also puzzled
by Dana's comment that NATO has outlived its usefulness. Far from it.
NATO's mission needs to be redesigned as the threats we face are new
threats. And I can't think of a more ideal way of exercising NATO 's
influence than by having a peacekeeping force upon invitation of which
the American contingent is only 15 percent. For years we have been asking
for burden sharing. The Europeans are now ready to share the burden.
And some of my colleagues, apparently my colleague from California,
are saying no; we don't want to do it. The subsequent costs will be
enormous in blood and treasure if we allow this to escalate. 
said
-- he warned Congress against doing anything -- I'm looking at a wire
here -- to derail the Kosovo peace process and said if the conflict
spreads, the U.S. would not be able to avoid being dragged into it.
He didn't want Congress to take any action that would preempt negotiations.
Isn't that what Congress is doing? 
but
the enforcer of stability everywhere in the world. There are people
who are being hurt and murdered throughout the planet. What use of our
troops has to be for is the protection of our own national security
interests. And there are some grave threats in China and in the Pacific.
And if we stretch ourselves too far, we are not going to be able to
protect our own national security.