[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 6] [House] [Pages 8041-8042] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]EVERYONE IS WORSE OFF BY STARTING THIS WAR The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan) is recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. DUNCAN. Madam Speaker, I read this weekend an article from The Washington Post that said our bombs have done $50 billion worth of damage to Yugoslavia. Also, the article said that this was more bombing than that country had sustained during all of World War II when it was bombed by both sides, and that unemployment there is now over 50 percent. Yugoslavia is a relatively small country geographically, with a population about equal to that of Tennessee and North Carolina combined. It is obvious that Yugoslavia and especially [[Page 8042]] an economically devastated Yugoslavia cannot hold out much longer against the massive firepower we have unleashed. Then the President will be able to declare a great victory. But what will we have accomplished, really? As I have said before and many syndicated columnists from liberal to conservative have written, we made the situation and especially the refugee crisis many times worse by everything we have done there. I read Friday in the Washington Post that one of our bombs missed and hit a house where 11 children were killed. Also, we hit a bus where even more children were killed. We are making enemies out of friends, creating a reputation around the world for the U.S. as a bully state or, as one person said, the largest rogue nation. All of this at tremendous expense of many billions to the American taxpayer thus far and many billions more to resettle and reconstruct the country after the bombing stops. All of this in a vain and hopeless attempt to stop a civil war where ethnic and religious fighting has gone on for centuries and will come back once again unless we stay there forever at a tremendous cost to our children and grandchildren. I do not agree with Reverend Jessie Jackson on very much, but I commend him for getting our prisoners released, and I join him in urging our leaders to show a little at least humility and attempt to settle this mess and get us out of there, the sooner the better. Madam Speaker, one of the best summaries of this situation came not from a syndicated columnist but from a letter to the editor of the Washington Times by a man named Steven Costello of Lake Jackson, Texas. Mr. Costello wrote, ``it concerns me that the President has ordered U.S. war planes to bomb a sovereign country where we have no national security interest. It concerns me that the President has involved America in a civil war that has lasted for centuries over religious and national disagreements that a few cruise missiles cannot possibly resolve. It concerns me that this bombing is being conducted under the auspices of NATO, even though no member country of the NATO alliance has been attacked. It concerns me that Russia has condemned the NATO attacks against Yugoslavia. ``But what concerns me the most,'' Mr. Costello continued, ``is the real possibility that President Clinton, by misusing his authority as commander in chief in an apparent effort to manipulate media attention away from his shortcomings, is cultivating a generation of America- haters across the globe. By his indiscriminate bombing of Iraq, Afghanistan, the Sudan and Yugoslavia, is there a growing generation of disgruntled fathers, sons and brothers of those killed by our cruise missiles who are vowing to extract vengeance some day by shedding American blood? Are our innocent sons, being raised today on Main Street USA, the future private Ryans who some day will face the disgruntled generation on the battlefield, all because of Mr. Clinton's present and past indiscretions?'' These are good questions and serious questions that need to be asked for as long as we continue to fund and carry out this very unjust war. In a column in last Thursday's USA's Today, Charles Colson gave several reasons why this war could not be called a just war, among which he wrote, quote, the damage inflicted by a just war must be proportionate to the objectives of the war. So far, Mr. Colson said, we are not preventing suffering in proportion to what we are causing. As anyone should have reasonably expected, our attacks only emboldened Milosevic, resulting in more suffering and more ethnic Albanians being driven from their homes, unquote. Mr. Colson is right. No one is defending Milosevic, the Communist dictator, but he never threatened us or any other country in any way. We made everyone worse off by starting this war. If our President and Secretary of State were attempting to improve their legacies as great world leaders, they have not only failed, they have failed miserably. ____________________