The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs.
NORTHUP). Under a previous order of
the House, the gentleman from Texas
(Mr. PAUL) is recognized for 5 minutes.
1999 Ron Paul 40:1 Mr. PAUL.
Madam Speaker, it is
time to stop the bombing. NATO’s war
against Serbia left the Congress and
the American people in a quandary,
and no wonder. The official excuse for
NATO’s bombing war is that Milosevic
would not sign a treaty drawn up by
NATO, which would have taken Kosovo
away from the Serbs after the KLA demanded
independence from Serbia.
1999 Ron Paul 40:2 This war is immoral because Serbia
did not commit aggression against us.
We were not attacked and there has
been no threat to our national security.
This war is illegal. It is
undeclared. There has been no congressional
authorization and no money has
been appropriated for it. The war is
pursued by the U.S. under NATO’s
terms, yet it is illegal even according
to NATO’s treaty as well as the U.N.
charter. The internationalists do not
even follow their own laws and do not
care about the U.S. Constitution.
1999 Ron Paul 40:3 The humanitarian excuse for the war
is suspect. Economic interests are involved,
as they so often are in most
armed conflicts. NATO’s vaguely stated
goals have not been achieved. For
the most part, the opposite has. Let me
give my colleagues a few examples.
1999 Ron Paul 40:4 Number one. Milosevic is now more
powerful than ever; the Serb’s more
unified.
1999 Ron Paul 40:5 Number two. Russia is now alienated
from the west. Their hold on a nuclear
arsenal is ignored. Along with Russia’s
economic desperation and political instability,
NATO is pushing Russia into
a new alliance against the west.
1999 Ron Paul 40:6 Number three. Innocent Serbs and
Albanian citizens are routinely being
killed by our bombs.
1999 Ron Paul 40:7 Number four. Civilian targets are deliberately
hit, including water, power
and sewer plants, fuel storage and TV
stations.
1999 Ron Paul 40:8 Number five. An economic embargo
is now being instituted to starve children
and prevent medications from
reaching the sick, just as we have been
doing for a decade against Iraq.
1999 Ron Paul 40:9 Number six. This war institutionalizes
foreign control over our troops.
Tony Blair now tells Bill Clinton how
to fight a NATO war, while the U.S.
taxpayers pay for it.
1999 Ron Paul 40:10 Number seven. Greater instability in
the region has resulted.
1999 Ron Paul 40:11 Number eight. We are once again supporting
Osama bin Laden and his
friends in the KLA.
1999 Ron Paul 40:12 Number nine. We have bombed Bulgaria.
By mistake, of course. Sorry.
1999 Ron Paul 40:13 Number ten. Our weapons are being
depleted, our troops spread too thin,
resulting in further undermining of our
national defense.
1999 Ron Paul 40:14 Number eleven. Billions of dollars
are thrown down a rat hole and Congress
is about to vote for more.
1999 Ron Paul 40:15 Number twelve. The massive refugee
problem, which is essentially a result
of NATO’s bombing, continues.
1999 Ron Paul 40:16 Up until now, general defense funds
have been spent to wage this war without
permission. The President wants to
catch up and is asking for $6 billion,
but Congress, in its infinite wisdom,
wants to give him $13 billion for a war
Congress rejects. Once we directly fund
the war we will be partners in this mis-adventure.
The votes last week were
symbolic. They had no effect of law,
but appropriations do.
1999 Ron Paul 40:17 Saying the new appropriations will
be used to beef up a neglected defense
does not make it so. Defense funds are
fungible. The President has proven this
by waging a war for a month without
any authorization or appropriation.
Congress will no more control the next
$13 billion than the money the President
has already spent on the war.
1999 Ron Paul 40:18 Appropriating funds to fight a war,
even without a declaration, provides a
much more powerful legal and political
endorsement of the war than the public
statements made against it by non-binding
resolutions passed by the
House last week. Declaring war and
funding war are two powerful tools of
the Congress to restrain a president
from waging an unwise and illegal war.
If the President pursues an undeclared
war and we fund it, we become partners,
no matter what justification is
given for the spending.
1999 Ron Paul 40:19 Only chaos can come from ignoring
the strict prohibition by the Constitution
of a president unilaterally waging
war. If a president ignores the absence
of a declaration, and we are serious,
the only option left to Congress is the
power of the purse, which is clearly the
responsibility of the Congress. We
should not fund this illegal and immoral
NATO war.
Note:
1999 Ron Paul 40:4
the Serb’s more unified probably should be the plural and not the possessive form:
the Serbs more unified.
1999 Ron Paul 40:16
Here, the original does not make clear whether it is misadventure or the hyphenated mis-adventure, because the word is hyphenated at the end of a line of text.
1999 Ron Paul 40:18
Here, non-binding is hyphenated at the end of a line of text, and it is unclear whether it should be hyphenated or not.
