1999 Ron Paul 43:1
Mr. PAUL.
Mr. Chairman, I move to
strike the requisite number of words.
(Mr. PAUL asked and was given permission
to revise and extend his remarks.)
1999 Ron Paul 43:2 Mr. PAUL.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in
support of the Istook amendment. I
think that this would send a strong
message that we do not endorse this
war. It was said that this is the same
vote that we had last week, but last
week’s vote is sitting on the table and
it is going to sit there.
1999 Ron Paul 43:3 This one may well go someplace and
have an effect. So this is a much more
important vote that we had last week.
It is very important that we vote the
same way as we did last week.
1999 Ron Paul 43:4 I think it is interesting, I think we
have an interesting constitutional
question here, because I agree with the
chairman of the committee and the
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. OBEY)
that it is not the prerogative of the
Congress to micromanage a war. That
is correct. It is the job of the Congress
to declare the war. But here we have a
Congress involved in diplomacy and
micromanaging a war that has not
been declared. That is the issue. The
issue is not the micromanaging.
1999 Ron Paul 43:5 I can support this amendment because
the war has not been declared.
The issue is how do we permit the
President to wage a war without us declaring
the war. Once we declare the
war, it is true, we should not be talking
about whether or not we use airplanes
or foot soldiers or whatever. We
do not micromanage. We do not get involved
in diplomacy maneuvers.
1999 Ron Paul 43:6 But today we have things turned upside
down. We have the President declaring
where and we say nothing and
the Congress micromanaging the war
that should not exist. We need to consider
that. And we can straighten this
mess out by rejecting these funds.
1999 Ron Paul 43:7 It is suggested that this amendment
would go a long way to doing it. I am
not all that optimistic. For us to say to
the President “thou shalt not use these
funds for the ground war,” well, he has
not had the authority to wage his air
war. Why would he listen to us now?
1999 Ron Paul 43:8 Can we trust him and say that he is
going to listen to what we tell him? Of
course not. He is already fighting his
air war and he will continue to. And he
has set the standard, and not he alone,
all our Presidents from World War II
have set the standard that they will do
what they darn well please.
1999 Ron Paul 43:9 This is why I have been encouraged
in the last couple weeks that this debate
has been going on, because it is an
important debate. I have finally seen
this Congress at least addressing the
subject on whether or not they should
take back the prerogatives of war and
not allow it to remain in the hands of
the President.
1999 Ron Paul 43:10 This is very, very good. I have come
to the House floor on numerous occasions
since February, taking this position
that we should not be involved. As
a matter of fact, we had a couple dozen,
maybe three dozen Members in this
Congress who signed on a bill in February,
a month or so before we even
saw the bombs dropping in Yugoslavia,
that would have prevented this whole
mess if we would have stood up and assumed
our responsibilities.
1999 Ron Paul 43:11 It is said that we must move in now
to help the refugees. Have we looked at
the statistics? How many refugees did
we have before the bombing started?
Others say, well, we must move in because
Milosevic is so strong. Prior to
the bombing, Milosevic was weak.
1999 Ron Paul 43:12 Talk about unintended consequences.
They are so numerous. What about the
unintended consequence of supporting
the KLA who are supported by Osama
Bin Laden? How absurd can it get?
Osama Bin Laden was our good friend
because he was a freedom fighter in Afghanistan
and we gave him our weapons
and supported him. But then we
found out he was not quite so friendly,
so we captured a few of his men and he
retaliated by bombing our embassies.
Of course, we retaliated by bombing innocent
chemical plants as well as people
in Afghanistan that had nothing to
do with it.
1999 Ron Paul 43:13 So where are we now? We are back to
supporting and working hard and just
deliberating over whether we should
give weapons to the KLA. I mean, the
whole thing is absurd.
1999 Ron Paul 43:14 There is only one thing that we
should do, and that is stop this funding
and stop the war. My colleagues say,
oh, no, we are already too far in that
we cannot. It is not supporting the
troops. Well, who wants to get down
here and challenge me and say that I
do not support our troops? I support
our troops. I served in the military for
5 years. That is not a worthwhile challenge.
We all support our troops.
1999 Ron Paul 43:15 They say, well, no, they are in a
quagmire and we have to help them
and this is the only way we can do it.
So the President comes and asks us for
$6 billion and then, in Congress’s infinite
wisdom, we give him $13 billion.
And yet, we do not declare war.
1999 Ron Paul 43:3
So this is a much more important vote that we had last week.
probably should be So this is a much more important vote than we had last week.
1999 Ron Paul 43:4
the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. OBEY) Here, Ron Paul refers to
The Honorable David R. Obey.
1999 Ron Paul 43:6
upside down probably should be hyphenated: upside-down.
1999 Ron Paul 43:12
Osama Bin Laden probably should not be capitalized: Osama bin Laden.
