The only opposition was from those who thought Clinton was trying to "wag the dog."
After four years of ethnic cleansing in Croatia and Bosnia, the siege of Sarayevo, concentration camp pictures remindful of Buchenwald, do you think that he was wagging the dog?
In principle, they all supported his actions in Kosovo, even wanting to go further, but Clinton was gravely concerned about American casualties, which is why he kept waging the war from 10,000 feet.
In 1999, 15 republican congressmen brought a suit against Clinton to stop the Kosovo war. Right wing pundits the country over blasted Clinton over the war. Tom Delay voted YES on disallowing the invasion of Kosovo. Delay voted in favor of an amendment to the Kosovo Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act which prohibited the use of funds for any invasion of Yugoslavia with U.S. ground forces.
In 1999, during Clinton's war in Kosovo, DeLay took to the House floor to denounce the military campaign, its goals, and its leadership. DeLay called the effort war a "quagmire" and compared it to Vietnam. He said it would "drag on," costing billions of dollars. He accused the president of failing to specify how long our troops would have to stay, and he urged the administration to withdraw them "before the body bags start coming home."
DeLay said that Clinton "has bombed its way around the globe," and added, "International respect and trust for America has diminished every time we casually let the bombs fly." DeLay even urged Congress to de-fund the war and "pull out the forces we now have in the region."
As if that weren't enough, DeLay accused Clinton of orchestrating a dangerous occupation in a far-away land.
Once a U.S.-led coalition "starts meddling in the internal affairs of sovereign nations, where does it stop?" he asked. He charged that we were "starting to resemble a power-hungry imperialist army" and portrayed our mission as an "occupation by foreigners."
Al |
