I do not intend to come across as melodramatic when I express my very grave concerns for the manner in which this military operation is being conducted. The fate of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians and the lives of U.S. military personnel stand in the balance. It has become quite apparent that I am one of a minority in the Senate who believe that Congress should be debating the conduct of U.S. policy in the Balkans right now. A resolution authorizing the President to use whatever force necessary to accomplish our objectives in Kosovo must be debated by the Senate, and sooner rather than later. The gradual, incremental approach to military operations about which we had ample warning long before this operation began should have raised questions by all of us, and now that the operation has proceeded consistent with that approach, the counterproductive results are very apparent in the scale of ethnic cleansing and the early signs of the conflict spreading beyond its borders.
Limited actions beget limited results.
You fight a war to win, or you do not fight it at all. With North Korea taking comfort from our descent into a quagmire courtesy of our unwillingness to do what it takes to prevail as rapidly as possible, and with Iraq mindful of the depth of U.S. involvement in another theater, the need to remain globally engaged is obvious. The kinds of regimes with which we are at odds are the kinds of regimes that engage in ethnic cleansing, threaten their neighbors and use chemical weapons against their own populace, and fire ballistic missiles over the territory of our most important allies. The entire world takes notice when we go in with overwhelming force and prevail quickly. It is a sobering development for those who oppose us.