Speech by Rep. Tom Campbell (R-California), March 29, 2000

Speech by Rep. Tom Campbell (R-California), March 29, 2000
Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. Chairman, we are about to go to war in Colombia. We are about to allocate $1.7 billion for 63 helicopters and the United States military advisers to help the military in Colombia to fight a civil war. We are about to go to war in the jungles of Colombia.

We are about to take on an insurgency that controls 40 percent of the land mass of Colombia that has been at war with the government of Colombia for 20 years. We are about to relocate farmers off the land where they are growing coca leaf and put them into what can only be called strategic hamlets and protect them, of course, from attack during this time while we teach them to grow something other than coca leaf.

The time will come when these military advisers are fired upon, I fear. And when they are, what will the United States' response be? I suggest its response will be as it was in Vietnam, to increase the number of advisers, to protect those previously sent, to protect the air bases where the helicopters are, to protect the strategic hamlets where we have relocated the villagers to try to teach them to grow something other than coca leaf.

What we are voting on today is the last moment that we have, really, given the way that the war powers have been exercised by this President and previous Presidents, the last moment we have to say no. Because once this starts, the next step will be put more troops in to defend the investment that we have already made.

Can anyone doubt that this will be the case given what has happened in Bosnia, given what has happened in Kosovo? We originally were supposed to be in Bosnia for 6 months. It has now been 5 years. Kosovo we thought would be short term, now our troops will be there for as long as we can see.

We are today voting at the last moment we will have before being asked to observe another war. We are being asked to go to war in Colombia. I think that my good friend and colleague, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ramstad) expressed the point very ably, we will always have a problem of drugs while we have a demand for drugs.

Already chemicals, synthetic substitutes are available that do almost as much harm, in fact, in some cases more. The problem is one of demand. Today we vote to go to war.

I urge my colleagues to vote no, and that means vote yes on the Ramstad amendment.

As of March 30, 2000, this document was also available online at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r106:H29MR0-173: