Speech by Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Mississippi), March 30, 2000

Speech by Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Mississippi), March 30, 2000
Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I ask my colleagues, Mr. Chairman, for a few minutes to try to remember what it was like before we all got caught up in which party we are in and which committee chairman is for something and which committee chairman is against it, and try to remember why I think all of us ran for this office. It was to do good things and to keep bad things from happening.

It is the second point that I would like to discuss today, because I think that the needless loss of an American service person is quite possibly the worst thing that can happen.

The amendment that I am offering today is an effort to keep a bad thing from needlessly happening. Colombia is a dangerous place. The FARC and the ELN, the two primary guerilla groups, now control better than 40 percent of the Colombian countryside. They are well financed, they are well armed, they are well trained. And in increasing instances, they are working in large units to overwhelm Colombian army outposts; and just this week killed about 30 Colombian policemen.

In my opinion, they threaten the Nation of Colombia. And yet the political leaders of Colombia in the past year have reduced their defense spending. The political leaders of Colombia in the past couple of months have actually changed their law so that people who hold a high school diploma are no longer eligible for the draft in Colombia. In private conversations with their business leaders, they tell me, yes, there are taxes on the books, but they do not pay them. And I suspect that they are expecting someone else's kid to defend their country.

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. MURTHA. We have no problem on this side with the amendment.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman and assure him I will go quickly.

Usually it is some poor uneducated kid from the Colombian countryside, and I get every indication that they expect American kids to fight in a war they will not fight in and the American taxpayers to pay for a war that they will not pay for.

It is with some hesitation that I will vote to help them with America's money and equipment. I will not, however, vote to send America's sons and daughters off to fight a war in Colombia that the sons and daughters of Colombia and their political leaders often will not fight in.

This amendment would limit America's troop strength in Colombia to 300 military personnel. In a hearing before the House Committee on Armed Services last week on Colombia, General Charles Wilhelm, the United States Commander in Chief of the Southern Command, was told of my reservations and asked if he would agree to a troop limitation. His response was:

Would I be willing, as the Commander in Chief of the United States Southern Command, to subscribe to a properly considered and developed troop cap for Colombia? I certainly would. Categorically, yes.

That was 1 week ago today.

I am asking my colleagues to put such a cap on American troop strength in Colombia. Should it be the will of the majority of this House to break that cap, then it should be done in a deliberate manner and by a vote of this body, and not something that some president on a whim gets us involved in.

As of March 31, 2000, this document was also available online at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r106:H30MR0-20: