Talk:Jimmy Duncan (politician)
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Before such a substantive edit, one should sign in and discuss reasons for it. Rlquall 03:17, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- I'm not sure how accurate it is to say he's very conservative by Republican standards. Or more accurately he's not by Tennessee Republican standards. His lifetime ACU rating is less conservative than any in the Tennessee delegation[1] and his lifetime Americans for Democratic Action rating is higher than any Tennessee Republican.[2] I'm thinking of changing this.--T. Anthony 14:21, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
- I would also add that Ron Paul is very conservative, though of the libertarian variety. So to say he is the only conservative amongst the Republicans to vote against the Iraq War is wrong. --Amcalabrese 01:28, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- I changed this to say that he is "one of the most conservative"... According to the source given, Paul's ratings were higher on that particular conservatism scale than Duncan's. Also, you can't base "how conservative" someone is on a few rankings because everyone's definition of "conservative" is going to be different.--Gloriamarie 00:17, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
- I would also add that Ron Paul is very conservative, though of the libertarian variety. So to say he is the only conservative amongst the Republicans to vote against the Iraq War is wrong. --Amcalabrese 01:28, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
Someone changed the "supports" Ron Paul to Fred Thompson. Yet the citation of the source is an article stating that he supports Paul. He has endorsed Paul officially. Why was this changed? (other than yet another blatant Paul suppression attempt?)--76.185.162.176 (talk) 05:34, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Should it be noted that he was one of the few people to condemn the NATO agression in 1999:
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. DUNCAN) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. DUNCAN. Madam Speaker, several times over the last few days I have heard reports on national networks saying that Members of Congress were getting ``antsy about not committing ground troops to Kosovo. The implication is that all of the Members of Congress want ground troops in there immediately.
I believe it was a terrible mistake to start bombing in the first place, and it certainly would be compounding a huge error to place many thousands of ground troops in there now.
As many columnists have pointed out, the NATO bombings have made this situation much worse than it ever would have been if we had simply stayed out. The very liberal Washington Post columnist, Richard Cohen, wrote, ``I believe, though, that the NATO bombings have escalated and accelerated the process. For some Kosovars, NATO has made things worse.
Pat M. Holt, a foreign affairs expert writing in the Christian Science Monitor, wrote, ``The first few days of bombing have led to more atrocities and to more refugees. It will be increasing the instability which the bombing was supposed to prevent.
[Time: 20:30] Philip Gourevitch, writing in the April 12 New Yorker Magazine, said: ``Yet so far the air war against Yugoslavia has accomplished exactly what the American-led alliance flew into combat to prevent: Our bombs unified the Serbs in Yugoslavia, as never before, behind the defiance of Milosevic; they spurred to a frenzy the `cleansing' of Kosovo's ethnic Albanians by Milosevic's forces; they increased the likelihood of the conflict's spilling over into Yugoslavia's south-Balkan neighbors; and they hardened the hearts of much of the non-Western world against us--not least in Russia, where passionate anti-Americanism is increasing the prospects for the right-wing nationalists or the Communist Party to win control of the Kremlin and its nuclear arsenal in coming elections.
Many conservative analysts have been very critical. Thomas Sowell wrote: ``Already our military actions are being justified by the argument that we are in there now and cannot pull out without a devastating loss of credibility and influence in NATO and around the world. In other words, we cannot get out because we have gotten in. That kind of argument will be heard more and more if we get in deeper.
``Is the Vietnam War so long ago that no one remembers? We eventually pulled out of Vietnam, Mr. Sowell wrote, ``under humiliating conditions with a tarnished reputation around the world and with internal divisiveness and bitterness that took years to heal. Bad as this was, we could have pulled out earlier with no worse consequences and with thousands more Americans coming back alive.
Mr. Sowell asks, ``Why are we in the Balkans in the first place? There seems to be no clear-cut answer.
William Hyland, a former editor of Foreign Affairs Magazine, writing in the Washington Post said, ``The President has put the country in a virtually impossible position. We cannot escalate without grave risks. If the President and NATO truly want to halt ethnic cleansing, then the alliance will have to put in a large ground force or, at a minimum, mount a credible threat to do so. A conventional war in the mountains of Albania and Kosovo will quickly degenerate into a quagmire. On the other hand, the United States and NATO cannot retreat without suffering a national and international humiliation. *.*.* The only alternative is to revive international diplomacy.
Mr. Hyland is correct, but unfortunately I am afraid that ground troops in Kosovo would be much worse than a quagmire. Former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleberger was quoted on a national network last week as saying that the Bush administration had closely analyzed the situation in the Balkans in the early 1990s and had decided it was a ``swamp into which we should not go.
NATO was established as a purely defensive organization, not an aggressor force. With the decreased threat from the former Soviet Union, was NATO simply searching for a mission? Were some national officials simply trying to prove that they are world statesmen or trying to leave a legacy?
The U.S. has done 68 percent of the bombing thus far. This whole episode, counting reconstruction and resettlement costs after we bring Milosevic down, will cost us many billions.
If there have to be ground troops, let the Europeans take the lead. Do not commit U.S. ground troops. Let the Europeans do something. The U.S. has done too much already. Humanitarian aid, yes; bombs and ground troops, no.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?r106:63:./temp/~r106W61dIm::