Dennis Kucinich On Kosovo and Peace - 1999

[Zorra]

Some of Rep. Dennis Kucinich's thoughts and observations during the War in Kosovo.

What I Learned From The War
by Dennis J. Kucinich
Copyright © 1999 by The Progressive, Madison, WI.

I did not anticipate that the U.S. and NATO, in the name of a humanitarian cause, would undertake the bombing of Serbia and thereby violate the U.N. Charter, the NATO Charter, the Congressional intent in approving the North Atlantic Treaty, the U.S. Constitution, and the War Powers Act. The U.N. Security Council was the proper forum for debating such offensive action. In the 1949 Senate debate on the founding of NATO, Senator Forrest C. Donnell, Republican of Missouri, worried that such an organization could supersede the War Power of the U.S. Congress. Now, U.S. planes were dropping U.S. bombs on Serbia in the name of my country, in the name of NATO, but without the approval of the U.S. Congress.
snip
I strongly objected to the attacks on the Kosovar Albanians. But I believed it was possible to be opposed to Milosevic and also opposed to the bombing. Yet all around me, I could feel the dense illogic of war beginning to grip Washington. It was becoming the Capital of Dichotomized Thinking, split consciousness. Republicans versus Democrats, left versus right thinking, which is the stuff of which wars are made. Of U.S. versus Them: Serbia; of NATO versus Yugoslavia, of NATO interests versus Russian interests. This type of thinking is what makes it possible to defend the human rights of some while depriving others of theirs.

The bombs continued to drop on Serbia and Kosovo, killing innocent civilians and ruining the infrastructure from which must arise a civil society--the only entity that can generate political change.
snip
In those early days of April, as I watched news accounts of the bombing, the flight of refugees, the ongoing atrocities, I knew I had to speak out for peace--not just the absence of war, but peace through mediation, peace through negotiation, peace through thoughtful, reflective thinking.
snip

EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

http://www.progressive.org/kuc899.htm

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[Terwilliger]

1. I applaud any Democrat that stands up to traditional power!!!

Go DENNIS! Stop them cold!!!