Former United States House of Representatives member and presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) remains a reliable advocate for peace, even when it seems that the United States president and every Democrat in Congress is committed to pursuing endless war and rejecting giving peace a chance relative to US policy regarding Ukraine and Russia.
While most Republican Congress members are just as adamant in their support for sending more and more weapons and other aid to the Ukraine government to perpetuate war with Russia, at least some Republican Congress members have voted against such spending.
In a new interview with host Robert Scheer at Scheer Intelligence, Kucinich, who is an Advisory Board member for the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, addresses the appalling blanket support from Democratic President Joe Biden and Democratic Congress members for pursuing the war in Ukraine. Kucinich also opines on the quick retracting this week of a group of thirty Democratic House members’ letter to Biden that challenged the pro-war party line by merely requesting Biden consider using diplomacy to resolve the ongoing war in Ukraine.
The government of Russia, in contrast with that of the US, has been open to negotiation.
The “put down” of the 30 Democratic House members for “simply asking for diplomacy,” Kucinich states in the interview, is “a powerful symbol” showing that “Democrats are buying all in on continuing to prosecute” a proxy war against Russia that both is “very expensive” and is “causing loss of life of innocent Ukrainian people.” Given this situation, comments Kucinich, “it’s time to go to the negotiating table.”
Kucinich states that during his time in Congress that ended in January of 2013 he “led Democratic efforts against wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria,” and “worked to end a war in the Balkans and to divert war against Iran.” “What’s happing now, though,” continues Kucinich, “is that Democrats seem to be making support for the war as a test of party loyalty, and that is totally wrong; it is dangerous.”
Speaking of the dominant approach of US politicians in regard to policy toward both Russia and China, Kucinich warns:
Just suffice it to say that what we’re seeing, both in the ratcheting up of tensions with China and the continued prosecution of the war in Ukraine which is squarely aimed at trying to displace Russia as a world power, what we’re seeing in that is a misguided attempt to try to assert American hegemony. And that era is over. The world is changing. We cannot pursue policies by force, and when we tried to do it over the last 50 years it’s generally been a disaster. So, you know, I think that this is an inflection point — the Democratic Party slapping down 30 Democrats who said ‘look let’s try for peace, let’s negotiate because if you don’t negotiate you’re going to escalate.’ And that’s the path that we’re on right now — escalation.
Instead of more escalation, Kucinich offers that diplomacy is what is now needed. He states in the interview:
The political system is set up to exclude anyone who dares challenge the prevailing orthodoxy, particularly about war. And, yet, challenge it we must because this trajectory that we’re on, unless it is corrected through negotiations, will end up in a much wider war, and we’re slowly reaching that precipice from which one mistake — one mishap — could trigger something much broader in terms of conflict. And, the fact that the leaders don’t recognize that right now shows that we have a failure of political leadership.
Diplomacy is difficult. It requires intelligence and patience. But, the only way the wars are going to end — can end — is at the negotiating table.
Listen to Kucinich’s interview here:
The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity is a project of Dr. Paul’s Foundation for Rational Economics and Education (F.R.E.E.), founded in the 1970s as an educational organization. The Institute continues and expands Dr. Paul’s lifetime of public advocacy for a peaceful foreign policy and the protection of civil liberties at home. Visit http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org