KUCINICH: NEGOTIATE TO END UKRAINE WAR

 

KUCINICH: NEGOTIATE TO END UKRAINE WAR

Dennis Kucinich fears senior US politicians are failing to understand a new bipolar world.

Former US politician urges leaders to get round table

Believes conflict may be a forerunner to China clash

Dennis Kucinich, a former eight-term American congressman, who led the effort in the US against the war in Iraq and Libya, is urging his country to negotiate with Russia to end the war in Ukraine as quickly as possible.

Close to a year after Russia invaded Ukraine, there have been over 200,000 military casualties and an official total of 6,884 civilian deaths, a figure that seems certain to be much higher due to widespread indiscriminate bombing by Russian forces.

Around 6.6 million people have fled, with 3.5 million Ukrainian refugees living in Poland. Millions are also internally displaced. The war looks set to continue.

US military aid

Kucinich told Big Issue North: “It is a disaster. When this war ends – and they all do – then hundreds of billions of dollars will have been wasted and tens of thousands of innocent people will be dead or badly injured or unable to return home. Rebuilding costs will be astronomical.”

Ukraine is relying on western military aid, primarily from the US. Last week the White House announced a new $3.75 billion (£3.1 billion) military assistance package bringing total military support since the beginning of the Biden administration to $24.9 billion (£20.5 billion).

Kucinich was heartened when progressive Democrats signed a letter last October calling on President Joe Biden to pursue talks to end the war in Ukraine. The letter warned of global poverty and hunger stemming from Russia’s invasion and called on the US to seek “a rapid end to the conflict”. Biden himself had said a “negotiated settlement” would be necessary at some point.

‘Tectonic plates of history’

But in a fierce backlash, signatories were accused of potentially emboldening Vladimir Putin and the letter was quickly withdrawn. Kucinich maintains his support for the letter, telling Big Issue North: “It was the right thing to do as what the war mongers want to do is make billions from arms sales and tie down Russia in a long war that drains their resources.”

Kucinich feels great sorrow for Ukrainians, describing them as “caught between these tectonic plates of history”. Asked whether he felt President Zelensky can make any independent decisions, including negotiating with Russia, Kucinich was blunt, answering: “No.”

Kucinich, a candidate for the Democratic nomination for US president in 2004 and 2008, has spent a lifetime in politics. He was only 23 when he was elected in 1970 as a councillor in Cleveland City.

Timeless quest

Eight years later he became mayor and refused to sell the municipal electric company, resulting in the Mafia seeking to murder him.

Kucinich represented Ohio between 1997 and 2013, during which time his attempts to get the US government to create a Department of Peace proved unsuccessful.

Nevertheless, Kucinich, now aged 76, continues to campaign for peace in a country where around a sixth of all federal spending – $778 billion (£641 billion) in 2020 – and approximately half of discretionary spending is on the military. The US has over 600 overseas military bases.

“I grew up knowing hardship and won’t be pushed around,” said Kucinich, whose father was a truck driver and a member of the Teamsters union for 35 years. “If there is a stand to be taken, I will take it.

“The quest for economic and social justice is timeless and my commitment to it started before I was 20 years old. I stand up for the truth.”

Dangerously unstable

He feels Americans have been misled about the causes of military conflicts, including the Iraq war that began 20 years ago in March.

“I was the first in Congress to call for a vote on the war that started in 2003,” he said. “Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and had nothing to do with 9/11. They did not have the technology to attack the US.”

Both Iraq, where the US spent $3-$5 trillion (£2.4-£4.12 trillion), and Libya, scene of a Nato-led intervention in 2011, remain dangerously unstable.

 

Kucinich believes the Ukraine conflict is a forerunner to the US taking on China, which claims to have a foreign policy based on economic development rather than warfare but nevertheless now has the world’s largest navy. He has warned the White House of the dangers of seeming to provoke China by proclaiming Taiwan’s independence.

Kucinich fears that senior politicians in the US are failing to understand that the world is changing from a unipolar world led by the US into a bipolar one. He is convinced that more countries will seek to stop trading in dollars.

‘Underlying unity’

He said: “European animosity towards the US will intensify because being forced into adopting sanctions against Russia has led to energy prices rocketing and a lessening of business opportunities.

“US inflation will increase. Ordinary people already struggle to put food on the table and to afford healthcare. Welfare monies are diverted to fund weapons.”

He is more than ever convinced of the need for peace.

“We are in the 21st century. To keep killing each other makes no sense. Behind the claims of nationhood there is an underlying unity that connects all people wherever they live or their ethnicity. We have different ways of viewing the world, which we should solve using negotiations before we eliminate one another.”

MARK METCALF