The Great Lakes Zephyr - Wind Energy & Hydrogen Journal

State primary a chance to send a message on Iraq
http://greenvilleonline.com/news/opinion/2004/01/12/2004011222574.htm
Posted Monday, January 12, 2004 - 5:27 pm


By Dennis Kucinich

U.S. Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, a Democratic candidate for president, in 1977 was elected mayor of Cleveland at age 31, the youngest person ever elected to lead a major American city. In 1996, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. For more information, visit www.kucinich.us.

My campaign is about the end of fear and the beginning of hope. At this moment when the lives of men and women who bravely serve this nation are at risk in Iraq, our civil liberties are in peril, and the entire domestic agenda of the United States is being sacrificed, we must have the courage to see through the lies that sent us into Iraq. We must reclaim our nation.

The South Carolina primary is a referendum on the Iraq war. Every other Democratic presidential candidate, except Rev. Al Sharpton, will keep our troops in Iraq for years. I will bring our troops home quickly. I have a plan to work with the United Nations to replace U.S. troops with U.N. peacekeepers.

The United States must ask the United Nations to manage the oil assets of Iraq until the Iraqi people are self-governing. Second, the United Nations must handle all contracts (no more Halliburton sweetheart deals). Third, the United States must renounce any plans to privatize Iraq. Fourth, the United States must ask the United Nations to handle the transition to Iraqi self-governance. Fifth, the United States must agree to pay for what we blew up.

Sixth, the United States must pay reparations to the families of innocent Iraqi civilians killed and injured. Seventh, the United States must contribute to the U.N. peacekeeping mission. Eighth, the United Nations, through its member nations, will commit 130,000 peacekeepers to Iraq on a temporary basis until the Iraqi people can maintain their own security. Ninth, U.N. troops will rotate into Iraq and all U.S. troops will come home. Tenth, the United States will abandon policies of "pre-emption" and unilateralism and commit to strengthening the United Nations.

Five hundred American servicemen and servicewomen have already lost their lives in Iraq, and $155 billion has already been spent. If we stay there for years, our troop casualties will go into the thousands. Tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis will die. Over a trillion dollars could be spent in Iraq, taking away money needed here at home for health care, education and housing. Inevitably there will be a draft. The Bush administration is already keeping our troops past their terms of service.

I am the only Democratic candidate with a plan which will bring our troops home quickly. All the other candidates, except Rev. Sharpton, have unwittingly conceded this singularly important issue by saying "we're stuck there." South Carolinians can make the end of the war in Iraq the defining issue. Your participation in the primary can say it's time to get the U.N. in and the U.S. out of Iraq.

A Democratic presidential candidate who concedes the ongoing occupation of Iraq to the president permits him to run for re-election without having to explain why we went into Iraq in the first place.

As the only candidate with a plan to bring our troops home quickly, I know that once the United States acts on my plan to get out of Iraq, we can focus the energy and resources of this country on taking care of things here at home. We will have the resources to provide quality education from pre-kindergarten through college. We can create universal single-payer health care. We can create a full-employment economy. These things are achievable. But we must have a dramatic change in direction.

We need to change the direction of our international policy. We must work with the community of nations. This will make America safer. We must send U.N. peacekeepers into Iraq. We must bring out troops home.

Why aren't the other Democrats saying we should give up ambitions to control the oil, the contracts, to privatize, to run Baghdad by remote control?

My candidacy gives South Carolina Democrats and Democrats everywhere a real choice for a new policy direction ? a plan to get the United Nations in and the United States out of Iraq.

All of the oil in Iraq is not worth another drop of blood. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Yet the administration is calling up more reserves. Existing troops are being retained against their will. Can a draft be far behind?

The men and women who serve this country have a right to expect that we will spare no effort in bringing them home quickly. Our troops' lives, the lives of innocent Iraqis, our tax resources and our entire domestic agenda are on the line.

South Carolinians can save the day on Feb. 3 by voting for my plan which will bring our troops home by bringing U.N. peacekeepers into Iraq.