USA Today
By Dennis Kucinich
U.S. intervention in Libya is a blunder. We intervene in support of an opposition that is unpredictable, at an expense that is unsupportable and with an endgame unknown. It will stretch an already overburdened military, undermining our national security.
The war in Libya is one of a series of dangerous missteps by U.S. administrations in a march of folly toward economic, diplomatic and spiritual disaster. The war in Iraq was based on lies, at a cost of as many as 1 million Iraqi lives, the deaths of 4,441 U.S. servicemen and women, and with a long-term expense of more than $3 trillion dollars.
The war in Afghanistan, based on a misreading of history, has come at the cost of countless lives, 1,511 deaths of our soldiers and the expenditure of half a trillion dollars.
The war in Libya is costing at least $100 million a day.
None of these wars was necessary. We do not know when they will truly end, and the "humanitarian" nature of war dies with increasing civilian casualties.
Individually and collectively, these wars undermine, not strengthen, U.S. security by abusing our power, attacking nations that did not attack us, endangering civilian populations, creating more refugees, destroying infrastructure, enlarging rather than limiting conflict and defining America as a crusader and an occupier. This is not the image of America I accept.
These wars represent an America that is intent on remaking the world in the image of a democracy that is distorted here at home. Distorted by unequal distribution of the wealth brought about by an unfair tax system, unregulated monopoly capitalism, unemployment, lack of access to health care, inadequate housing, poor educational prospects, instability of retirement programs — and the cost of war.
It is a sad truth that millions of people around the world suffer under tyrannical regimes. We can and must encourage non-violent resistance so that masses yearning to breathe free may eventually prevail as they may in Egypt and Tunisia. But when governments seek to use violence against their own people, as is happening in Yemen, Bahrain and other nations, America must not use its military to attempt regime change. If a United Nations response is ordered, our nation must first follow the Constitution.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a Democrat, represents Ohio's 10th District in the U.S. House.
