Kucinich Proposes A New Vision Of Security
In response to President Obama’s announcement that the war in Afghanistan will be escalated with an increase of over 30,000 American soldiers in the country and a huge financial investment to prop up the failing military occupation there, Dennis Kucinich offered a strong rebuke: “We are fighting the wrong war, in the wrong place at the wrong time. What part of ‘get out’ do we not understand?”
The solution offered by Representative Kucinich is a great deal more complex than merely getting the United States of America out of Afghanistan, however. Kucinich envisions a fundamental reform of the way that the American government considers security. Kucinich is asking the Obama Administration to adopt a model of security that is based upon the security needs of our everyday lives, rather than responses to rare, extraordinary events. Kucinich reminds us that it’s economic insecurity, rather than military insecurity, that threatens most Americans these days.
Kucinich advised, in a speech before the House of Representatives,
“We need to redefine our national security. Our national security will not be found in occupations which fuel insurgencies. Our national security will not be found through paying off contestants in Afghanistan who are with us one day and who shoot at our soldiers the next.
We can secure our borders without expanding them across the world. And we can redefine our national security by making sure that every able-bodied person in America has a job, by helping people save their homes and protect their savings and their investments and their retirement security.
We need new thinking and a new course of action, not further into Afghanistan but out. Not further away from the concerns of the American people, but focusing on what’s important here at home. “
Right on, Brother! I guess you’ll be getting some money from Colorado in 2010, because I’ll be sending it.