[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 60 (Thursday, April 29, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E820]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




DECLARING STATE OF WAR BETWEEN UNITED STATES AND GOVERNMENT OF FEDERAL 
                         REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA

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                               speech of

                        HON. DENNIS J. KUCINICH

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, April 28, 1999

  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, the truth is war is being waged and will 
continue to be waged without declaration. But such violence is neither 
redemptive nor justified in law or morality. Hope is redemptive, love 
is redemptive, peace is redemptive, but the violence of this conflict 
stirs our most primitive instincts. When we respond to such instincts, 
we enact the law of an eye for an eye, and we at last become blind and 
spend our remaining days groping to regain that light we had once 
enjoyed.
  He only understands force, it is said of Mr. Milosevic, but we must 
understand more than force. Otherwise, war is inescapable. We must make 
peace as inexorable as the instinct to breathe, as inevitable as the 
sunrise, as predictable as the next day. With this vote, let us release 
ourselves from the logic of war and energize a consciousness of peace, 
peace through implied strength, peace through express diplomacy, peace 
through a belief that through nonviolent human interaction, we can 
still control our destiny.

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