When Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) rolls into Olympia on Presidents Day to give a lecture on "The True Cost of War," he will arrive with antiwar bona fides unmatched in any recent Congress. Last March, he put a resolution on the floor of the House of Representatives that would've required all American troops out of Afghanistan by 2011. Though the resolution was soundly defeated, it did get 65 votes; public support for the war has dwindled.

During his presidential campaigns in 2004 and 2008, Kucinich was widely seen as the far-left candidate, and he's taken quite a bit of ribbing from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert for his blatant liberalism. But whatever you think of Dennis Kucinich, I can tell you from personal experience he talks faster and with a readier command of the English language than just about anyone you're likely to speak to this week.

"I'm going to be talking about not just Afghanistan, but war across the board," he explains, "and the impact financially, the impact on our troops, the impact on other nations and the impact on our morality." But with regard to Afghanistan, "The argument has been there'll be chaos if we don't stay, but there is chaos in our presence. In every occupation there is an insurgency; and by definition, an insurgency is an attempt to create conditions where people determine their own fate instead of letting an occupier determine their fate. So we don't have any right to be there. That's number one. Number two, it's up to the people of Afghanistan to determine their own destiny. What I'm challenging is American interventionism at its core."

"We were right to strike at the training camps in Afghanistan, no question about that," Kucinich says. "But in response to 9/11, we invaded a nation that did not attack us and created a war against Iraq. ... We essentially advanced a war based on a lie, and then (pursued) a misguided war on terrorism - which is an amorphous force that can be best dealt with, not by armies, but with international police action."

I ask him whether he trusts Afghanistan's President Karzai. "Look, the Karzai government's corruption has been well-chronicled," he says, "but we do not have the (right) to tell any nation how to run its affairs. It's an arrogant presumption to think we could install Mr. Karzai, either directly or indirectly, and somehow he's gong to remain true to some high principles. It's not going to happen. The United States has made a strategic blunder in invading and occupying Afghanistan, and the best we can do right now is to get out and basically let Karzai fend for himself. You know, he certainly has enough money to be able to solve lots of his political problems. But the fact of the matter is, an outsider is hobbled." Afghanistan, he warns, will not be "easily governable."

I ask Kucinich whether he feels he's politically left of the majority of his countrymen. "This goes right to the heart of America," he replies. "We need to face the challenges we have as a nation, without regard to labels. ... People understand that you cannot borrow money from China to wage a war. You can't keep running a trade deficit that undermines a domestic economy. ... The war in Afghanistan has already passed the half trillion dollar mark. We're looking at the collapse of our social and economic systems, due in part to this penchant for military adventure."

"My approach is more common sense than anything," he insists.

[Capitol Theater, Rep. Dennis Kucinich lecture, Monday, Feb. 21, 3 p.m., suggested donation $5-$15, 206 Fifth Ave. SE, Olympia, 360.754.6670]