Twenty-four/seven news broadcasts ring out a familiar tune - “sounding the toll” measured in lives of honorable men and women fighting and dying in a war on foreign soil. Fighting for a dimly lit cause - a basis for war wrapped in politics, fanatic religion and the fog of justification. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are this moments and this generations Vietnam - - just as we did then, we continue to blunder down the same political and ideological path.

We are told in scripture that there is a “time for everything” - “a time to hate, and a time for war” - I guess this is just a time for both. War is nothing new to humankind, fact is there’s been no peace spanning the 7,000 years of our recorded history. War always has and always will endure as a religious and political “disaster”- - for history clearly reveals that war is perpetually about the blindness of personal power, religious fanaticism, political corruption, and (of course) collective greed - - that ever present need to have more.

We can not win this “war” in the Middle East - - for political logic, the promise of “democracy” nor the power of weapons can defeat nor long suppress what is embraced by many; religious extremism and established hatred. It’s beyond logic and reason - why a young man or woman would strap on a bomb - go into an elementary school and annihilate children in the name of “god” - one can never embrace what one does not value.

Are we positioned to stop this war? No - here at home, we witness at this time a political system impotent and divided - unable to cooperate and serve “we the people”, unable to pull back from the sensual embrace of power and wealth - unable to stop the insanity of war. Power - possession and greed - has from the beginning of history quietly and seductively embraced those in seats of power and control - including both those who entered with lust and those who entered with love.

Can we the people stop this war? Yes - stopping the impotence of politics is in our hands; we have the solution locked up in a four-letter word - “vote.” We the people can change the course and tide of political failure - - it’s soon 2010, it’s time to end these wars, time for congressional term-limits, time to eliminate bipartisan politics - time to _ _ _ (heck, you fill in the blanks).

Keep those who serve our nation in your payers - especially the families of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice…

God Bless America.

Tom Hunkele

LaGrange