Senator Richard Lugar
510 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Senator Lugar:

Another week has gone by. There are slightly more than two pages of the week’s dead, many months after the war was declared “won”.

We have perused your website. What we see lacking there is the same dedication to peace that we see in your dedication to getting more weapons for war as long as they mean jobs for Indiana. While we admire your dedication to Indiana and to Crane, we lament that you are not doing more to develop jobs to make our country a more peaceful member of the world. We want an economy that runs more on methods of peace than on weapons for war. We have local Indiana resources that can advise you and us on new directions.

According to the National Priorities Project, Indiana is putting out 3.2 billion dollars a year for the war. That does not include the billions we will pay for the cost of supporting soldiers for the long term disabilities that many will suffer and the unmeasured costs to families, businesses, and communities. Do these Hummer and Crane contracts really cover that cost to our citizens? And at what other cost?

It is easy to rile people up and get them to pay for perceived injustice with the lives of our citizens and with tax dollars. It will take real leadership to steer the country another way. We are looking to you to provide that leadership.

Dear Rep. Chocola:

We hope that you and your family are well. Congratulations on your appointment to the Budget committee.

We hope that you will use your position to seriously examine the costs of fighting terrorism. We feel that the emphasis on war making to fight terrorism has lead to excessive costs with a very poor return for the 3.2 billion that Indiana is contributing to this war so far. Looking at this week’s Iraq and Afghanistan’s news makes that very clear.

We also feel that there has been too little investment in peaceful approaches to conflict resolution. We see a need for a cabinet level Department of Peace with adequate resources for the training and personnel that are needed.

It is easy to rile people up and get them to pay for perceived injustice with the lives of our citizens and with tax dollars. It is clever to keep the war away from here. It will take real leadership to steer the country a more economical and effective way. We are looking to you to provide that leadership.

Bayh: We have perused your website. What we see lacking there is the same dedication to peace that we see in your dedication to getting more weapons for war as long as they mean jobs for Indiana. While we admire your dedication to Indiana, we lament that you are not doing more to develop jobs to make our country a more peaceful member of the world. We want an economy that runs more on methods of peace than on weapons for war. We have local Indiana resources that can advise you and us on new directions.

According to the National Priorities Project, Indiana is putting out 3.2 billion dollars a year for the war. That does not include the billions we will pay for the cost of supporting soldiers for the long term disabilities that many will suffer and the unmeasured costs to families, businesses, and communities. Do these Hummer and Crane contracts really cover that cost to our citizens? And at what other cost?

It is easy to rile people up and get them to pay for perceived injustice with the lives of our citizens and with tax dollars. It will take real leadership to steer the country another way. We are looking to you to provide that leadership.

Sincerely yours, Ellyn Stecker and Peter Smith for the Michiana Peace and Justice Coalition