Figures for the l990s show how often the quest for peace is violently thwarted.

Events since our Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist assaults have put the focus on widespread death and violence all over the globe. Some have been inclined to wish for the “more peaceful times” of recent decades, but that peace never really existed in many parts of the troubled world.

There has been constant carnage in declared and undeclared wars and feuds, so much so that we find it difficult to keep track.

Just how bad has it been? Consider this grim data from a 2002 book by Chris Hedges titled “War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning”:

“Look just at the 1990s: 2 million dead in Afghanistan; 1.5 million dead in the Sudan; some 800,000 butchered in 90 days in Rwanda; a half-million dead in Angola; a quarter of a million dead in Bosnia; 200,000 dead in Guatemala; 150,000 dead in Liberia; a quarter of a million dead in Burundi; 71,000 dead in Algeria; and untold tens of thousands lost in the border conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea, the fighting in Colombia, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Chechnya, Sri Lanka, southeastern Turkey, Sierra Leone, Northern Ireland, Kosovo, and the Persian Gulf War (where perhaps as many as 35,000 Iraqi citizens were killed). In the wars of the 20th century, not less than 62 million civilians have perished, nearly 20 million more than the 43 million military personnel killed.”

It is estimated there have been well over 100 million war deaths in the past century. Add the losses due to disease, hunger and genocide and the total grows even more staggering.

History never has allowed humanity any real moratorium on misery and slaughter in the name of this cause or that. The increasing numbers of terrorist attacks and conflicts of recent months offer little hope for widespread and lasting “peace” in our time or that of anyone else.

Humankind for all its achievements has proved to be sadly inept at mastering the beast in its collective soul.