On 18 February 2004, Majdi a-Saruji, age 31, an ambulance driver from the Balata refugee camp, and Jamal Abu Hamdeh, age 30, a medic from Nablus, both employees of the Palestinian Red Crescent, were on their way to a hospital in Ramallah with two patients in the ambulance: an infant heart patient and a person with a broken leg who was in a wheelchair. On their way, the passed three checkpoints, and then encountered an Israeli army jeep parked in the middle of the road near the Ofra settlement. One of the soldiers standing alongside the jeep ordered the ambulance driver to stop. A-Saruji got out of the ambulance, went over to the soldier, and handed over the ID cards of the patients and medical staff in the ambulance. In his testimony to B’Tselem, a-Saruji said: “The soldier looked at our ID cards and then suddenly kicked me, for no reason and without any provocation from me… I went back to the ambulance and sat down in the driver’s seat.” The soldier went over to Abu Hamdeh, ordered him to open the side door of the ambulance, and then ordered them to turn around and go back to where they came from.

Richard Clarke in "Against All Enemies" paints a picture of wrong-headed leadership making bad judgment calls.  Given the Bush objectives, however, this can all be seen as good judgment, casting an entirely different light on 9/11: It worked, didn't it?  If the 9/11 Commission is to get to the heart of the matter, it cannot ignore this aspect.  

Condoleezza Rice protests vigorously that the Bush team was doing everything it could to attack Al Qaeda, and it is within this arena that Clarke's criticism is contained.  This is a debate about covering the dump to halt a plague of rats.  The homeowner 9/11 survivors are all for that, but they want to know how the rats got into their house to kill the baby, and no one wants to talk about that.  They put up a clamor and a study commission is created to find out.  The question still hangs: How did the rats get in?  

As a student, I often worry about just what kind of jobs will be out there when I get out of college.  Many young people with college degrees are working dead-end jobs with no benefits and very low pay.  Many more have no jobs at all.  In fact, a recent study has shown that for the first time in decades, the unemployment rate for college graduates is actually higher than that of high school dropouts.  John Kerry realizes this and that’s why he has created a plan to restore and create 10 million new jobs in the first term of his presidency.  While that is easier said than done, he has a set of new and innovative plans to accomplish this such as expanding the New Jobs Tax Credit to restore jobs that have been lost overseas as well as cutting off all tax incentives for companies that ship profits and jobs overseas and cutting the corporate tax rate by 5% to help jumpstart the economy.  We need to ship products overseas, not profits and jobs and John Kerry has a real plan to end this real problem of outsourcing and the job drain.

Bryan Thompson

Dr. Bob Fitrakis:

I have just run across your article entitled "Death of a patriot: No more" from March 17, 2004.  As a professional in the computer industry for twenty years, I must take exception to some of the claims made by ignorant people in the Democratic and Republican camps who know little, if anything, about computers.

You quote Gibbs as saying "Inevitably, computers mess up".  That is an interesting statement and is clearly used to stir up sentiment without offering any context for the statement whatsoever.

Let's look at that a moment.  If computers "mess up", then it is safe to say that, as one can simply observe from life around them in general, people mess up more than computers.  The facts show that computers only do what people tell them to do, and they do it exactly many millions of times per second.  Computers simply are not known to make any mistakes, while people do all the time.

The Trail of the Catonsville Nine has been out of print for 15 years, and the new edition includes Robin Andersen's preface and essay that brings the play's ideas and themes up to date including an analysis of the media coverage of the war in Iraq.

Poetry and documentarian Lynn Sachs with footage from Investigation of a Flame

The new edition includes Berrigan's original introduction, and additional materials by Robin Andersen and James Marsh that bring its ideas and themes up to date in the context of the war in Iraq.

On May 17, 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War, nine men and women entered a Selective Service office outside Baltimore. They removed military draft records, took them outside, and set them afire with napalm.

The Catholic activist involved in the protest against the war included Daniel and Philip Berrigan; all were found guilty of destroying government property and sentenced to three years in jail.