Children I grant should be innocent but when the epithet is applied to men or women it is but a civil term for weakness.

It was easy to persecute me without people feeling ashamed. It was easy to vilify me and project me as a woman who was not following the tradition of a 'good African woman' and as a highly educated elitist who was trying to show innocent African women ways of doing things that were not acceptable to African men.

Imagine a September 11 with weapons of mass destruction. It's not 3 000. It's tens of thousands of innocent men women and children.

If you believe the doctors nothing is wholesome if you believe the theologians nothing is innocent if you believe the military nothing is safe.

Strategic thinkers were naturally rattled to find this outsider fooling around with their work. They had been thinking strategically when Reagan was just another movie actor playing opposite a chimpanzee for heaven's sake. They think Reagan is too naive too innocent to grasp the intellectual complexities of cold war strategy.

We need to decide that we will not go to war whatever reason is conjured up by the politicians or the media because war in our time is always indiscriminate a war against innocents a war against children.

Wanton killing of innocent civilians is terrorism not a war against terrorism.

It seems like such a terrible shame that innocent civilians have to get hurt in wars otherwise combat would be such a wonderfully healthy way to rid the human race of unneeded trash.

Racial profiling punishes innocent individuals for the past actions of those who look and sound like them. It misdirects crucial resources and undercuts the trust needed between law enforcement and the communities they serve. It has no place in our national discourse and no place in our nation's police departments.

The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool.