President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg committed a grave error by choosing to open the University the day following the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center.

By Wednesday morning, the skies above GW were probably safe, but if whatever sick mind is behind these tragedies really wants to get a point across, he might follow up with a round of car bombings of places he did not manage to crash a plane into Tuesday. As GW is sandwiched between the International Monetary Fund and World Bank buildings to the east, the State Department to the south and the Kennedy Center and the Watergate to the west, an attack on any of several potential targets could have devastating effects on the community.

We have three weeks notice of a potentially dangerous situation in the IMF/World Bank protests that may involve some broken windows or a Molotov cocktail or two, and Trachtenberg panics sending students running for the hills. The Pentagon is blown up with maybe as many as 200 dead, the entire city is evacuated, and it is business as usual. Go figure.

-Donald Jacobsen
graduate student