A PICTURE HITS HOME

The photograph of the shot and bleeding Sarajevan lying face down in the street as the U.N. vehicle simply drove by said a lot more than words could (“The Shadow of a Shield,” by Carol J. Williams, July 25). The U.N. van was really us: the visible but unmoved world community. The dying woman was really Bosnia: its 200,000 dead, its nearly 600,000 refugees, its more than 30,000 rape victims and its countless “ethnically cleansed” towns and villages. One picture can be worth a thousand words, or a thousand condemnations or a thousand eulogies--or just one warning.

SAIF M. HUSSAIN

Woodland Hills

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That image of the downed woman with the U.N. truck whizzing past is the first of the Bosnian conflict to touch my heartstrings. Williams’ articulate, moving, image-laden prose has forced me to confront the atrocities and ineptness that neither film nor hard-news coverage have captured. Before I felt powerless and frustrated; now I feel only a great sadness.

JACQUELINE R. BRAITMAN

Woodland Hills