The Lexicographer's Rules

"MR. BOUCHER: Where and how he was exposed is not known. He is currently hospitalized and is being treated. All of our mail handling employees have been placed on antibiotics, ciprofloxacin.

QUESTION: All mail-handling employees?

MR. BOUCHER: Female ones, too. All of our mail handling employees have been placed on antibiotics as of yesterday."

—US Department of State.

"I am not sure that the air campaign will work, at least as it is going on now. Before the attacks started, the Taliban's people were very nervous, and their support in the population was very low. Everyone was afraid. But once the bombing started, people began to say, 'Well, it's not so bad. We have known worse. We can stand it.' This is something I have often seen in battle. The soldier runs away, terrified of something behind himÑhe doesn't know what, only that he is frightened. Then he realizes he is not in immediate danger. He stops and faces the enemy, and his courage comes back. So in these last weeks I have seen more support for the Taliban than before. We have been trying to create a revolt within the Taliban, but the US just hasn't given us the chance. They seem to have been determined to attack, even if someone came up with the best proposal in the world to avoid this. This has been a big setback for me."

—Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Abdul Haq was the West's prime candidate for a new Afghani leader until he was captured and killed by the Taliban not long after this interview was conducted.

"People rarely win wars, governments rarely lose them. People get killed. Governments moult and regroup, hydra-headed. They first use flags to shrink-wrap peoples' minds and suffocate real thought, and then as ceremonial shrouds to cloak the mangled corpses of the willing dead. On both sides, in Afghanistan as well as America, civilians are now hostage to the actions of their own governments. Unknowingly, ordinary people in both countries share a common bondÑthey have to live with the phenomenon of blind, unpredictable terror. Each batch of bombs that is dropped on Afghanistan is matched by a corresponding escalation of mass hysteria in America about anthrax, more hijackings and other terrorist acts."

—Outlook India. Arundhati Roy discusses the question of whether the US is, in fact, a peaceful nation, and discusses what is in play and at stake outside the context of the conflict. "Here is a list of the countries that America has been at war withÑand bombedÑsince World War II: China (1945-46, 1950-53); Korea (1950-53); Guatemala (1954, 1967-69); Indonesia (1958); Cuba (1959-60); the Belgian Congo (1964); Peru (1965); Laos (1964-73); Vietnam (1961-73); Cambodia (1969-70); Grenada (1983); Libya (1986); El Salvador (1980s); Nicaragua (1980s); Panama (1989), Iraq (1991-99), Bosnia (1995), Sudan (1998); Yugoslavia (1999). And now Afghanistan."'

"The Afghans were very news hungry. They really trusted the BBC. After years of abuse of the media under various regimes, the BBC was seen as more trustworthy than the national service. Some thought it was the national service. They hadn't a clue where it was located. People would often tell me they thought the BBC was a village in Afghanistan."

—Guardian. Broadcast by the BBC World Service, the educational and instructional program "Naway Kor, Naway Jwand," or "New Home, New Life," has 35 million listeners in two languages. It is based on the template of a show called "The Archers," devised in the 1950s to instruct rural listeners in modern farming methods. "Storytelling is traditional to Afghan culture, but the soap opera format is not. In the first few weeks, listeners were mystified by the way the show kept ending just as it was getting good. 'They would wonder why the programme stopped after 15 minutes in the middle of the story.' ...[T]he slow build-up of western-style drama didn't sit with Afghan storytellingÑmore had to happen in each episode to hold the audience. 'At one point, they had to have a cliff hanger at the end of each scene. I thought, my God, if the Archers writers had to deliver a cliff hanger at the end of each scene they'd be driven mad.'"'

"We have gone from a nation of people whose motto was 'Don't Tread on Me' to one where citizens don't mind so much being trod upon as long as it doesn't take much timeÑas long as the sobriety check-point line isn't excessively long, as long as the security guard looking in our purse is quick about it. Any grumbling comes not from the intrusion but the inconvenience. In modern America, time is more valuable than privacy. The government has taken this acquiescence as a cue to barge on in. In the name of uncovering criminal acts, we have each undergone a transition: from citizen to dossier."

—St. Petersburg Times.