[Newspoetry] sending signals

[John Wason]

At 12:26 PM 12/03/2001 -0600, gillespie william k wrote:

>Also from Sunday's NYTimes headlines:
>
>"U.S. Planes Pound Taliban Positions Around Kandahar
>
>The United States military and sympathetic Afghan forces continued on
>Saturday to send the Taliban the message that surrender is the only way
>out."
>
>Weirdly, our bombs are a "message." But I recall reading in the
>Chicago Tribune (I have this one at home if anybody wants the exact quote)
>that "the most powerful weapon in the Taliban's arsenal" was a weekly
>press briefing given by a Taliban official in Pakistan. And so the US
>government pressured Pakistan to halt these briefings, preventing the
>Taliban from using their most powerful weapon(!), which was access to the
>international media.
>
>So our weapons are a message, their message is a weapon.

Extremely perceptive of you, William.  I'm genuinely very impressed by your
perspicacity.  This is the kind of connection that the average person,
unfortunately, wouldn't be able to make if you drew diagrams.

A tip of the hat also to Joe for his poem, and to Clint for making the whole
thing possible.

John