Two = Four -- Or More

You can place complete faith in my word, sir.  We are a people whom  you can trust with your life.  Hundreds of years of our history are filled with evidence of our sincerity, our truthfulness.  All those countries that we conquered and ruled for centuries are proof of the worth of our word.  Being an honorable and incorruptible people is an integral part of our culture.  For as long as you're "in our tent" we are obligated to protect you, to treat you as an honored guest; the moment you step outside we have the privilege of slitting your throat.  You often have reminded us of that moment in history when we threw out the Shah and kept some fifty of you Americans as prisoners in dark underground cells for months and months, your fate subject to our whims.  And you might think of that as a betrayal of our responsibility to protect anyone "in our tent," but, in truth, you Americans were not "in our tent" you were "in the tent" of the Shah whom we had overthrown.  But we are friends again and you need have no fear of us reneging on any agreement.  Those pictures on TV last week of thousands of Iranians surging through the streets screaming "Death to the Americans" and "Destroy Isreal" was merely clever agitation.

Thank you, sir, for those comforting words.  I, too, represent a  history of people who have always believed that our word must be our bond, holy.  I'm sure that you, as people throughout the world, know the extreme injury that can befall one who is under yoke and gun of a master keen enough to distinguish the hint of a lie from his vassal.  The history of the world is laden with the sorrowful tales of those wretches bludgeoned to dust for daring to persuade a master with sophistry.  But admission of some nefarious deed to the master ment certain death.  So the vassal had to beome eloquent in cradling a lie in such terms and temper that the devil himself could not decipher it as a lie.  Over the centuries such energetic "truth-telling" has become a part of our DNA.  You see, sir, I'm quite skilled and profuse in the power of words and do not use them glibly.  If I give my word to the people on the worth of an agreement in which I diddled and my word obfuscates banks throughout nations will close and nations will perish.  You and I, sir, are men of a few words.  In fact, you might say that we are two people whose few words cleverly comprise four meanings -- or more.