"So sind die Amerikaner", Dimawis Stimme klingt kühl, "sie wollen immer alles kaufen."

I've been reading an article on Der Spiegel online about a recently released Guantanamo prisoner named Wissam al-Dimawi. He says he was tortured in Afghanistan by questioners who jammed a stick up his ass. He was taken to Guantanamo and was not allowed a toothbrush, because he could hurt someone with it. He laughs at the "strong Americans who are afraid of a toothbrush." He goes on to say, "That's how Americans are, they always want to buy something." He was referring to the way that we have put a bounty of some $25 million on the heads of Al-Zarkawi, Bin Laden, Mullah Omar and Al-Zawahiri. He's saying that we can't buy that kind of thing. His critique is that we think everything has a price, even loyalty.

It's probably true that we don't understand other cultures. We may just be projecting our values onto them when we offer huge sums of money in exchange for betraying a friend. The real story of Sodom and Gomorrha is that Lot protected travelers (his guests) from the crowds, even at the threat of being attacked himself. That's the way it is in that part of the world. It's embedded into the psyche. You must give shelter to a traveler, and offer him protection. It doesn't matter that the person is a criminal, and on the run from some political power. You as a human are obligated to help the guest you've taken in. That goes a long way to explaining why the Taliban wouldn't turn Bin Laden over. He was a guest, and therefore, deserved their protection.

We are completely befuddled as to why those guys are still running loose. We've offered up the most valuable thing we can imagine, but there are no takers. Strange isn't it that the most valuable thing to us is exactly that-a thing? To people in the Arab and Muslim world money is important, but not the ultimate. With our new focus on "moral values" we could benefit by looking closely at those folks' values. It might help us get our own principles back in order.

- posted by Marcos @ 12:28 PM (1) comments