We don't do stuff like that...

Right now I'm reading the book Guests of the Ayatollah, by Mark Bowden, which chronicles the Iran Hostage situation during 1979-80, which the author correctly describes as "The first battle in America's war with militant Islam." I find Bowden's depiction of the events incredibly even handed and thorough, and it's a great read for anyone who's interested in placing today's events in their historical frame. But there's one passage that struck me and I wanted to share it with you all.

The scene comes towards the end of the book, as the hostages are about to be released. Sheikh-ol-eslam, one of the student guards who had taken the American embassy hostage, has come back to say goodbye to the hostages, and one in particular, CIA station chief Tom Ahern. Discovering that Ahern was CIA, Ol-eslam had previously tortured him, by hitting the soles of his feet with a piece of stiff cord.

They meet in a small room, and when Ahern is brought in he finds Ol-eslam sitting at a desk with a cord. He thinks that he is going to be tortured one last time, and as he's given one last "lecture" on Islam, all he can do is prepare himself for the worse. Then he's given a surprise:

"Instead, Sheikh-ol-eslam started explaining that the beatings that Ahern had received were really not indicative of his own values or those of Islam.

"As a token of my sincerity in this, I invite you to use this rope to do to me what I did to you."

Ahern looked at the rope and then at Sheikh-ol-eslam.

"We don't do stuff like that," he said."

It amazes me how Americans who have been tortured like Ahern and McCain can adhere to decency and morality, but those who haven't like Bush and Rumsfeld can so willingly toss out years of American protocol, and ethics in their crusade against terror. Though frustrated, I know that their side will lose, because they will never inspire the world in the way that Ahern's one simple sentence can.