An al-Qaeda association in Somalia might have had a point when they mocked the new $33 million bounty on its top leaders heads by offering its own bounty: 10 camels for President Barack Obama and 20 chickens for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In fact, the camel actually originated in the Americas thousands of years ago. But luckily for its sake, the camel crossed over into Asia during the late Pleistocene Age. While the camel, along with the horse, disappeared from North America-perhaps falling prey to large carnivores or because of the depredations of prehistoric humans,(1) in Asia, specifically Arabia, camels developed into an important food source-milk. Due to their capacity to store water, conserve energy, and transport goods and services over long distances, they also became major political, economical, social, cultural, and military commodities. If not for the camel, centuries of cultural exchanges between Asia and Europe would have never occurred, including the famous Silk Route. Neither would have major religious ideas and empires expanded, such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam and the Ottoman Empire.

Economically and politically, the camel was a Land Rover(2), forming trading and political empires for many Asian and Arabian societies. A camel could carry five-hundred or a thousand pounds with a saddle. It could travel three days without water, thirty to sixty miles a day. Because of this, camels were highly prized and seized through desert raids. One traveler wrote that an approaching party on camel-back may be friend, but is always assumed to be foe...Raiding parties are of two kinds, that whose tribe and yours have no blood-feud, and that where a blood-feud exists. Both want your camels and arms, the second your life as well.(3) For centuries, Rome, Constantinople, and later the Spanish, French and English, were threatened by goods (silk, incense, spices) loaded on camels. Such imports drained European empires of silver and gold. Using the camel, Arab and Islamic armies clashed with Christian kingdoms throughout Europe. Still, and using camels, Islamic and Arab forces resisted European colonization and domination. Camels also provided and transported foods and helped build canals and railroads.

Al-Shabaab, the al Qaeda-linked group in Somalia, are adherents of Islam and followers of Prophet Mohammad. Jabir bin Abdullah tells of a personal encounter with Prophet Mohammad and a camel, one that did not pertain to placing bounties on the heads of opponents. During the Hajj (when buyer and seller had the option to either cancel or confirm the deal before parting), Prophet Mohammad bought an unruly and troublesome camel from Jabir for a gold piece. He could have later cancelled the business transaction but instead, Prophet Mohammad demonstrated an act of charity by not only returning the camel but allowing Jabir to keep the gold piece.(4) As a trader and owner of numerous camels for his caravans, transactions became very important, as it has too much of Islam. Prophet Mohammad cautioned: "O you who believe! Do not devour your property among yourselves falsely, except that it be trading by your mutual consent." He also believed there was no place for deceit and deception during transactions, or trading defective products. The most important business, of course, was submission to God's will.

For self-proclaimed Christians, like Obama and Clinton, camels are a reminder of the wise men (astrologers) visiting Jesus at his birth, one of many messianic pretenders who threatened the Roman Empire and King Herod. Jesus mentioned camels when he said, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God." He had just told a rich young ruler to sell all and distribute monies among the poor and oppressed. It was a clear warning that God's reign required economic and political rearrangements and power sharing. He also referred to camels when condemning the hypocrisies of religious leaders, or how they "strained out a gnat and swallowed a camel." They were so meticulous about ceremonial laws-like the harsh Temple Taxes, observing the Sabbath, and not swallowing a gnat which was considered unclean-that they had neglected the more important matters of religious life and living: helping to establish social and economic justice and equality for everyone. In affect, they had monopolized God's grace and love, making it inaccessible for many and a sham.

As collaborators with the Roman Empire, they supported, even blessed and prayed for, violent conquests, ongoing militant occupations, economic exploitation that ravaged the poor, and approved of torturing and crucifying political, economic and religious opponents and reformers-including those involved in popular and democratic uprisings- that challenged their violent ideologies and destructive institutions. For Jesus, camels should carry heavy loads, not the poor and oppressed, nor innocent civilians who were killed and sacrificed in the name of militant belief systems, corporate greed and violence, and punitive sanctions. Unlike the burdensome Roman Empire, which sought to remake the world through terrorism and revolutionary violence, he believed God's Laws and New World Order consisted of justice, mercy, forgiveness, and faithfulness. Prophet Mohammad, founder of Islam and a trader, exemplified Jesus' prophetic life and the presence of the Kingdom of God-which meant the end of Rome's imperial domination and oppressive religious and imperial cults.

While al-Shabaab wants to overthrow what it believes is a corrupt Somali government, the U.S. Empire uses such groups and their tactics to justify its imperial ambitions and legitimize its global domination. Al-Shabaab's bounty of camels for Obama will only serve to continue to fuel a deceptive and defective, a manufactured and commercialized, Global War on Terror, one initiated by the U.S. Empire and American Exceptionalism. Sadly, even camels are now caught and used in this Web of Terrorism-the remaking of the world through different forms of privatized violence and corporate militarism, both of which Jesus and Prophet Mohammad abhorred. Alexandert Herzen wrote: "The word 'humanity' is most repugnant; it expresses nothing definite and only adds to the confusion of all the remaining concepts a sort of piebald demi-god." Regarding the camel and its migration our of North America, its eventual disappearance from that part of the world, and then its tremendous successes and productivities and betterments for millions of people, the camel needs to migrate back to the United States and project its achievements.

A cross-geographical and zoological migration, that is, that will prevent some humans from trying to violently remake the world in their own likeness, and those resisting such aggressive overtures to refrain from issuing bounties. With some humans constantly committing cyclical acts of terror and always using terrorism, which kills innocent people, it makes one wonder who really is exhibiting an animal instinct and animalistic behavior.

Dallas Darling (darling@wn.com)

(Dallas Darling is the author of Politics 501: An A-Z Reading on Conscientious Political Thought and Action, Some Nations Above God: 52 Weekly Reflections On Modern-Day Imperialism, Militarism, And Consumerism in the Context of John's Apocalyptic Vision, and The Other Side Of Christianity: Reflections on Faith, Politics, Spirituality, History, and Peace. He is a correspondent for www.worldnews.com. You can read more of Dallas' writings at www.beverlydarling.com and wn.com//dallasdarling.)

(1) Bernstein, William J. A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped The World. New York, New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2008., p. 55.

(2) Ibid., p. 56.

(3) Ibid., p. 54.

(4) Ibid., p. 72.

(3) Ibid., p. 56.

(4) Ibid., p. 54.