Full Version: Are Abu Ghraib and 9/11 morally comparable?
After having been introduced by Senator Hillary Clinton, George Soros took the stage before a meeting of the group "Campaign for America's Future". In his address to this group, George Soros compared the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib to the events of 9/11. The full article containing some of his comments is here.
Among the quotes contained in that article are the following....
George Soros, as I'm sure most of the people here know is the primary financial backer for groups like "MoveOn.org", having donated millions of dollars to their decidedly anti-Bush campaign. The full text of his comments is available in a .doc file here.
Personally, I find it appalling that someone would compare the prison abuse at Abu Ghraib to the terrorism of 9/11, but perhaps that's just me. Obviously George Soros believes there is a moral equivalency. So, my question for debate is....
Who is right? Me, or George Soros? Is the prison abuse at Abu Ghraib morally comparable to the slaughter of 3,000 people on 9/11 or not? Why or why not?
Among the quotes contained in that article are the following....
QUOTE
"I think that those pictures hit us the same way as the terrorist attack itself," Soros continued, "not quite with the same force, because in the terrorist attack, we were the victims. In the pictures, we were the perpetrators and others were the victims."
"But there is, I'm afraid, a direct connection between those two events, because the way President Bush conducted the war on terror converted us from victims into perpetrators."
"But there is, I'm afraid, a direct connection between those two events, because the way President Bush conducted the war on terror converted us from victims into perpetrators."
George Soros, as I'm sure most of the people here know is the primary financial backer for groups like "MoveOn.org", having donated millions of dollars to their decidedly anti-Bush campaign. The full text of his comments is available in a .doc file here.
Personally, I find it appalling that someone would compare the prison abuse at Abu Ghraib to the terrorism of 9/11, but perhaps that's just me. Obviously George Soros believes there is a moral equivalency. So, my question for debate is....
Who is right? Me, or George Soros? Is the prison abuse at Abu Ghraib morally comparable to the slaughter of 3,000 people on 9/11 or not? Why or why not?
Well, to me, to some degree, you are both right. In the context of the war on Iraq, sure, they are morally comparable- we invaded a country that represented no imminent danger to ourselves, and at least, at any conservative estimate, doubled the number of deaths of innocents- and our main reasoning is "hey, we didn't MEAN to kill innocent poeple, it just happens in war". Then we started torturing folks, and though, to me, the complaints by Arab countries ring very hollow (where were they when Saddam was torturing folks? 
) it is still a valid comparison of the torturing of innocents for, really, no reason at all.
However, it is also hyperbole, meant for impact, so it is not 100% comparable IMO- but it certainly does put alot of "bad karma" in our column, and we have certainly doubled or tripled (afghanistan+ Iraq) the number of dead from our WTC that had nothing to do with anything but being in the wrong place at the wrong time, just like those in the WTC.
) it is still a valid comparison of the torturing of innocents for, really, no reason at all. However, it is also hyperbole, meant for impact, so it is not 100% comparable IMO- but it certainly does put alot of "bad karma" in our column, and we have certainly doubled or tripled (afghanistan+ Iraq) the number of dead from our WTC that had nothing to do with anything but being in the wrong place at the wrong time, just like those in the WTC.
Is the prison abuse at Abu Ghraib morally comparable to the slaughter of 3,000 people on 9/11 or not? Why or why not?
Interesting spinoff. Basically another bad analogy but not quite as out of line as the one between Abu Ghraib and Waco. Soros is basically modeling the issue as perpetrator victim in reverse. One side in each case is the perpetrator and the other side is the innocent victim. It's too crude and contextually muddy and way out of scale to be very compelling. But in so far as that is the model he wants to stick with, then in a coarse sense it is accurate.
Interesting spinoff. Basically another bad analogy but not quite as out of line as the one between Abu Ghraib and Waco. Soros is basically modeling the issue as perpetrator victim in reverse. One side in each case is the perpetrator and the other side is the innocent victim. It's too crude and contextually muddy and way out of scale to be very compelling. But in so far as that is the model he wants to stick with, then in a coarse sense it is accurate.
I think that Soros used the analogy as a hyperbole, to underscore why Aby Ghraib scandal created such a powerful wave of indignation in the world. He is much too intelligent of a person to use a direct comparison between these two events.
However since we are talking about George Soros here I wanted to point out one thing. I noticed that George Soros being vilified in the conservative media for putting his money where his mouth is - even though conservative media, if they really are pro-US security, should sing praises to the man because he did some tremendous things to protect the security of the world and the U.S.
In the 1990s, after Soviet Union collapse, he prevented thousands of Soviet scientists (including nuclear scientists) from searching for jobs in countries like Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. He could be a single reason why we didn't actually find any WMD in Iraq
.
However since we are talking about George Soros here I wanted to point out one thing. I noticed that George Soros being vilified in the conservative media for putting his money where his mouth is - even though conservative media, if they really are pro-US security, should sing praises to the man because he did some tremendous things to protect the security of the world and the U.S.
In the 1990s, after Soviet Union collapse, he prevented thousands of Soviet scientists (including nuclear scientists) from searching for jobs in countries like Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. He could be a single reason why we didn't actually find any WMD in Iraq
.QUOTE
One of the first international organizations to give aid to Russian science was Hungarian-born U.S. financier George Soros' private International Science Foundation. The ISF program, which started in 1992, disbursed more than $100 million in grants to some 25,000 researchers in the former Soviet Union.
QUOTE
Soros also helped fund the Civilian Research & Development Foundation (CRDF) located in Arlington, Va. (C&EN, April 7, page 45). Since 1995, CRDF has supported joint research projects between former Soviet Union defense scientists and engineers and their American counterparts, with grants ranging from $10,000 to $80,000 per research team. Soros provided a $5 million grant to the National Science Foundation to release a matching amount for CRDF that Congress set aside in the Department of Defense budget.
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