To clarify: Abu Ghraib & My Lai

My dad sent me an e-mail tonight about my post yesterday, and he rightly made the point that My Lai and Abu Ghraib are two totally different animals that aren't even in the same ballpark.

He's right.

However, I don't think I adequately explained what I meant.

My Lai and Abu Ghraib aren't comparable on just about every level, without question.

At My Lai, innocent Vietnamese villagers were slaughtered by American soldiers, including women and children. (The actual number who were murdered is disputed - I've read just over 100 in some articles, nearly 350 in another, and 504 on Wikipedia's Website. Wikipedia is an openly edited site, so anything you read on that site should be verified by reputable sources.) Even on the low end, My Lai was a tragedy with few equals in American history.

Abu Ghraib didn't involved hundreds of people dying, but it was a severe abuse of authority, and a severe breach of morality on the part of American soldiers.

The only parallel I was attempting to draw between Abu Ghraib and My Lai was the impact those two events had in the context of the two wars when they occurred. No more, no less.

From a human life perspective, comparing these two tragedies would be like comparing a firecracker to a hydrogen bomb.

I've had a lifelong love affair with similes and metaphors, but sometimes I guess the comparison isn't always successful or obvious.