http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/10/11/rec.giuliani.prince/index.html
For disaster relief? So what if the guy said said it might have been the US fault? They need all the money they can get. I’d have taken the money and thumbed my nose at him.
Did he do right?
I heard this on the news earlier today. It’s a very tough call as to whether or not he did the right thing. I don’t envy the position he was put in.
Having said all of that, I probably would have let the money go to the relief fund, but I can fully understand why he didn’t.
Turning down 10 million dollars? Now, that was dumb.
He did the right thing.
To accept the money under those circumstances would have been dishonest, if done as Reeder suggests, and hurtful in any case. While money is needed, so, too, is solidarity and healing. I suspect there will be sufficient money raised and contributed by people that don’t blame the victim.
Perhaps Prince Alwaleed bin Talal can give the money to Susan Sontag; she agrees with him, I think.
He absolutely did the right thing.
Not like there was really any choice. That money came with serious strings.
And in any case, $10M is a drop in the bucket in the scale of the money needed.
I think he did the right thing.
According to another thread, Evilhanz said:
in this thread: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=92542 . This proving that we aren’t hurting for the money.
It’s a matter of principle. He [Giuliani} accepted, then rejected it after said person told the world that our US policies were what contributed to the attacks. That was very wrong for the Saudi prince to say that.
It might be true but the wounds are too fresh (hey I am a Libertarian so my beliefs are different than many) but it was very wrong to criticize in the light of what has happened.
When I was just a young boy, I fell out of a tree and ripped a gash in my arm. My mother bandaged it, and said to me “That’s what you get for climbing trees.”
The way I figure it, that’s about the case with this offer of aid. Guy shows up with a very small band-aid (compared to the funds needed, and compared to that already arranged) in a show of compassion, tinged with a bit of “it’s your own stupid fault”. Of course, I sincerely doubt this fellow cared about the WTC tragedy as much as my mother cared about the gash in my arm, so you can count the “told-ya-so” factor a bit higher on the scale. Probably wanted to find a way to tell America they brought this upon themselves without being bombed, and thought this was the best way. Good job by Rudy in not accepting a slap in the face for 10 million.
And, of course, as everyone else has mentioned, it’s not like he was offering to rebuild the WTC, it’s not really a crippling blow. I wonder what Jerry Lewis would do if the guy offered him ten million for MS after blaming the kids for the disease…
Just registering another vote for “he absolutely did the right thing.”
He did the right thing! $10 million is a drop in the bucket AND there is so much money being raised everyday. No great loss.
Count me in… he did the right thing. What a tough call, but he has American interests at heart - not just money.
Not even a tough call. There’s no way he could have accepted the money with the sheik’s associated comments.
Even though I think the prince may be halfway right (the other other half of the truth is it was rich Saudi princes such as him who invited us to Saudi Arabia in 1990 - the other thorn in the terrorists’ shorts). To use “charity” at some disaster as some sort of platform for one’s views is crass.
Would you console a rape victim, denouncing the attack as a horrible atrocity on her, and then turn around and say to her family, quite loudly, “Now we have to discuss how her choice to walk the street at night alone helped cause this tragedy.”?
That’s what the Saudi prince did.
Introspection comes later. Now is the time for unqualified sympathy and support.
Would you console a rape victim, denouncing the attack as a horrible atrocity on her, and then turn around and say to her family, quite loudly, “Now we have to discuss how her choice to walk the street at night alone helped cause this tragedy.”?
That’s what the Saudi prince did.
Introspection comes later. Now is the time for unqualified sympathy and support.
Short version of something I said on another thread:
The ten million did more good by being refused than it ever would have done by being accepted.
See, Giuliani was right for not accepting the ten million, because there is no relative morality at work. Regardless of what the US has done, there is no justification for the attacks of September 11.
At the same time, the Prince is factually correct. We did, in fact, engage in a number of actions which made us despised and hated by radical Muslims. No getting around it. Even worse, internationally speaking, America has had its head in the sand for years. I read a commentary on the BBC website recently about how America didn’t recoil in disgust when 19,000 civilians were killed in the Israeli siege of Beirut in 1982. This was written by a self-labeled “moderate Muslim.” The point was that moderate Muslims may be not supportive of the 9/11 attacks (they may even be revolted by them,) but they still mistrust America.
Contrast all that with the fact that the government of Saudi Arabia is at least nominally of the Wahhabi sect, the same “extremist” sect as Osama bin Laden, and many religious leaders and wealthy people have historically supported bin Laden’s cause. This makes the Prince’s platitudes, at best, highly suspect.
All I can say is, what a damn mess.
yes, he did the right thing. what made the prince’s remarks incredible crass, was that he said them AFTER he visited ground zero. how can you look at that and then say “well, ya know…”
now he should go forth and teach other politicians how to do this.
no, mr special interest, i will not take money from you…