Still Fostering Abuse, Publicly, Shamelessly, Even Now

Rumsfeld Downplays Detainee Mistreatment, AP, 9/10/04
“Amid allegations he fostered a climate that led to the prison abuse scandal, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Friday that the military’s mistreatment of detainees was not as bad as what terrorists have done.
“‘Does it rank up there with chopping someone’s head off on television?’ he asked. ‘It doesn’t.’”
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DKo: Rumsfeld is calibrating a new standard for tough, but decent US forces–and for fair and balanced public judgment of the things they do. We must aspire to a higher plane than the TV hostage executioners. They were so publicly gruesome about their murders. It was shocking to put that sort of thing on television. We wouldn’t allow it.
When I was a kid, we had a way to give credit to this degree of ennoblement: Mr. Secretary, people have said you weren’t fit to live with pigs, but I said you were.