Life goes on

Buried on page 16 of the New York Times this morning are two articles worthy of comment. I'll save the second for a separate post. In the first Rumsfeld says he gave an order to stop the torturing of detainees as soon as he became aware that there were questions about the legality of the practice. Later in that same article, however, we find the following:

Mr. Rumsfeld also acknowledged at the news conference that he was mistaken last week when he said the military in Iraq had been ordered to stop paying Iraqi newspapers to publish positive articles. "I just mistated the facts," he said.

In other words, he lied, got caught lying, and brushed it off as if it was nothing at all. So who's to say he isn't lying about having ordered the torture to stop?

But he goes on.

He dismissed the significance of a handwritten postscript he had added to the Dec. 2, 2002, directive that read: "I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?" Mr. Rumsfeld works standing up at a special desk in his Pentagon office.

"Maybe it shouldn't have gone out, but it did, and I wrote it and life goes on," he said Tuesday.

Maybe life goes on just fine for Mr. Rumsfeld, but just today I find this:

Almost 100 prisoners have died in US custody in Iraq and Afghanistan since August 2002, according to US group Human Rights First.

The details were first aired on BBC television's Newsnight programme.

Of the 98 deaths, at least 34 were suspected or confirmed homicides, the programme said.

Somehow, life doesn't seem to be going on quite so well for these detainees.