Thought for the Day

[bcholmes]

A couple of days later, [Colin] Powell's spokesman reasserted the US line, in the face of muted calls for an inquiry from CARICOM and the congressional Black Caucus. "There was no kidnapping, there was no coup, there were no threats," so "there's nothing to investigate [...]. We did not advocate his stepping down." As usual, Donald Rumsfeld managed to go one better than even Powell or Bush, and he denied not only that Aristide had been abducted but also that Aristide had so much as claimed to have been abducted. "I don't believe that's true that he is claiming that. I just don't know that that's the case. I'd be honestly amazed if that were the case [...]. The idea that someone was abducted is just totally inconsistent with everything I heard or saw or am aware of. So I think that -- I do not believe that he is saying what you are saying he is saying."

— Peter Hallward, Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide, and the Politics of Containment

I have a copy of a documentary, Aristide and the Endless Revolution, in which there's a segment of Rumsfeld speaking a part of the above quotation. It's kind of funny (in a "god, I want to shoot myself" sort of way) to see the context for the quotation.