Should William Kristol Be Tortured? Wouldn't Treatment In A Mental Hospital Be More Humane?

Neo-fascist father Irving (l) and pied son William Kristol (r)

Earlier this morning we talked about the barbarism of jihad, an integral part of one of the three primitive-- and long outdated, now poisonous-- Abrahamic belief systems. You don't only find this kind of poison, though, among the religionists and their pathetic brain-washed victims. This morning William Kristol, basically secular offspring of severely confused, demented neo-fascist orthodox Jews, Irving Kristol and Gertrude Himmelfarb-- who would swing from the far left to the far right depending on which paranoid nerve receptor was working on which day. With this kind of mental illness untreated, society winds up with... William Kristol, spewing his hatred and bigotry on the editorial pages of a NY Times that would probably give Josef Goebbels a column in the interest of "balance" and their self-serving conception of "fairness." Kristol the Younger's latest exploration of moral turpitude and mental illness is on display in his less savory outlet, the Weekly Standard. Basically, he wants Bush to pardon all the torturers and wiretappers before he's officially relegated to the garbage heap of history. (Kristol knows he doesn't have to make a plea for the bribers and bribees of whose reign at the top of the Culture of Corruption were the real crowning achievement of decades of GOP misrule. That goes without saying.)

After urging Bush to start at least one more war in the few weeks remaining of his ill-starred term, Kristol expects Bush to suddenly become a communicator.

Bush can explain to Americans just how his administration's detention, interrogation, surveillance, and other counterterrorism policies have helped keep us safe. If he lays out the case for them publicly-- as his appointees are surely doing to their transition counterparts privately-- he'll make it easier for the incoming Obama administration to back off rash promises and continue most of the policies. This would be a real service to the country. It would also force a rethinking, by those capable of rethinking, of the cheap and easy demagoguing on issues like Guantánamo and eavesdropping. Over time, Bush might even get deserved credit for effective conduct of the war on terror.

I can't remember reading such delusional drivel even from a nutcase like Kristol, still raging about keeping Guantánamo open and about how popular Bush's policies are. But, as I said, the real purpose of Kristol's latest screed is to add his (again) to the chorus of fascists demanding all the war criminals and anti-American domestic terrorists be pardoned for their crimes.

Bush should consider pardoning-- and should at least be vociferously praising-- everyone who served in good faith in the war on terror, but whose deeds may now be susceptible to demagogic or politically inspired prosecution by some seeking to score political points. The lawyers can work out if such general or specific preemptive pardons are possible; it may be that the best Bush can or should do is to warn publicly against any such harassment or prosecution. But the idea is this: The CIA agents who waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and the NSA officials who listened in on phone calls from Pakistan, should not have to worry about legal bills or public defamation. In fact, Bush might want to give some of these public servants the Medal of Freedom at the same time he bestows the honor on Generals Petraeus and Odierno. They deserve it.

Some think that if the torturers had waterboarded traitors like Kristol and prevented him and his ilk from goading us into a catastrophic war whose flames he's still fanning, they would indeed deserve medals of honor. I'll have to consider that carefully before I endorse it. Old liberal that I am, I tend to think that torture is always wrong, even for someone like William Kristol. Pies in the face on the other hand...