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29 Nov 2008 12:03 pm

The Medal Of Freedom For Torturers

It's hard for Kristol to top himself, but in Orwellian terms, offering a Medal of Freedom for torture may be a career high:

One last thing: 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.

Torturers should not have to worry about "public defamation"? We are to be forbidden from even criticizing war criminals in the Schmittian order Kristol idolizes? But, of course, this is all a classic piece of disinformation. There is no "witch-hunt" for CIA staffers ordered by their superiors to commit war crimes. There is a vital, public need to hold the president and those at the very top accountable for the war crimes they illegally authorized and even now deny. And to hold accountable in the court of public opinion those people in the public square who were not only cognizant of the war crimes being committed, but egging them on.

One more thing: why did Kristol write this in the Weekly Standard and not the NYT?

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