Never mind that if Kristol’s Jacobin buddies, followers of Trotsky’s “permanent revolution” maxim, who hate the very idea of Islam abroad and a constitutional republic at home, are engaged in war crimes not witnessed since Hitler ordered Walther von Brauchitsch, commander-in-chief of the Wehrmacht, to draw up plans to invade the Soviet Union, ultimately resulting in the mass murder of 25 million Russians. Of course, the neocons have not approached that number yet, or the three million killed during the Vietnam War (Bush the Elder, Clinton, and Bush the Minor have killed around 2 million Iraqis), but give them time, as the “war” is promised to be long, maybe a few generations, if the neocons have their way.

Kristol tells us: “Crimes and cover-ups cannot be excused or tolerated. They must be investigated, and the individuals involved, and their commanders, must be held accountable and punished,” but he really does not mean it. In fact, the Straussian neocons not only don’t care about what happens to Iraqi school kids and grandmothers, shot down in cold blood by mentally disturbed yahoo soldiers, like their mentors in Israel, who believe more of this sort of thing must happen, as Muslim animals only understand violence and brutality. Sort of reminds one of the racist ideas of the Nazis, who thought the Jews were vermin to be eradicated, or at least sent from Europe to Palestine. Kristol, of course, must act like he is a reasonable fellow, a patriotic American (when in fact he is an Israel Firster), only interested in defeating the “insurgents” and delivering democracy to the people of Iraq, who suffered under Saddam, the former CIA asset and friend of Donald Rumsfeld (few seem to remember his handshake with Saddam).

In his article, Kristol makes sure to take the former frat boy with brain damage, now the “decider,” to task. “Does the president really believe, as he said at his recent press conference with Prime Minister Blair, that the Iraq war’s greatest mistake was Abu Ghraib? Or was this just a way of ducking the question? After all, the damage done to the war effort by Abu Ghraib pales beside the damage done by not having enough troops in theater, by refusing to send additional troops, by wasting a year before beginning seriously to build up the Iraqi army, by the April 2004 aborted battle for Falluja, and the like.”

Obviously, it bothers Kristol that the U.S. did not flatten Fallujah the minute after four Blackwater mercenaries were gruesomely slaughtered, a fate commonly suffered by occupation soldiers, or in this case their contractors. Instead, the armchair general Kristol had to wait until November, 2004, and Operation Phantom Fury, or maybe it should have been named Operation War Crime, or possibly Operation Collective Punishment, as the entire city was besieged, sort of like the Vandal king Geiseric sacking Rome (imagine what Geiseric the Lame would have done with phosphorus).

As for Kristol’s plaint of insufficient troops, nobody is stopping him from donating his son, Joe, or his daughter, Anne, both of military age, to fight in the generational war envisioned by the neocons.