The American Spectator

The Current Crisis

Spanish Bull

By R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. on 4.19.02 @ 12:03AM

It is a distinguishing characteristic of the left to fasten upon a good principle and through moral one-upsmanship stretch that good principle into a monstrosity. Occasionally the sanctimonious leftist stretches the good principle into a monstrosity dangerous to all mankind. This a judge in Madrid has just done.

His name is Sr. Baltasar Garzon, and he is described as Spain's "top criminal judge" by the New York Times. As far as I am concerned he is, indeed, a criminal. He is the very same zealot who has pursued the aged General Augusto Pinochet almost unto the grave. Now he wishes to harass one of the Americans responsible for keeping the world free of Communist domination or World War III, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

Judge Garzon, the other day, asked British authorities to haul Kissinger in for questioning when he enters the country next week. The judge sees Kissinger as a possible witness in his investigation of some Latin American governments' anti-leftist tactics in the 1970s and 1980s. The judge's good principle is justice or perhaps international law. By dragging former officials of democratically elected governments in for questioning about imagined misbehavior committed long ago and in jurisdictions far from the judge's authority he is making his transmogrification of justice into a danger to free society.

Kissinger is a good citizen and a wise and prudent public servant. He is a loyal American and deserves an old-age full of happiness and honors. Persecution by European governments for crimes that leftist fanatics dream about in their fevered reveries is an injustice in pursuit of an imagined justice. It is a monstrosity.

The very notion of international law is rendered suspect if fanatics can use it to even scores from the past or bring down heroes they have a grudge against. Why not go after Bill Gates for some fancied wrongdoing by Microsoft in a faraway country? Why not haul Bono in for polluting the minds of Islamic students who laid hands on a Bono album and dreamed of women with undraped forearms? The absurdities multiply.

But let me add that the absurdities are usually committed by leftists. All central Europe could now be amuck in endless legal battles against Communist expropriators who did their dirty work half a century ago. Yet there are few lawsuits against the ex-Communists. Normal people see the consequences of endless litigation for wrongs or alleged wrongs committed or not committed long ago.

Only left-leaning malcontents such as Judge Garzon cause these tempests. What can be done about them? Well, they can be ignored. Any sensible person with an ability to extrapolate from Garzon's monstrosity can see that under the good principle of justice civil happiness will be impossible for anyone fetching a malcontent's fancy. Let us hope that the British recognize Garzon for the misanthrope that he is.

And let us give a cheer for our fellow Americano, Henry Kissinger, who might some day join an animal rights lawsuit against Garzon for quietly standing by and allowing bull fighting in his country. Shame on you, Judge!

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Islam, Law