That this individual's terrorist son was permitted to live after being involved in treason against the United States and the murder of a CIA operative (not the disclosure of a name of a US-based non-covert employee, but the actual murder of an agent in the field) was an offense against America that will stink forever in the annals of history.

Now the terrorist is seeking clemency after cutting a plea deal, and his father is claiming that he has been abused.

The father of an American jailed for fighting alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan said on Thursday his son had been tortured and unjustly punished amid public hysteria over the September 11 attacks.

"The maltreatment and imprisonment of John Lindh was -- and is -- a human rights violation," Frank Lindh told the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. "It was based purely on an emotional response to the 9/11 attacks, not on an objective assessment of the facts of John's case."

A 24-year-old Californian dubbed the "American Taliban," John Walker Lindh was captured in 2001 and jailed for 20 years under a plea deal. U.S. troops ousted the Taliban after they refused to hand over al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

At times fighting back tears, the father accused U.S. forces of torturing his son. He showed a photo of his son's body strapped to a stretcher at a military base in southern Afghanistan.

"I do not want to dwell today on the military's mistreatment of my son, but I will say categorically that he was treated in a way that is shameful to our nation and its ideals," said Lindh, an attorney at Pacific Gas & Electric.

"John Lindh did not need to be tortured to tell the American forces where he had been and what he had seen," the father said. "I cannot fathom why the military felt it necessary to humiliate him in this way."

Oh, dear, they had to restrain the little terrorist. Too damn bad.

And what is worse, this liberal lawyer wants to absolve his son from all guilt, despite the guilty plea.

After years of silence, the father of American-born Taliban soldier John Walker Lindh called on President Bush on Thursday to grant clemency to his son, who he says was wrongly maligned as a traitor and murderer.

"In simple terms, this is the story of a decent and honorable young man embarked on a spiritual quest," said Frank Lindh, swallowing back tears at times during a speech at the Commonwealth Club, a nonprofit organization.

Frank Lindh said that although his son had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 attacks, they ended up adding dire consequences to his decision to join the Taliban, targeted by the U.S. after the 2001 attacks for harboring al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

Your son may have started out as a decent and honorable young man -- screwed up, no doubt, because of your abandonment of him and his mother to take up in a sexual relationship with another man -- but he ended up as a hateful member of a murderous group of backwards thugs. The honorable kid is dead, replaced by a terrorist. Sorry you cannot see that because of a father's love, but it is the truth.

Fortunately, there is another father who has a thing or two to say about the release of your vile spawn. He carries more weight with decent Americans than you do, you pathetic excuse for a man.

As passionately as Frank Lindh is advocating for his son's clemency, there is another father fighting just as hard to extend John Walker Lindh's sentence by getting him convicted of murder or treason.

Johnny Spann is the father of CIA officer Johnny Micheal "Mike" Spann, who was killed in a prison riot after being videotaped speaking with John Walker Lindh.

Johnny Spann is conducting his own investigation into the origins of the riot at the Mazar-e-Sharif prison, where suspected Taliban supporters were held. Spann contends that the uprising began with a planned grenade attack inside the prison building rather than a spontaneous scuffle outside where his son was interviewing prisoners, including Lindh.

I wish Mr. Spann well in his endeavor, and look forward to the day that Lindh is executed for his crimes, like the diseased swine he is.