Hilzoy points to another in the endless series of empirical studies and professional testimonials indicating that torture is useless for the purpose of intelligence-driven interrogation. There's no value trade-off here; torture is both bad and useless. So why do Republican presidential candidates have such a...
triumph of the will
Mark Dery:OK, so maybe I'm overstepping the bounds of my Learning Annex degree in pop psychology. But the hidden costs of our overcompensatory hypermachismo are far worse than a few.
One element of Goldstein's argument deserves some more attention. The focus on Will is common to conservative analysis of the Iraq War, and of war in general. Will, it is.