Torture versus collateral damage; the bigger evil?

[carl]

You should go back and look at the debates at the time. In the case of Iraq, the argument was that a tax was unnecessary because the war would be short, of modest cost, and that most of that cost would be paid for by Iraqi oil revenues after the war. It's a similar story with Afghanistan, except the cost was modest (15-20 billion a year for the first five years) so a tax wasn't deemed necessary. Tax increases were not considered after that because we were always just a Friedman Unit or two away from winning or leaving....

I remember those debates just fine. But your comment doesn't address my point. Those arguments were made by chicken hearted elites, which was my point.