“The United States is now relearning an ancient lesson, dating back to the Roman Empire. Brutalizing an enemy only serves to brutalize the army ordered to do it. Torture corrodes the mind of the torturer.”
Quote by James Risen
Work
Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War
This work scrutinizes the post-September 11 era through the lens of economic incentive and institutional expansion, tracing how the privatization of military and intelligence functions created durable constituencies for perpetual conflict. The book documents the proliferation of defense contracting, the monetization of counterterrorism, and the ways in which the suspension of normal fiscal and legal constraints enabled new forms of elite enrichment. It explores the human consequences of these arrangements, including the exploitation of service members, the expansion of surveillance infrastructure, and the normalization of budgetary practices that circumvent democratic oversight. Drawing on extensive reporting, the narrative connects discrete episodes of waste, fraud, and bureaucratic entrepreneurship to a broader pattern in which the boundaries between public purpose and private gain became systematically blurred. The title itself evokes the suspension of ordinary cost-benefit analysis that characterized this period, suggesting that the literal and figurative price of open-ended military commitment has been borne unevenly across American society. more
Author
James Risen
James Risen is an American journalist renowned for his contributions to investigative reporting. He has worked at prestigious media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, where he reported on significant political and national security stories. Risen is celebrated for exposing secret activities of U.S. intelligence agencies, and his work has had a profound impact on the public's understanding of government actions. more