The Men Who Stare At Goats -

The Men Who Stare at Goats didn't learn how to walk through walls. But they did teach us something vital: when the world's most powerful military starts chasing magic, the civilians—and the goats—better run. The Men Who Stare at Goats is a tragicomedy of good intentions, wasted tax dollars, and the strange, permeable membrane between the counterculture and the military-industrial complex. It is proof that the truth is not only stranger than fiction—sometimes, it wears combat boots and a rainbow headband.

As one former interrogator told Ronson: "We stopped trying to kill the goat. We started trying to convince the goat it was already dead." So, why does this story matter today? The Men Who Stare At Goats

But as Ronson famously discovered, the truth is funnier than fiction—and far more disturbing. Beneath the punchline about psychic spies lies a true story of $20 million squandered on New Age mysticism, a Lieutenant Colonel who believed he could walk through walls, and a secret unit so delusional that it inadvertently paved the way for the torture scandals at Abu Ghraib. The Men Who Stare at Goats didn't learn

But the system that funded them? That took a silly goat manual and turned it into a torture manual? That is the real horror. It is proof that the truth is not