>"...many countries maintain secret police forces and inflict torture
>on those who disagree.... [R]elatively few states will take
>photographs or videos of the gang-rape and torture of a young woman
>in a cellar and then deposit this evidence on the family's doorstep.
>This eagerness to go the extra mile, as is manifested in Saddam
>Hussein's regime, probably requires an extra degree of condemnation.
>And if we are willing to say, as we are, that the devil is in the
>details, then it may not be an exaggeration to detect a tincture of
>evil in the excess. We could have a stab at making a clinical
>definition and define evil as the surplus value of the psychopathic
>-- an irrational delight in flouting every customary norm of
>civilization."