Why We Tortured

Torture doesn't work. The human race has thousands of years of experience with it and torture is great for getting people to say what you want them to say, but it doesn't get accurate information. Bush et. al. knew this. Is it reasonable to think they didn't know this, that someone like me would know it but the head of government would not? So the question then becomes, why did they torture?

After failing so spectacularly to prevent 9/11, it was imperative that Bush/all be seen as "doing something." People wanted to be reassured and they wanted vengeance. Showing that the administration was willing to go all out, to any extreme to "protect America" was necessary. Was the first leak about torture not planned? There's some history in the Bush administration and leaks and this one benefited them, so it would be unreasonable to dismiss that as a conspiracy.

However, torture doesn't work, but that doesn't matter. The reason for it wasn't to get useful information, it was reassurance to the masses. Similarly, look at the TSA and the things that have come out about it. They were always for show so that, even though people griped about their rights and about privacy, they were comforted by government "doing something."

Conservatives respond more to fear than liberals. That's why they love their guns - they are like a drug that eases conservatives' fears that the world is going to get them. In this case, conservatives respond strongly to the threat or terrorism even though that threat is much smaller, by multiple orders of magnitude, than that of many other things - dying in a car crash, being shot in a theater, or killed by an asteroid. Torture of other people even just in the name of protection - regardless of the report stating that it helped nothing - is a tranquilizer.

But here's the thing: the rest of the world and in particular, the middle east, see just another thing committed against them in a long line of things, probably starting before the end of WWI when the west carved up the old Ottoman empire to suit its own ends. Although difficult to prove, ISIS probably came into existence or gained in power as a direct result of torture, so our use of it fueled the very problem we supposedly want to solve. Who benefits from continued terrorism?

Who pays for (increased) military spending?