Torture's Dirty Secret: It Works

Naomi Klein deconstructs the reason torture is part of our current policy. It's a red herring that it actually provides any sort of useful information. The purpose it really serves is to intimidate social dissent. It's function is similar to the Soviet warning shot. You shoot the first guy over the fence and that acts as a warning to the second guy who is thinking about going over the fence. The prospect of torture for no good reason such as what we have going in Gitmo and other places is to make it easier for our forces to exercise control over fractious populations. It serves to keep the casual offenders in line which allow us to focus energy on the hardcore offenders who are undaunted by the prospect of torture.