Torture works, but not to extract intelligence.
For the Bush White House, torture has been just one more facet in a fear campaign designed to create anxious, compliant Americans who will acquiesce to anything.
First comes the false or exaggerated threat.
“We are surrounded by numerous secret (terrorists, communists, anarchists, immigrants, witches, counter-revolutionaries, atheists, elitists, foreigners, royalists, insurgents, race traitors, turncoats, spies, feminists, homosexuals, scary black men, scary brown men, secular humanists, possessed children, dual citizens, non-Christians, reactionaries, extra-terrestrials in human guise, enemy sympathizers, Marranos, apostates, etc.) who hate us and are hell bent on destroying us.”
Next, pick up rootless, powerless people and detain them secretly without a trial or due process. Threaten and vilify anyone who objects. Torture them until they “confess”.
Finally, use the coerced confessions to prove that we are all in much more danger from many more hidden evil doers than any of us could have imagined. Use that fear to justify even harsher treatment of the enemy and more authoritarian control of everybody else until the line between them blurs.
