Not Just For The Hell Of It

Yglesias almost goes far enough in this TAPPED post:

TORTURE: JUST FOR THE HELL OF IT. Yet another must-read story from Jonathan Landay reports that "Harsh techniques used by military interrogators on prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, produced no better information than traditional law enforcement methods, FBI agents told their superiors in newly declassified portions of e-mails released Monday." According to one FBI agent, "DOD (Department of Defense) finally admitted the information was the same info the Bureau obtained." Nevertheless, "It still did not prevent them from continuing the 'DOD methods.'" Think that over a bit. They conceded that there was no actual purpose to using the "harsh techniques" and then kept using them anyway.

Actually, the end goal is pretty straightforward, at least in my opinion.  It's not torture for the hell of it, or even torture for deterrent effect.  It's torture for the purpose of training torturers by cycling interrogators through Gitmo, allowing them to ply their new trade on the indefinitely detained. 

Comments

[Hal]

Always thinking of the future, aren't they?

[j fyrste]

That is a truly scary thought. All the more so for being entirely too, too plausible.