The purpose of torture...

[MrScorpio]

An impotent show of bravado.

Once you start torturing, you've already lost. Torturing someone is just the tacit admission that you're weak. Torturing is just the pathological inability to admit it.

Trained and experienced FBI interviewers all know that there's nothing to be gained from it. Which is why they refrain from it.

Yet, Bush and Cheney hired some quack to say otherwise and paid him millions of dollars as a way to build false legitimacy for his work.

Torture is sadism and inhumanity… And ultimately self-defeating. Those who torture lose the moral high ground.

[Vox Moi]

1. The object of torture is to scare the hell out of the spectators

… and it works.

That is why we know about it.

[First Speaker]

2. The purpose of torture is torture...

...it is an end in itself. Orwell said this in 1984, and it remains true. These monsters did this just because they could. There were no "ends" to justify it. They were letting their victims, the world, know that they--the victims-- were powerless, and that anything could be done to them, and no one could do a damned thing to stop it. And they were absolutely right to think this. And it will happen again.

[TexasProgresive]

3. There you go in 76 words. n/t

[el_bryanto]

4. All of the above

I think all three of the above responses are true and there are other reasons besides (there maybe others by the time i post this though - so mean the OP and responses 1 and 2).

1. Torture is about bravado for Cheney and Bush and most spokespersons for it.

2. Torture also has the important side benefit of scaring the citizenry both in Iraq/Afghanistan, but also here in the United States.

3. It's striking how stupid most torture is - Rush Limbaugh the jackass called it like fraternity hazing, and while he was trying to minimize the horror of it with that phrase there's an element of that going on - some of it does look like frat hazing if you are willing to haze a person to death. It's cruelty without restraint.

Bryant

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

5. It's telling that none of the tortured were called during the hearings/investigations.

Whereas, the enablers and commanders of the torturers were called to justify their savagery.

[hatrack]

6. "The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture."

"The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me." - O'Brien in "1984".