The historical purpose and utility of torture is to produce made-up confessions and bullshit &quot;intelligence&quot; to lend some veneer of necessity to whatever course of action the high and mighty have already committed to.<p>Just about anybody with a Middle-Eastern-sounding name and the slightest plausible connection to or proximity with &quot;﻿Al Qaeda&quot; (conveniently defined and delimited by the torturers themselves) would have been equally useful for this purpose. <i>There is no &quot;right&quot; man, no &quot;wrong&quot; man.</i> That&#x27;s torture. It&#x27;s a show, a blood pageant. It&#x27;s reading the Tarot or goat entrails.<p>That&#x27;s the system, the procedure you defend when you apologize for torture.