Why did they torture?

Torture is barbaric and immoral and goes against all civilized norms of behavior. Those considerations alone should be sufficient to not do it and prosecute those who do. But there are those who argue that that is trumped by the fact that it generates information that can prevent even worse outcomes. But there are some things that we have known for a long time about the efficacy of torture that the US senate report has made even more clear and that is that it is not useful for getting information since tortured people will tell you what you want to hear or whatever they think will stop the torture.
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Pinkwashing

Samantha Bee looks at the efforts by corporations to use a breast campaign awareness campaign to ‘pink wash’ their actions and distract people from the fact that their business actions may actually be increasing the risk of cancer. The charity Susan G. Komen that promoted using the pink color has already been accused of exploiting the campaign for its own benefit and that of its executives and this is not going to help them either
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The tricky task of winning hearts and minds

The Daily Show took aim at the Freedom From Religion Foundation that had sent a letter threatening legal action to the owner of a small restaurant Mary’s Gourmet Diner that offered a 15% discount to patrons who prayed before meals. As a result of that letter, the owner of the diner dropped the promotion. The show interviewed Dan Barker, co-president of the FFRF, about why he did this and although he was articulate and clear, he did not come off well.
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We are always awesome, whatever evil we do

Another The Daily Show newcomer Hasan Minhaj, making just his second appearance on the show, spoke about how despite its history of wreaking death and destruction all over the world, and despite the depravities revealed most recently in the torture report, the US is still, and always will be, the greatest, noblest, most humane and moral country in the world, facts be damned.
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The United States of Torture

The more one digs into the senate torture report, the more depressing it gets. In addition to the details of what was done which are bad enough, comes the news that the US government paid the enormous sum of $81 million to two psychologists to come up with the methods, even though they had no “specialized knowledge of al Qaeda, a background in counterterrorism or any relevant cultural or linguistic experience.” They apparently just copied what other countries had used, not to get information but to obtain false confessions for propaganda purposes. So right from the start, the idea that these torture methods were useful was not even credible and the members of the psychology and medical professions were complicit in these acts. You can read about these sadists here.
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The Daily Show on the torture report

Jon Stewart struggles to tries to find some way of injecting humor in reporting the horrors revealed by the torture report and the lies told about it, without at the same time trivializing the events. He manages to show how culpable everyone in power is in these acts of depravity, from the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Congress, and the intelligence agencies.
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