Torture is bad strategy.  It does not produce good information, as the Army’s deputy chief of staff for intelligence Lt. General Jeff Kimmons said last week:

No good intelligence is going to come from abusive practices. I think
history tells us that. I think the empirical evidence of the last five
years, hard years, tell us that. And moreover, any piece of intelligence which is obtained under
duress, under—through the use of abusive techniques would be of
questionable credibility. And additionally, it would do more harm than
good when it inevitably became known that abusive practices were used.
And we can’t afford to go there.

    It is inhumane, making us into an image of the enemy we say is evil.  It debases us and gives us nothing good in return.

   So why are Bush and company so dead set on torture?

   I think it is, for them, a form of therapy.  It gives them a sense that they are "doing something;" that they are being "tough" in the "fight against terror."  It is all about providing for them – for Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld – some relief from the complexity of the challenge that is before them and the anxiety produced by the constant demand for action.  It is not about good intelligence or smart strategy.  It is all about their need to make themselves feel efficacious in the face of their incapacity.

     Of course conservatives are fond of complaining that liberal policy prescriptions are merely "therapeutic," not really doing anything concrete and good, but only making liberals feel better about themselves.  This includes psychological counseling, too.  In describing their recent book, which criticizes the overuse of psychological therapy, Sally Satel and Christina Hoff Summers write:

We contend, in other words, that human beings
are best regarded as self-reliant, resilient, psychically sound moral
agents responsible for their behavior. For, with few exceptions, that
is what we are.

 Such people do not need therapy.  And if people are truly "psychically sound moral agents responsible for their behavior" they would not need to torture others for no good reason.  But Bush is not responsible for his behavior; he evades responsibility at every turn.  His embrace of inhumane abuse calls into question his morality.  And that, sadly, tragically, is why he needs to torture others for therapy.