I just ran across this article by Naomi Klein, written for The Nation:

Torture’s Dirty Secret: It Works

It gives us a terrible rationale for the use of torture that we seem to be overlooking in the United States. From what I have read and heard, torture does not work for intelligence gathering. But if people are aware that there is a possibility that they may be tortured, they can be effectively silenced and politically or socially demobilized.

If this is what is intended by torture, then we have a name for it. Terrorism. In this case, state-sponsored terrorism. One does not need explosions or loud bangs to terrorize a population.

Speaking of definitions… shortly after 9-11, I wrote an article in my college’s daily news paper, one of my biweekly columns for that semester. I bring up the article now, not so much because I discuss torture directly, but because the theme was the definition of “terrorism.” The writing/editing may not be pristine, and the ideas behind the words I am sure originated in greater minds than my own, but I felt proud to expose a wide audience to the concepts I was pushing. Here is the article (by the way, I did not come up with the title, must have been some editor too lazy to read it):

Ben’s post-911 article on terrorism

If you don’t want to read it, here’s the last line, which I really dig:
“Certainly steps should be taken to prevent terrorist acts similar to the ones we were recently forced to witness. But we must not let ‘Infinite Justice’ become an overzealous defense of the status quo that completely ignores our own role in world terror while silencing forms of legitimate dissent.”