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I'm reading Torture and Democracy, Rejali's "definitive work" (and have been reading it, and will be reading it...). The mindsets of a lot of the torturers do not resemble what Alice Miller says about vengeance reactions to childhood trauma. They resemble the mindsets of the Germans who butchered the Jews (in, say, the Der Spiegel article). Somewhat too mundane and bureaucratic. The mindsets in thinking up the tortures also seem eerily placid, too. The electric chair, which started the slide to electric shock torture, evolved out of an advertising campaign by Thomas Alva Edison to defeat George Westinghouse on the question of DC vs. AC house current. The 'water cure' is called that because it was a precursor to electroshock therapy.
The guys at the top, well, Glenn has spent good time talking about the manliness aspects of the ideology in the U.S., but down in the trenches, its, well, too mundane to support revenge for the wrongs of anything, childhood included. Trauma or warping to their minds from what they are doing to people, yes, and permanent.
If I've misinterpreted Alice Miller, then okay, I may be wrong. I only read what she posted on her website about torture, which was brief.
