Originally Posted by SteveZ

"American Values" - I would hope the first and foremost was to protect as much as possible those we send in harm's way?

"Could have put American soldiers at risk" - How? People who use children as suicide bombers, cut the hands off kids who take a candy bar from US troops, send airplanes into buildings of office workers, blow up people at prayer, and behead their captives aren't affected by "kinder, gentler treatment" of their captured folk.

"Enhancing our position in the world" - How? By butt-smooching every bully in the world? And who's opinion elsewhere is important - folk the US historically has bled and died for so they don't now speak German, Japanese, Russian or Chinese as the directed national language of a conquered people? If their memories are so fleeting as to what we have done, do and will do for others, they know where they can go next.

"prosecuted" - Tell you what, let's start with the tax scofflaws who got a free pass from this administration and now hold appointed offices. And while we're at it, will all the folk looking to prosecute those trying to protect our troops please step forward, join the CIA , DIA, FBI, NCTC, and the various other military and civilian intelligence organizations, get trained and deployed in covert and overt operations, and gather/process/analyze the information necessary to protect deployed troops, and put yourself in the same risk pool as these folk? Its really easy (and a little cowardly) to judge from a long and safe distance away, with no responsibilities for the outcome.

The intelligence business is not like a James Bond movie or Ludlum novel. It is a rough, tough and difficult business, with the main problem being that there is often a very short and finite time period to get the intel. It does no good to get the intel ten minutes late, and that's what happens all too often due to the other guy's unwillingness to reveal salient data until the information is valueless. The time pressure to get the intel is severe and real, because delays result in friendly casualties.

I have no sorrow for anyone waterboarded, sleep-deprived or any other interrogation technique, when the information they have is necessary to protect American lives, miltary and civilian. Whatever discomfort the interrogatee endures is a whole lot less than the wounded or killed troop, or the family who suffers with or mourns their troop, or the unlucky individuals who have to deliver the news. You can have all the sympathy for the interrogatee - my empathy is with the troops and their families.