The New York Times has an interesting article about the difficulties in developing a legal framework for coercion of prisoners

Interrogators were worried that even approved techniques had such a painful, multiplying effect when combined that they might cross the legal line, Mr. Kelbaugh said. He recalled agency officers asking: “These approved techniques, say, withholding food, and 50-degree temperature — can they be combined?” Or “Do I have to do the less extreme before the more extreme?”

The questions came more frequently, Mr. Kelbaugh said, as word spread about a C.I.A. inspector general inquiry unrelated to the war on terrorism. Some veteran C.I.A. officers came under scrutiny because they were advisers to Peruvian officers who in early 2001 shot down a missionary flight they had mistaken for a drug-running aircraft. The Americans were not charged with crimes, but they endured three years of investigation, saw their careers derailed and ran up big legal bills.

That experience shook the Qaeda interrogation team, Mr. Kelbaugh said. “You think you’re making a difference and maybe saving 3,000 American lives from the next attack. And someone tells you, ‘Well, that guidance was a little vague, and the inspector general wants to talk to you,’” he recalled. “We couldn’t tell them, ‘Do the best you can,’ because the people who did the best they could in Peru were looking at a grand jury.”

We are fast heading to a new legal reality that there will be less liability in letting American citizens die in terror incidents than doing anything more than asking politely for pertinent information from captured terrorists.

...at very least less personal liability. That is surely enough to prevent us from effectively prosecuting the war on terror since the Times' lie that there are more "effective measures"...

The Bush administration had entered uncharted legal territory beginning in 2002, holding prisoners outside the scrutiny of the International Red Cross and subjecting them to harrowing pressure tactics. They included slaps to the head; hours held naked in a frigid cell; days and nights without sleep while battered by thundering rock music; long periods manacled in stress positions; or the ultimate, waterboarding.

Never in history had the United States authorized such tactics. While President Bush and C.I.A. officials would later insist that the harsh measures produced crucial intelligence, many veteran interrogators, psychologists and other experts say that less coercive methods are equally or more effective.

If that was true, and its clear it isn't, the New York Times wouldn't be writing this article because we would be simply using these less coercive and "more effective" techniques and avoiding the entire legal tussle. Put yourself in an interrogators position for a moment and ask yourself if you'd prefer to use a technique in which you have no legal liability exposure.

No brainer, right?

Clearly these "less coercive" techniques don't work nearly as effectively as the unnamed "experts" would suggest. The objections of the Times and others is disingenuous at best, conspiratorial at worst.

The way I answer this question is quite simple--what is more important? The rights of my wife, my children, my brother, sisters, and friends to live their lives without them being cut short by some glorious jihadist act of martyrdom? Or the rights of a terrorist to be treated "respectfully"

Faced with that choice, I will slap you in the head if I think it will make you give me information that will save their lives. I will put you in a cold room. As a matter of fact, the longer you hold out of me, the more medieval I will get on your ass.

I'm not worried about how you'll treat me or mine if the positions were reversed, because afterall, you're a terrorist. You think you'll go to heaven by killing me. Its pretty clear I'd be foolish to expect anything less than Daniel Pearl treatment from you. So you sons of bitches, I'm all for torturing you (real torture) as much as you want to be tortured. You get to decide how far I'll go but ultimately I know what I'm here for.

To save my family and friends and to hell with your dignity.