L
West used his judgement and discretion as an officer in a time-critical combat sitaution to extract information of an emminent attack from an enemy spy.
He was precisely the person to do this...and the non-comms and enlisted people under him will most likely understand it and respect it and not violate as you project.
West also was willing to take full responsibility and accountability for what he did...reporting himself to his superiors.
Therefore, he took great risk, and was willing to be accountable for it, on behalf of his command, his mission and his men. And his judgement and discretion panned out...they actually caught the perps and prevented the ambush/attack. At almost any other time in our history we would call that service above and beyond the call of simple duty.
I choose to call it that now.
He did not injure the enemy prisoner (who as a spy could have been shot) and he probably saved as many, if not more Iraqi lives as American.
What LTC West did is much, much tamer than what our forces have had to do in other all-out wars against an enemy who is not only interested in conquering us and destroying our system of government and way of life, but is intent on killing as many of us as they can, however they can. Talk to WW II vets of the Pacific or the Battle of the Bulge and Europe. I have. My father is one of them. He believes the people prosecuting this have lost their collective minds.
Understand...I do not relish war and do not hope for or want atrocities. Atrocities in all-out war are when evil people commit unspeakable acts for their own sake. Hiroshima and Nagasaki for example were not atrocities or war crimes. They were about a commander (the NCA) making a judgement call to kill tens of thosuands of civilians in order to more quickly accomplish the mission (end the war) and save both American and Japanese lives. Countless other, smaller such decisions were made at the command level up and down the chain during that war.
This is the same type of decision IMHO. In the war we are fighting, against the enemy we face...we'd best be perepared, however reluctantly, to make such decisions and then not prosecute the good judgement of the officers who are on the line making them. If the info had not panned out or if saddistic actions had occurred, that would be different. But none of that is the case.
I would be proud to have my own sons serve under someone like LTC West any time.
Just my own feelings on the matter.
See:
Col. West...you've got my back anytime
LTC West responds to FR article