How so?
Standing on the edge of a black hole has been calculated to exert 100,000 megatons in a nanosecond; return to plasma.
Are you competing with .Christian to see who can write the most bizarre stuff? That was almost as irrelevant and non-sequitirish as one of his crevo thread posts.
How would you feel obliterating men, women and children by nuclear detonation?
Ah, there we go.
You see, I am a conservative. I am not ruled by my <Michael Savage Mode> "feeeeeeeeeeeeeelings." </Michael Savage Mode> I leave that brand of silliness to liberals.
But we digress, the topic is leadership and Ltc. West.
The topic is LTC West. When he hammers his own troops for violating orders and then demands clemency for his own acts in violation of those same orders, "leadership" is not in evidence.
What would you have done to extract the information gained by West?
Me, personally? Nothing. I'm not a trained interrogator. That's what Military Intelligence Brigades are for.
C'mon, Jarhead, what are your actions and orders?
Let the MI folks (the ones who actually know how to effectively interrogate prisoners) continue the interrogation.
I would focus instead on what WAS known--namely, that an ambush was likely in the near future--and on leading the troops under my command. Among other things, I would make sure that the soldiers actually conducting patrols were aware of the heightened threat level and taking care to not engage in avoidable ambush-enabling behaviors (not settling into routine patterns, maintaining good OPSEC and COMSEC, and maintaining heightened vigilance), ensure that higher headquarters understood the increased threat level, and I'd tighten up security at the base camp area.
In other words, I'd conduct myself as a soldier, not as a brigand.
What a concept.
Semper Fi.
Go Fi yourself...