It's a poor sort of person who can't admit when things go well for his or her enemy. It can be chivalrous to admire a brilliant tactical move or a stroke of luck. It's said that as he lay dying, King Richard I (the Lionheart) of England pardoned the bowman who killed him, congratulating him on the good shot. With that in mind, I think congratulations to the enemy are in order. America's own media has forced information-gathering from enemy prisoners to all but cease. This is a serious blow to America's ability to plan strategic operations. It's as if al-Jazeera made Abu Musab Zarqawi feel so ashamed of Nick Berg's brutal murder that he vowed to never kill again.

As a direct result of the overblown media feeding frenzy over the Abu Ghraib abuse photos, General Ricardo Sanchez, commander of all US forces in Iraq, has severely limited the techniques that can be used to question enemy prisoners. Forget about sleep deprivation, stressful positions, bland food, verbal threats and other rather gentle means of gaining information about terrorist and insurgent hideouts, personnel, weaponry and attack plans. Interrogators will now be limited to two basic techniques:

1. Asking for information
2. Saying "pretty please?"

At the same time, Lieutenant General David Barno, head of the Combined Forces Command in Afghanistan, is writing a new policy to insure that all captured terrorists  are treated with "dignity and respect." Surely when hardened al-Qaeda operatives see how politely US soldiers treat them, they'll feel compelled -- out of the goodness of their hearts, no doubt -- to tell their genial "hosts" exactly where al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders can be found and what their plans are. Would questioners be allowed to add, "with sugar on top?" to the dreaded technique #2 in extreme cases? Would they need written permission?

In a cave somewhere on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar are probably sharing a good laugh, knowing that Allah has given them an important morale-boosting victory against the Great Satan. They've just watched America disable its own information-gathering ability in a fit of agitated self-flagellation, something they could never have hoped to do. "Pretty please with sugar on top" doesn't make much of an impression on people who are eager to explode themselves while killing innocents in the in the belief it's a ticket to Paradise. It does nothing to alter their impression that America is too weak-willed to win a war against them. Could they be right, after all?

I'm not advocating that we torture or abuse prisoners for information, even if that would save American lives. There are other ways to gain knowledge without having to get medieval. Drugs like sodium pentothal and sodium amytal are completely painless (in fact, they're used as anesthetics), and a lot faster than weeks of "softening up" interrogation prospects. While they don't actually "force" a person to tell the truth, they do make one extremely talkative and open to suggestion. Skilled interrogators and psychologists should be able to gather useful information this way without giving Liberals at home the vapors. No terrorists would be embarrassed, while American and other lives might be saved. It's a win-win situation for everyone except our enemies.

The proscription against the use of drugs can and should be relaxed in these cases. The prisoners taken in both Iraq and Afghanistan do not come under the Geneva Convention's protection.  According to the 1949 Geneva Convention IV, article 4, part 2, prisoners of war must be former members of the regular armed forces, non-combatants, or:

Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:

(a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;
(c) That of carrying arms openly;
(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

It doesn't matter whether you call them insurgents, terrorists or "freedom fighters" (though it's baffling that anyone fighting to destroy a fledgling democracy can be dignified that way). Those who fight in civilian clothing with hidden weapons, using them to target innocent non-combatants, simply should not be treated as though they're honorable opponents. Yet due to the incessant caterwauling in the media over the mistreatment of prisoners by a few soldiers, the military is forced to do that and more. Congratulations.

Treating prisoners humanely is one thing... sending our troops into battle blind and deaf is quite another. We need to find a middle ground, and now.