It is now clear that military lawyers worked hard to try to prevent the abuse of prisoners by US forces at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere.  There were good legal and moral reasons given for avoiding the harshest interrogation practices, but these arguments were ultimately ignored by the commanders on the ground, who have yet to be called to full account for the abuses. 

    There are also sound strategic reasons for treating captives well, reasons that Sun Tzu understood well:

     In the Griffith translation, we find a quote for Sun Tzu, followed by a line of commentary by a fellow named Chang Yu:

Treat captives well, and care for them.

Chang Yu: all the soldiers taken must be cared for with magnanimity and sincerity so that they may be used by us. (76)

    Sun Tzu’s primary goal was to achieve victory at the lowest cost possible.  Famously, he said the "acme of skill" is to "subdue the enemy without fighting," to create a strategic situation in which the adversary realizes it is impossible for him to prevail.  Short of that, Sun Tzu tells us to use all the means at our disposal – logistics, maneuver, deception, diplomacy, etc. – to gain victory through economy of force.

    He clearly believed that treating captives well would best promote strategic goals by allowing us to "use" the prisoners, i.e. gain intelligence from them.

    Now, it could be argued that this approach is futile when dealing with suicide jihadis.  But it is just as likely true that harsh treatment will also not work well on the toughest of Al-Qeada operatives.  If they embrace death, it hardly matters how we treat them.  It is not at all clear that torture yields accurate and actionable intelligence; its only real effect is intimidation.  And if we want to induce other uncaptured jihadis to give up the fight, our reputation for abuse of prisoners is only an incentive for them to stay in the field and fight on.  True, we may not be able to induce many enemy combatants to surrender, but the marginal gain we would reap from them knowing we were not going to sic dogs on them or beat them to death is better than the marginal loss of scaring them off and keeping them in the fight.

    Sun Tzu understood this.  He argued that you should always give the enemy a way out.  Here is another line from him and commentary from Tu Mu:

To a surrounded enemy you must leave a way of escape.

Tu Mu: Show him there is a road to safety, and so create in his mind the idea that there is an alternative to death. Then strike. (109-110)

    Notice that last "then strike."  This is not about an assertion of universal humanity, as some defenders of torture might suggest, but a strategy for victory.  It seems fairly clear that the abusive approach of Guantanamo and Abu Graihb have fanned the flames of anti-American jihad.  Maybe its time to return to Sun Tzu.