Since we're dealing with hypotheticals...someone drew the conclusion that since it's all right to torture someone to save a city, then it's also okay in order to save one or two troops. So, as long as we're riding the train to its logical conclusion, this means that any intelligence that might help to any degree, however small, is worth threatening the lives of, or torturing prisoners. So, if we do that, how is it that we're better than the enemy?
There are a lot of gray areas here. LtCol West may not deserve the brig, but he doesn't deserve for his actions to be endorsed. He threatened a prisoner's life, and the prisoner blinked. The question is whether LtCol West was willing to carry out his implied threat. Would he be a hero if he'd blown the brains out of an unarmed man? If you endorse threatening prisoners, by extension you also believe in capping them at some point. Maybe that looks really tough and bad ass in the movies, but in real life, that's called wrong.
The Geneva Conventions have nothing to do with this argument. Right and wrong is what it's about.
To those who say that our enemies have never followed the rules of war and that's an excuse for us, that's a damn good reason why we should continue to do the right thing. We beat the Germans and Japanese doing the right thing, and we'll do the same here.