I just started reading a book on legal issues surrounding our operations since 9/11. There is a brief vignette in the introduction. I would be interested in reactions from the board to this tale of interrogation because I think it is useful to consider as we ponder legal foundations for our actions against non-state actors or proxies.

For those who already read the book or otherwise recognize the vignette and know the punch-line (which I will reveal later), please do not give it away, yet. I'm curious to see reactions from those who are unfamiliar with it.

Here is an edited excerpt...
"The terrorist mastermind had slipped through their fingers before, and American forces were not about to let it happen again... Unable to track him down, they managed instead to locate and detain his wife... For several days, they interrogated her at an air base, but she repeatedly insisted that he was dead. Finally, they tried a new tactic. They noisily put a plane on a nearby runway, its engines running. As the commanding officer later recalled: 'We then informed [her] that the plane was there to take her three sons to [a repressive country nearby] unless she told us where her husband was... If she did not do this then she would have ten minutes to say goodbye to her sons...' Having threatened, in essence, to kill her sons - for nobody doubted what the secret police would do to them when they arrived at their destination - the interrogators got the information they wanted. And they got their man, disguised as a farm laborer, that evening."
- Benjamin Wittes, "Law and the Long War," page 1.
Do you think this technique is moral or ethical or otherwise sound practice? Why or why not?
Do you have an opinion on the legality of this technique (whether it is or should be legal, etc)?
Again, if you already read the book or know the punch-line, please refrain from commenting until others weigh in. I'm curious to see reactions. For those who do not know the punch-line - don't worry, this isn't a game of gotcha.