Will sticking to our principles cost us american lives? Its quite possible, but ask yourself this "how many lives have we sacrificed to establish and preserve those principles?" Are we willing to dishonor those that fought and died for the principles that make us what we are?

A valid statement, but you missed a critical point: The lives we are putting up against our honor aren't just soldiers and volunteers any more. This is a new kind of war, one in which our enemies by preference attack civilian targets without warning.

Pearl Harbor was a surprise attack on a military facility by uniformed personnel in clearly-marked military aircraft, and even that was considered dishonorable at the time.

We often see the "ticking bomb" meme used, usually involving the extreme scenario of waterboarding vs. a nuclear attack. Seriously, how often is that actually going to come up? But what about a mall getting blown up? A single jet airliner? A pizza joint? Is it okay to put our national honor above a hundred people? Ten? What would a normal cop do, never mind the CIA? Does it salvage our honor if the person doing the interrogation is then charged with a crime?

Does it matter that the potential victims don't even get a vote?

And in your fixation on the administration, you missed another point, which is that many of these actions were, at the time, bipartisan.