The general is buying more rockets. Rockets to defend his emplacements, war batteries. You have just asked him about the cost of those rockets. His response is the question: ” what value do you place on human life.” You, being a reporter with NPR, don’t answer, not even with a follow up question. You have treated his question as rhetorical.
Why didn’t you respond, tell him that he places the value of human life at zero. That is how he treats the lives of his enemy. He treats them as having no value.