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... that Holder is not very familiar with the Geneva Convention(s):
under the Geneva Convention that you are really limited in the amount of information that you can elicit from people.
This unfamiliarity seems to be shared by CronenBurgerMeister:
Prisoners of war under Geneva may not be interrogated at all, beyond name rank and serial number.
This is simply not the case. There is no limit to the amount of information that can be elicited from prisoners of war; the limits are on the methods you can use to elicit information. Name, rank, and serial number is the the only information that a prisoner is required to supply. The prisoner can supply any additional information that he or she chooses to divulge. The applicable section is:
Third Geneva Convention (1949)
Art 17. Every prisoner of war, when questioned on the subject, is bound to give only his surname, first names and rank, date of birth, and army, regimental, personal or serial number, or failing this, equivalent information.
...
No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.
...
The questioning of prisoners of war shall be carried out in a language which they understand.
http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/7c4d08d9b287a42141256739003e636b/6fef854a3517b75ac125641e004a9e68
These are the rules that apply to the interrogation of prisoners of war according to the Geneva Convention(s). There is no limitation on the amount or kind of information that a prisoner can give, only on what the prisoner is required to give. There is no limitation on the kind of information that can be asked for, only on the means of asking and on the reactions to a refusal to answer.
If Holder was lamenting the fact that you can't torture prisoners of war, that is a non-starter because you can't torture anyone (not legally, not in any country that is a participant in the CAT).
