HOLDER HEARING: Holder: Detainees Have to Be Treated Humanely

Earlier today, Eric Holder called waterboarding out-and-out torture. But later, when asked about other kinds of interrogation techniques (dogs, painful stress positions, nudity, and mock executions), he said he wouldn’t call those actions *torture. *

Instead, he refreshingly reminds the committee that Common Article III of the Geneva Conventions requires that the detainees be treated in a “humane fashion” and that these techniques, nevertheless, would certainly violate that.

To say that this perspective, and candor, is appreciated by the senators might be an understatement.