A Quote by John McCain

Torture gives you reliable and unreliable information. That's the reason why most people in the world don't do it. So this idea that you have to torture people in order to protect national security is a false argument, and I reject it.

John McCain

Quote Topics

Argument False Gives Idea Information Most National National Security Order People Protect Reason Reason Why Reject Reliable Security Torture Unreliable Why World

Quote Author

John McCain
American - Politician
August 29, 1936 - August 25, 2018

Torture produces unreliable evidence and therefore doesn't achieve and protect anybody. Torture corrupts those who are doing the torturing.

Cherie Blair

I don't know about torture. I have educated myself on many things but on torture I have not known the boundary between what is torture and what isn't torture. I know the NRA tie these people (rebels, etc.) when they catch them. They tie their hands backwards. I am now being told that is torture. It is the traditional method.

Yoweri Museveni

I don't trust American intelligence. You look at the torture report from the Senate: People inside the CIA are saying that it doesn't work, and we're getting the information not from torture, but simply from questioning people.

Robert Baer

Torture is how you create enemies, not how you defeat them... Torture is how you get bad information, not good intelligence. Torture is how you set back America's standing in the world, not how you strengthen it.

Barack Obama

Even if torture works, it cannot be tolerated -- not in one case or a thousand or a million. If their efficacy becomes the measure of abhorrent acts, all sorts of unspeakable crimes somehow become acceptable. I may have found myself on the wrong side of government on torture. But I'm on the right side of history. There are things we should not do, even in the name of national security. One of them, I now firmly believe, is torture.

John Kiriakou

The United States government does not authorise or condone torture of detainees. Torture, and conspiracy to commit torture, are crimes under US law, wherever they may occur in the world.

Condoleezza Rice

As I say the UK's position on the issue of torture and the use of torture has not changed. Our policy is the same as it has been. We condemn torture.

Theresa May

She had won the battle against her memories. But one form of torture remained, untouched by the years, the torture of the word "why?

Ayn Rand

I abhor anything that constitutes torture. Water-boarding, its perfectly clear to me it is torture. I never supported extraordinary rendition to torture, always said that Guantanamo should be closed. There is no clash of ideals and pragmatism there.

David Miliband

I abhor anything that constitutes torture. Water-boarding, it's perfectly clear to me it is torture. I never supported extraordinary rendition to torture, always said that Guantanamo should be closed. There is no clash of ideals and pragmatism there.

David Miliband

Sleep is a most useful and most salutary operation of nature. Scarcely any minor annoyance angers me more than the being suddenly awakened out of a pleasant slumber. I understand that in Italy they torture poor people by depriving them of sleep. `Tis a torture that cannot long be endured.

Martin Luther

Why do we have to have violence, torture, brutality in crime dramas every time we turn on television? Any new crime drama is going to have, sooner or later, a lot of torture and nasty things that make people flinch. Lots of young people I know shrink and flinch from that kind of thing on television, so I think showing it is a mistake.

Ruth Rendell

'We don't torture' is the anguished cry of squishy people who have decided that trying to frighten terrorists by roughing them up is somehow the very definition of torture.

Mike Gallagher

Torture is senseless violence, born in fear... torture costs human lives but does not save them. We would almost be too lucky if these crimes were the work of savages: the truth is that torture makes torturers.