John McCain Quotes

However, whether people are fighting a noble cause or not, there are certain acts which they may not perpetrate. Exploding bombs in public places and killing innocent people cannot be accepted. Holding civilians to ransom or as hostages cannot be accepted. Poisoning food, medicine or water supply cannot be accepted. These are acts of terror and anyone committing these acts must be regarded as terrorist by everyone, irrespective of the cause they are fighting for, irrespective of their religion, race or creed. And once they are defined as terrorists it is the duty of everyone, every country, to hunt them down and bring them to justice

To build a better, freer world, we must first behave in ways that reflect the decency and aspirations of the American people. This means ending the practices of shipping away prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in far-off countries, of detaining thousands without charge or trial, of maintaining a network of secret prisons to jail people beyond the reach of the law.

Legal issues aside, the American people and government should never abide the use of torture by our military or intelligence agencies. A decent society never accepts or justifies torture. It dehumanizes both torturer and victim, yet seldom produces reliable intelligence. Torture by rogue American troops or agents puts all Americans at risk, especially our rank-and-file soldiers stationed in dozens of dangerous places around the globe. God forbid terrorists take American soldiers or travelers hostage and torture them as some kind of sick retaliation for Abu Gharib.

I'm against torture. I'm also against terrorism.

I have said repeatedly that America doesn't torture and I'm going to make sure that we don't torture. Those are part and parcel an effort to regain America's moral stature in the world.

We Americans have a sense of ourselves as a moral people. We have led the way in the fight for human rights in the world. Mistreating prisoners makes the world see our moral claims as hypocrisy.

The war against terrorism is a war against those who engage in torture.

I think what's going on in Guantanamo Bay and other places is a disgrace to the U.S.A. I wouldn't say it's the cause of terrorism, but it has given impetus and excuses to potential terrorists to lash out at our country and justify their despicable acts.

What has happened at Guantanamo Bay... does not represent the will of the American people. I'm embarrassed about it, I think its wrong. I think it does give terrorists an unwarranted excuse to use the despicable means to hurt innocent people.

Upholding human rights is not merely compatible with fighting terrorism, it is essential.

Terrorism can never be accepted. We must fight it together, with methods that do not compromise our respect for the rule of law and human rights, or are used as an excuse for others to do so.

I know for a fact that torture is not productive. That’s not professional interrogation. We don’t do torture.

You don’t have enough evidence to convict them in a court of law. On the other hand, they can kill you….It’s inherently a very difficult problem. At the end of the day the United States must be true to its own values.

The Usage of Torture is contrary to all the Dictates of Nature and Reason; even Mankind itself cries out against it, and demands loudly the total Abolition of it.

No information that we could ever obtain by torture and inhumane methods could ever balance the damage that such practices would cause us.

The law, domestic or international, ought to be the floor below which we won't fall, the bare minimum. But we are the United States of America. We shouldn't limit ourselves or try to get around laws. We should be looking for what's right for us, what's right for the world and what's smart...

Torture does not work. I believe that.

If I was in charge, they would know that waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists.

Torture goes against the very soul of our country. We are a democracy, established on the rule of law.

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.

I strongly disapprove of torture and have never and would never provide assistance in its process.

I was appointed United States attorney on September 10, 2001. And I spent the next seven years of my career fighting terrorism and putting terrorists in jail.

Since January 2002, when the United States began detaining at Guantanamo Bay enemy combatants captured in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other fronts in the war on terror, critics have complained of human rights abuses.

If I were an innocent individual, flown to a foreign country and held for several years and tortured, I'd become a terrorist, too. I'd go to war against the U.S.

No conditions justify torture.