Andrew Sullivan Quotes

For me as an American, the most painful aspect of this is that I believe that that administration has taken the events of 9/11 and has manipulated the grief of the country and I think that's reprehensible.

The war in Iraq, the abuse of detainees, electronic eavesdropping, Guantanamo Bay - these things were all done on our behalf and they may turn out in the end to have created more terrorists.

On the contrary, it might even be a projection of what the truth is of the Bush Administration's complacency and ineptitude on the terrorism in its first 9 months in office.

The defeat of terrorism in Punjab … was unambiguously the result of the counter-terrorist measures implemented in the state by the security forces. Moreover, the use of this coercive force was (and is) not just a necessary expedient, but a fundamental obligation and duty of constitutional government, and its neglect inflicts great and avoidable suffering on the innocent and law abiding

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.

It's the fault of the liberals and the media and the Democrats, that from the very beginning have tried to undermine the will of the American people to fight this [war on terror]

What have we allowed ourselves to become? Are we no longer a nation of laws? Have we become instead a nation of men who make secret arrests? Are secret prisons now simply another tool of the federal government law enforcement? Is secret rendition of individuals now permitted, out of misplaced fear? Have we decided that the writ of habeas corpus is not worth defending? Is torture now an acceptable tool for making us safe? Unfortunately, the single answer to all of these questions from the leaders of our country and to many of our citizens appears to be yes.

The willingness to condone some form of interrogational coercion, including outright torture in particular extreme circumstances is directly related … to the degree that one takes seriously the threat that terrorists pose to entire cities.

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

Americans should sense danger when a government tries to stop a newspaper from disclosing the origins of an unpopular war ... or accuses a newspaper of endangering national security by disclosing secret and illegal wiretapping.

Things like Abu Ghraib and even Guantanamo are not new things: there are many precedents.

We have to review our foreign policy and stop rolling out the red carpet for countries we know to be funding fundamentalism: countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

I've been on a state of high alert since high school. I didn't need 9/11 to remind me that we live on a ball of flame.

Before there was radical Islam, immigration and terror didn't mix.

It is unacceptable that a senator or a representative in the American House of Representatives assist Afghanistan during the war and meet with Bin Laden and al-Qaeda leaders, express his support for their war against the U.S., and be allowed to return to serve in Congress.

Ultimately, if you look at all my films from 'Bloody Sunday' on, they're steeped in a post-9/11 atmosphere. 'United 93' is directly about 9/11, of course, but every one of the movies deals with paranoia, mistrust, and fear.

I call President Bush a terrorist. I call those around him terrorists as well: Condoleezza Rice, Rumsfeld, Gonzales in the Justice Department, and certainly Cheney.

The idea the president of the United States was warned that Al-Qaeda was going to attack the United States and did nothing about it - really? Do you think any president of the United States, if he had even an inkling there was going to be an attack, they wouldn't have moved heaven and earth to try to stop it?

Will there be a political backlash against British Prime Minister Theresa May, whose ruling Conservative Party is traditionally seen as 'stronger' on terrorism than its main rival, the Labour Party?

It is shameful that the working committee of United Nation Security Council has raised serious question on India's ability to fight against terrorism, and the government should take note of it.

We got valuable information from debriefing of Al Qaeda detainees, and I don't think it's knowable whether interrogation techniques played a role in that.

Unfortunately, once a person who is willing to act against the interests of the United States assumes the awesome powers of the presidency, the laws and investigative techniques we use in ordinary national security situations are woefully inadequate.

The rise of ISIS has exposed the darkest side of humanity - at times manifesting their violent ideology at our very doorsteps.

Radical Islamic terrorists and those who fund it remain a credible threat to America and a clear and present danger to democracy.

When you look at the big issues post-9/11 in the United States, whether it's water boarding, warantless wire tapping, surveillance, Gitmo, black sites rendition, all of those have been legal. Nobody has gone to jail for those programs.