I know from personal experience that the abuse of prisoners will produce more bad than good intelligence.
Interpretation
Torturing prisoners often leads to unreliable information and ethical concerns.
John McCain's quote emphasizes that inflicting pain on prisoners to extract intelligence is not only morally wrong but also ineffective. His personal experience suggests that the information gained under duress is often flawed, leading to more harm than benefit, reinforcing the idea that humane treatment is essential for gathering accurate intelligence.
In practice
This quote could be used in a debate about the ethics of interrogation techniques.
Giap was a master of logistics, but his reputation rests on more than that. His victories were achieved by a patient strategy that he and Ho Chi Minh were convinced would succeed - an unwavering resolve to suffer immense casualties and the near total destruction of their country to defeat any adversary, no matter how powerful.
Whenever America sends its citizens into harm's way, it must do so with eyes wide open.
For decades we have been living lives of abundance, with little regard for our natural resources or global health. But we are now facing hard choices in our energy policy. Future generations - my children and grandchildren, along with yours - will have to live with the decisions we make today. And so it is time for us to make some tough and - hopefully - smart choices regarding our energy use and production before it is too late.
We need a free press. We must have it. It's vital.
I appreciate our government's determination to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of the Bytyqi brothers, which Serbia's Interior Minister has rightly called 'an exceptionally serious crime,' and hope the Serbian government's pledge of full cooperation... is matched by a final accounting of their murder.
What is most troubling about Mr. Putin's aggression in Crimea is that it reflects a growing disregard for America's credibility in the world. That has emboldened other aggressive actors - from Chinese nationalists to Al Qaeda terrorists and Iranian theocrats.
If something were brought about without an antecedent cause, it would be untrue that all things come about through fate. But if it is plausible that all events have an antecedent cause, what ground can be offered for not conceding that all things come about through fate?
I believe that in every country the people themselves are more peaceably and liberally inclined than their governments.
The volatile truth of our words should continually betray the inadequacy of the residual statement.
All history is contemporary history.
Even if I seemed to remember, I could not know. For just to remember something is not to know if it really happened. That is a primary fact of the inner life, the most difficult fact with which we must live.
Man should be master of his environment, not its slave. That is what freedom means.
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