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.
Tis not where we lie but whence we fell; the loss of Heaven's the greatest pain in Hell.
War both needs and generates certain virtues; not the highest, but what may be called the preliminary virtues, as valor, veracity, the spirit of obedience, the habit of discipline. Any of these, and of others like them, when possessed by a nation, and no matter how generated, will give them a military advantage, and make them more likely to stay in the race of nations.
The technique of infamy is to start two lies at once and get people arguing heatedly over which is the truth.
I wish we questioned the aid model as much as we are questioning the capitalism model. Sometimes the most generous thing you can do is just say no.
Are there other people who, when watching a documentary set in a prison, secretly think, as I have, 'Wish I had all that time to read'?
But the saints are never the kind of killjoy spinster aunts who go in for faultfinding and lack all sense of humor. (Nor should the Karl Barth who so loved and understood Mozart be regarded as such.)For humor is a mysterious but unmistakable charism inseparable from Catholic faith, and neither the "progressives" nor the "integralists" seem to possess it - the latter even less than the former.
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