... the United States, for generations, has sustained two parallel but opposed states of mind about military atrocities and human rights: one of U.S. benevolence, generally held by the public, and the other of ends-justify-the-means brutality sponsored by counterinsurgency specialists. Normally the specialists carry out their actions in remote locations with little notice in the national press. That allows the public to sustain its faith in a just America, while hard-nosed security and economic interests are still protected in secret.
-- Robert Parry

* Together we can prevent genocide from happening again. Together we can make a better future for our children. -- Dith Pran

* Land mines, torture equipment, cluster bombs, chemical weapons are weapons designed to inflict pain and death on human beings. Most victims are civilians, women and children. How can arms manufacturers, weapons designers, plant managers, politicians, who have families of their own whom they love, be so insensitive when it comes to the suffering of other human beings? -- José Ramos-Horta

* Torture has been privatized now, so you have obviously the whole scandal in America about the abuse of prisoners and the fact that, army people might be made to pay a price, but who are the privatized torturers accountable to? -- Arundhati Roy

The coward wretch whose hand and heart Can bear to torture aught below, Is ever first to quail and start From the slightest pain or equal foe. -- Bertrand Russell * “What the world needs is not dogma but an attitude of scientific inquiry combined with a belief that the torture of millions is not desirable, whether inflicted by Stalin or by a Deity imagined in the likeness of the believer” -- Bertrand Russell

"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."
-- Jean Paul Sartre

* Torture -- the intentional infliction of severe mental or physical pain or suffering -- is a violation of the most basic of all human rights. -- Robert Alan Silverstein

* "Strange how blind people are! They are horrified by the torture chambers of the Middle Ages, but their arsenals fill them with pride!" -- Bertha Von Suttner

End Torture Quotes

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End Torture Day - June 26

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