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It was our view of the worst that could befall our people if they were taken captive. So, what was fascinating to me was that somehow it appears the techniques that we have feared most in the world would be used on our people, we are using on people in our custody.
Jane Mayer
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Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote reflects on the irony and moral implications of using feared techniques on others while expressing concern for one's own people.

Jane Mayer's quote addresses the unsettling reality that the same methods we dread being imposed upon us are often implemented on those in our control. It raises ethical questions about the treatment of individuals in custody and critiques the hypocrisy of abandoning principles of humanity in the face of fear.

Themes

EthicsHumanityCustodyPowerFear

In practice

Example use cases

In a discussion about human rights violations.

More from Jane Mayer

So, it, of course, makes one wonder how many other people there might be who are completely innocent, who have been sent by the U.S. to countries where they've been interrogated, and in some instances it seems tortured.
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Quote by Jane Mayer | QuoteProject