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There are people who wish to do us harm in the most heinous way. They want to kill Americans simply because they are Americans. They wish to destroy our culture and Nation because they don't like our freedoms, they don't like the fact that we are prosperous.

There is some big thing about the world that produced all these people willing to kill themselves just to hurt us. On 9/11 we learned we're part of that world, in the same completely crazy, drastic and arbitrary ways it hits other countries.

My objection to the death penalty is based on the idea that this is a democracy, and in a democracy the government is me, and if the government kills somebody then I'm killing somebody.

I think the rule should be that if we're going to take actions overseas that result in the deaths of people, the United States should take responsibility for that.

It is the job of our military to protect America and to hunt down and kill those who would threaten to murder Americans.

Any decision to use lethal force against a United States citizen - even one intent on murdering Americans and who has become an operational leader of al-Qaida in a foreign land - is among the gravest that government leaders can face.

We all agree that we've got to bring these terrorists to justice and to make sure that they're never allowed to perpetrate such an evil act as they did. And so all of us are dealing with that. We know that the President has the authority to go to war under the War Powers Act.

We can't go all over the world killing people because we disagree with them.

There exists in some parts of the world sanctimonious criticism of America's death penalty, as somehow unworthy of a civilized society.