Quotes About Afghanistan

I was thinking about Afghanistan's future, Afghanistan's next generation, what we have next. These children who learn how to kill people, how to do jihad, how to behead, how to fire, this would be Afghanistan.

Some Pakistanis fought for the Taliban. Pakistani extremist groups provided infrastructural support to Al Qaeda. There was a coming and going of Al Qaeda militants and leaders between Afghanistan and Pakistan for several years. All that has really happened is that Al Qaeda has escaped from Afghanistan come into Pakistan, got in touch with their contacts and friends in these extremist groups, which then provided them with safe houses, cars, and not just in the border areas but also in the cities. Rooting out Al Qaeda in Pakistan now is where the main battle is being fought.

A democratically elected congressman of the United States of America should not be talking of an ethnic divide in Afghanistan, should not be interfering in Afghanistan's internal affairs.

But in Afghanistan, the general rule was that since you were fighting the Taliban, which was not a lawful government force, the Geneva Conventions did not apply. And that led to a lot of excesses in Afghanistan, excesses like Abu Ghraib that were already well-publicized.

It would be very hard to bring a wife to Afghanistan. In America, I'd have no problem with her doing whatever she wanted, but in Afghanistan, that's not the case.

We dont want the Taliban to put down roots, or the al Qaeda to put down roots in Afghanistan that can facilitate Afghanistan becoming - once again - a launching pad for international terrorism.

My family left Afghanistan in 1976, well before the Communist coup and the Soviet invasion. We certainly thought we would be going back. But when we saw those Soviet tanks rolling into Afghanistan, the prospect for return looked very dim. Few of us, I have to say, envisioned that nearly a quarter century of bloodletting would follow.

If Iraq and Afghanistan have taught us anything in recent history, it is the unpredictability of war and that these things are easier to get into than to get out of, and, frankly, the facile way in which too many people talk about, 'Well, let's just go attack them.

Every time I visit Iraq or Afghanistan I am blown away.

The U.S. couldn't play a military role in different areas like Iraq and Afghanistan without huge quantities of oil. So a shortage or disruption in oil would not only damage the U.S. economy; it would undercut American military supremacy.

I am ready to serve the people of Afghanistan, particularly in order to restore peace. I will be ready to assume any duty at the service of my people.

In America, we have cities that are far more dangerous than Afghanistan.

I was distressed that after 9/11, when the United States was attacked by terrorists, the United States' response was to attack Afghanistan, where some of the terrorists had been.

When I read about women living under the Taliban, I really wanted to travel there and see for myself: Is it that bad? What is the situation? I remember the night before I left for my trip, I called my mom and said, "I'm going to Afghanistan tomorrow."

You have been in Afghanistan I perceive.

Obama is making a choice now that will lead to the deaths of many thousands of civilians in Afghanistan by American hands. By ordinary standards of presidents, he is a decent man. But those standards aren't good enough. He's in a position either to kill or not to kill, and he's made the decision to kill.

Our neighbor Canada has 2,200 troops serving in Afghanistan. Canada has also assumed responsibility for the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kandahar, which was originally established by our own military.

It matters not what your individual position is on either war we are currently prosecuting - in Iraq or Afghanistan - certainly we can all agree protesting at military funerals is a cruel and unnecessary hardship on our military families during their most difficult hour.

Despite 18 years as a non-partisan public servant, my deeper "tribal" affinity has always been Tory. The Afghanistan file has given me an additional reason to cleave to that side of the spectrum. Canadian Conservatives have generally been more comfortable and confident with hard security issues.

What is meant by: "We mustn't give in to the terrorists"? We gave in to them the moment the first bombs fell on Afghanistan.

Afghan society is very complex, and Afghanistan has a very complex culture. Part of the reason it has remained unknown is because of this complexity.

Sometimes people say to me, 'Well, what was the difference between Kosovo, which was a successful intervention, and Iraq and Afghanistan that have been so difficult?' And the answer is perfectly simple. In Kosovo, you have, after the removal of the loss of its regime, you had a process of political and economic reconstruction that took its part without the intervention of terrorism. If you had the intervention of terrorism, by the way, it would have been extremely difficult there - but we didn't.

One of their major initiatives was getting all officers on Facebook. So the question is, why are these people who are there to train the Afghans being pressured to be on Facebook? Again, it sounds benign until you realize that the military's concern isn't the Afghans, it's convincing the American people that we should be in Afghanistan.Soldiers can put up pictures and say "See how happy the Afghans are because of our presence here." It's a way to directly influence the American people using propaganda.

According to what we've been seeing recently in the area where the terrorists control, where they ban people from going to schools, ban young men from shaving their beards, and women have to be covered from head to toe, and let's say in brief they live the Taliban style in Afghanistan, completely the same style.

The Syrian border town of Qa'im was the main gateway Islamic radicals used to go to Iraq. Syria became the passageway for extremists from Egypt, Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and other Muslim nations to fight a jihad against American forces in Iraq.

Afghans think the burqa is a permanent part of culture. But, if you bring it to Europe, how would people react? Afghanistan doesn't want to change its culture, but it can change, all the time. So why are Afghans giving so much value to it? The burqa is not natural. It's not human nature.

We think that Hillary [Clinton] will be a symbol and a reality for the women of the world, and it's very important because so many - so many underdeveloped countries, not the least of which is Afghanistan, the women of the world need help, and she understands those issues and is a lightning rod for them.

The story of what has happened to women in Afghanistan, however, is a very important one, and fertile ground for fiction.

The chaotic situation in Libya is definitely creating a threat. Libya now connects the jihadists in Africa with those in the Middle East and in Afghanistan. This could have been avoided.

We will not allow anyone to perform any terrorist acts inside or from Afghanistan against anyone. We are a free country where Osama is living as a guest. This is the reality and it is up to the world to accept it.

I just think it would be unrealistic to suggest we're going to eliminate every last domestic insurgent in Afghanistan. Certainly, the history of the country would indicate that's not a very realistic objective, and I think we have to have realistic objectives.

I would not like to be in President Obama's position in making choices on Afghanistan.

The al-Qaida cell broken up near Buffalo, N.Y., contains some citizens who also found themselves in Afghanistan, training for the Great All-Around Satan Smiting. Treason? Oh, of course not. They were on a religious pilgrimage and got lost. Happens all the time. I knew a kid who went to Lutheran Bible Camp and turned up six years later in a Christian Identity compound with a shaved head and a Hitler mustache.

For instance, in the last five years [till 2016], we've admitted nearly 100,000 immigrants from Iraq and Afghanistan. And these two countries according to Pew Research, a majority of residents say that the barbaric practice of honor killings against women are often or sometimes justified. That's what they say.

In Desert Storm, we had too many troops; in Afghanistan probably not enough for the major commitment we have made.

We can no longer apply the classic criteria to clearly determine whether and when we should use military force. We are waging war in Afghanistan, for example, but it's an asymmetrical war where the enemies are criminals instead of soldiers.

You know, NATO as a military alliance has something called Article 5, and basically it says this: An attack on one is an attack on all. And you know the only time it's ever been invoked? After 9/11, when the 28 nations of NATO said that they would go to Afghanistan with us to fight terrorism, something that they still are doing by our side.

Afghanistan is the most daring and ambition mission in the history of NATO.

We need to deal with the problem of al Qaeda, make sure that they can't have a sanctuary in Afghanistan and guarantee that we have regional stabilization and particularly focused on Pakistan.

We continue to stand united with Germany and our NATO allies in our ongoing efforts to build peace and stability in Afghanistan.

You know, terrorism in Afghanistan had everything to do with the support for the mujahidin by Saudi Arabia and by the CIA that sought to create an international religious extremist group to fight the Soviet Union.

I think the emancipation of women in Afghanistan has to come from inside, through Afghans themselves, gradually, over time.

How could a guy sitting in a cave in Afghanistan, have... plotted so perfectly the hijacking of four planes and then guaranteed that three of them would end up precisely on their targets?

Australia is this former British colony at the foot of Asia. We've been involved - we've been in lockstep with America in every battle you have fought for a century. We were there in Vietnam. We were there in Korea. We were there in Iraq. We were there in Afghanistan. We are slightly apprehensive about the rise of China.

In Afghanistan I was doing street art because it was more open, but when I had a show, only men would come. I said, I'm an artist not only for men, but for women too. So that's why I like graffiti.

[ General James Mattis] is a Marine's Marine who has served in combat in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

If the thumbnail version of the Iraq war was that Bush lied about WMD, the thumbnail version of Obama's war in Afghanistan is that the generals pushed him into a war he didn't want to fight.

But also, there are no films being made about Afghanistan.