Quotes About Afghanistan

The Iraq War has thrown such a heavy shadow on Afghanistan that you can't hardly get any news about that now. I went to Afghanistan this year and spent more time there than I did in Iraq ... just 'cause they were forgotten about, and I wanted them to know that I appreciated it.

Everyone in Afghanistan and Pakistan is a potential target. My heart goes out to the UN family in Afghanistan: in spite of everything, they are showing fortitude. But they will need the support of the whole world at this difficult time.

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.

I feel most empires fell when they started to act human, but then look at Russia. They kept a pretty strong hand, and they fell from Afghanistan alone because Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires. I guess you just can't sustain it.

People say the war in Iraq is a bad war, and the war in Afghanistan is a good war, but what's the difference between them? Democratic people around the world cannot accept that this is a good war. This is just endless war.

The other problem is that the priority of many soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan is operational security: not getting killed. Now that is a very valid priority, but it has to be balanced against many other priorities, especially not killing too many locals in the process.

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 countries like Afghanistan, the corruption is in your face. In Nigeria, I heard of judges making sex the bargaining chip rather than money. Now let's put that in the context of an honor-based society. Imagine that you're the brother of a woman who got raped by a judge to have her case heard in court. What do you want to do? You want to kill the judge. So here is an insurgent movement that hands you a gun. You have rage, and they give you an outlet for your rage.

Poorly secured nuclear material in the former Soviet Union, or secrets from a scientist in Pakistan could help build a bomb that detonates in Paris. The poppies in Afghanistan become the heroin in Berlin. The poverty and violence in Somalia breeds the terror of tomorrow.

Let's take Pravda in the 1980s. I mean you could have read things in Pravda saying that it was a stupid error to invade Afghanistan: "it was a dumb thing to do, we have to get out, it's costing us too much." I mean that U.S. analog of that would be "extreme liberalism," and it has been pretty well studied.

The important thing here to understand is that the people that are at Guantanamo are bad people. I mean, these are terrorists for the most part. These are people that were captured in the battlefield of Afghanistan or rounded up as part of the Al Qaeda network. We've already screened the detainees there and released a number, sent them back to their home countries. But what's left is hard core.

In Afghanistan this week, outnumbered Northern Alliance rebels on horseback defeated Taliban forces armed with tanks. Experts say the victory is just like the story of David and Goliath and David's friend, the Stealth Bomber.

Ironically, many of people, including Osama bin Laden and the mujahedeen, were, in fact, nourished by the United States in the early eighties in its efforts to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan.

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.

We will also be funding projects that empower women and children in Afghanistan and now and then give scholarships to Afghan students here in the Bay Area.

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.

Let's remember that the reason we are there is that we have vital interests in Afghanistan, hugely important national interests, as do the other countries involved.

Remember the rights of the savage, as we call him. Remember that the happiness of his humble home, remember that the sanctity of life in the hill villages of Afghanistan, among the winter snows, is as inviolable in the eye of Almighty God, as can be your own.

The United States has been essentially engaged in an ongoing war that most people date from 2001. That war has taken us to Afghanistan, to Iraq, in a lesser way to other countries - Libya, Somalia, Yemen.

think that the external situation has also changed somewhat. The reduction of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan has, in a sense, reduced how inflamed the situation on the Pakistani border regions was and is.

We are not going to be able to rebuild Afghanistan into a Jeffersonian democracy.

Our mission is to go after Al Qaeda, not the Taliban. Right now, they are in Pakistan, not Afghanistan. We should go after them wherever they are.

Since January 2002, when the United States began detaining at Guantanamo Bay enemy combatants captured in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other fronts in the war on terror, critics have complained of human rights abuses.

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 have never believed you go to war in Iraq, you go to war in Afghanistan, and believe that you can deal with those battlefields, those countries, in microcosms, or narrow channels.

I remind you again we had those elections [in Afghanistan and Iraq] because we had boots on the ground and we had people that could help people, and we had people on the ground that could get into somebody's face when they had to, and do whatever was required.

It is no secret that many Islamic movements in the Middle East tend to be authoritarian, and some of the so-called 'Islamic regimes' such as Saudi Arabia, Iran - and the worst case was the Taliban in Afghanistan - they are pretty authoritarian. No doubt about that.

It's hard for comic actors used to pulling faces just to be on screen, but Tina Fey does a good job. I liked watching her. The part, though, isn't filled in. When Baker announces that she's gotten too used to the madness of Afghanistan, that she's worried she's thinking of it as normal, the sentiment comes out of nowhere. The dramatic arc in "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot" is nonexistent. The movie evaporates in the mind like water in the Afghan desert.

In most of the world, poetry has such a different reputation than it does in Western culture. Poetry is a popular genre in Afghanistan. If you turned on the radio, there would be a poetry program that would be as popular as The Real Housewives. People aren't listening to poetry as if they're taking their vitamins. Instead, it's a popular vessel you can fill with anything. You could fill it with sass. You could fill it with rage. You could fill it with political statements.

The sad end he met in Afghanistan was more accurately a function of his stubborn idealism - his insistence on trying to do the right thing. In which case it wasn't a tragic flaw that brought Tillman down, but a tragic virtue.

It still puts burden on some troops of ours who are there [in Afghanistan and Iraq] as advisors and facilitators.

People who need therapy are in Afghanistan. They've seen horrible human cruelty and degradation, but they don't have time or the money for therapy.

At the time we are focusing our efforts primarily on building shelters for refugees. Homelessness in Afghanistan is a huge problem.

In his first term, President Barack Obama played a cautious manager navigating the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression and cleaning up the messes left by President George W. Bush in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I've learned that terror doesn't happen because some group of people somewhere like Pakistan or Afghanistan simply decide to hate us. It happens because children aren't being offered a bright enough future that they have a reason to choose life over death.

This is now a global war on terror and, indeed, it is important, it is imperative that we win in the battles in Afghanistan and that we win in the battles in Iraq. And as the gentleman from Georgia has mentioned, this is not something that is going to be quick and easy.

We have to be realistic about what we can achieve in Afghanistan. The notion that the United States can build a Western-style democracy there is a myth

The question about the Salafi is an important question as I say in Arab Awakening, and have often repeated since. I am really underlining the importance of this, because we really don't have very good memories. Remember - the Taliban in Afghanistan were not at all politicised in the beginning. They were just on about education. And then they were pushed by the Saudi and the Americans to be against the Russian colonisation, and as a result they came to be politicised.

Nation building is our central task, both in Afghanistan and in Iraq. And states, nations can't just be built with military power. Despite all difficulties, it's very inspiring to see how the Kurds, the Arab Sunnis and the Shiites are coming together here, how they're jointly defining the basis on which their state is to be built, the political course this state will pursue and who is to receive which cabinet positions.

The attacks of 9/11 came out of Afghanistan. It was a failed state, a rogue nation. That's why al Qaeda was there in the first place.

We know that much of the training and the direction for terrorists comes from Pakistan and the border area with Afghanistan

You know, if I were an - if I were a Taliban, I'd say, 'What did al-Qaida ever do for me except get me kicked out of Afghanistan?'

For those 10 months back in Afghanistan after university, I felt I had no rights. It felt like I didn't exist. It was like I was their doll, and I was lost, somehow. My sister's husband brought me to an art gallery. It had a big effect on me.

We did not go to war in Afghanistan or in Iraq to, quote, 'impose democracy.' We went to war in both places because we saw those regimes as a threat to the United States.

Never did anyone ever stay longer than ten years because the resistance grows fiercer as your presence grows longer [in Afghanistan]. I don't think we are going to be any exception. What made us exempt from history?

We don't have this huge footprint, we are less likely to be targeted as, you know, occupiers [in Afghanistan and Iraq].

Last year I traveled to the Middle East to visit with troops in Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

An information operations team was sent to Afghanistan to conduct various psychological operations on the Afghans and Taliban. The team was then asked not to focus on the Taliban but on manipulating senators into giving more funds and troops [to the war].