Afghanistan Quotes

Not a good night for President Obama. He lost elections in Virginia, New Jersey, and he's not doing good in Afghanistan either.

Here's the latest from the Pentagon -- the generals are worried that the White House is spreading itself thin by trying to fight a war on two fronts; Afghanistan and Fox News.

Military strikes on Afghanistan will not prevent something this terrible from happening again, for the simple reason that bombs will not deter people who are unafraid of death and desire martyrdom.

I'm saying 9/11 was to get us into Iraq and get us into Afghanistan.

[ Iraq and Afghanistan] don't get better, they only get worse. Bombing them has only enabled them to grow and multiply.

It's important to understand the origins of ISIS were in the chaos of Iraq and Libya, and the origins of Al Qaeda were in Afghanistan.

John Walker Lindh, a twenty-year-old American studying in Pakistan, was captured in Northern Afghanistan fighting for the Taliban. Experts call it the worst semester abroad program ever.

How about Burma, Somalia, Afghanistan, Libya, our streets, our neighborhoods, our own minds. We don't have to look far - and we should look far as well.

Al Qaeda is almost all in Pakistan, and Pakistan has nuclear weapons. And yet for every dollar we're spending in Pakistan, we're spending $30 in Afghanistan. Does that make strategic sense?

If the United States had not intervened in Afghanistan, then obviously, we would have then allowed the attacks of 9/11 to go unanswered. I don't think most of Americans wanted that to happen.

We dont see that the Taliban ultimately can succeed, and its a combination both of what the international community can do to support Afghanistan, not just in the short term, but over the long term.

There is a direct line relationship between what happened in Afghanistan in the work up to 11 September 2001 and what we're doing in Afghanistan today.

Maybe we should hold the next [Olympic] games in Afghanistan and hope the Soviets pull out of that one too.

By releasing these five top Taliban commanders, the U.S. is demonstrating that it is throwing in the towel in the long struggle against the Taliban and its al-Qaeda allies in Afghanistan.

I did see [in Afghanistan] plenty that reminded me of my childhood. I recognised my old neighbourhood, saw my old school, streets where I had played with my brother and cousins.

Afghanistan is a rural nation, where 85 percent of people live in the countryside. And out there it's very, very conservative, very tribal - almost medieval.

When I go to Afghanistan, I realize I've been spared, due to a random genetic lottery, by being born to people who had the means to get out. Every time I go to Afghanistan I am haunted by that.

I was overwhelmed with the kindness of people [in Afghanistan] and found that they had managed to retain their dignity, their pride, and their hospitality under unspeakably bleak conditions.

I returned to Afghanistan because I had a deep longing to see for myself how people lived, what they thought of their government, how optimistic they were about the future of their homeland.

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

I think the scale of the conflict [in Afghanistan] has dramatically changed in 2003. You're now facing a much more motivated, well-supported enemy. I don't see any quick end to this thing.

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.

A great deal remains to be done in Afghanistan and the jury is out as to whether the international community has the commitment and the patience to see the rebuilding process through.

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

I wanted to write about Afghanistan before the Soviet war because that is largely a forgotten period in modern Afghan history.

You have think tanks like the widely respected Atlantic Council that have published reports in the past year that have called Afghanistan a failing state.

The country [Afghanistan] faces enormous problems. There is a violent insurgency hampering the rule of law and developmental efforts.

Without women taking an active role in Afghan society, rebuilding Afghanistan is going to be very difficult.

We have to be concerned that Russia is also increasing its military influence in Egypt, potentially in Libya, also in Afghanistan.

In places like South Afghanistan, where cultural norms prevent men from entering homes, female vaccinators often make the difference between a closed or opened door.

The television anchorman Dan Rather turns up in rag-top native drag in Afghanistan, the surrogate of our culture with his camera crew, intrepid as Sir Richard Burton sneaking into Mecca.

It costs us $1 million for every troop[soldier] in Afghanistan.

On one occasion I went to Afghanistan to look at the borders and learn something about the situation there to see if my book was there?and it wasnt.

The fact is that the American government and NATO have destroyed Iraq and Afghanistan. Their next targets will be Syria and Iran.

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

Without U.S. troops, Afghanistan, like Iraq, could descend into chaos.

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.

A trillion dollars spent, 2,000 American lives lost - Afghanistan is the longest war in American history. But you don't hear a word about it.

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.

Despite failing to get bin Laden, the U.S. government and media portrayed the early Afghanistan war as a great victory.

Look at the violence in Pakistan and the presence of U.S. troops in Afghanistan: the more troops we put in the more violent Pakistan becomes.

Whether or not Afghanistan would be a peaceful nation-state had we not gone into Iraq I doubt. Afghanistan is going to be Afghanistan, no matter how hard we try to make it something else.

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?

Most liberals I know were for invading Afghanistan right after 9/11.

One of the problems of not allowing the American people to read what bin Laden has said is that in October 2001 just after the war began in Afghanistan, he gave a speech that had two parts to it.

A Pakistan that falls apart, becomes a failed state, would be of extraordinary danger to Afghanistan and to America.

Travel from what is called Pakistan to Afghanistan has been made increasingly difficult and people are often labelled terrorists, even those who might be just visiting families.

The dynamics of the Taliban now appear to be very different and complex, in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, as they attack governments and mainstream parties.

Saying he is in Afghanistan in a spirit of brotherhood, we have also vowed that we will not allow each other's countries, ever, to be used against interests of ours.

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