Robert Greenwald Quotes

We told the Taliban in no uncertain terms that if this happened, it’s their ass. No difference between the Taliban and al Qaeda now. They both go down.

Four years ago, I promised to end the war in Iraq. We did. I promised to refocus on the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11. We have. We've blunted the Taliban's momentum in Afghanistan, and in 2014, our longest war will be over. A new tower rises above the New York skyline, al Qaeda is on the path to defeat, and Osama bin Laden is dead.

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?

The United States does not view our authority to use military force against Al Qaeda as being restricted solely to 'hot' battlefields like Afghanistan.

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.

Afghanistan remains an opportunity to deal al Qaeda a vital strategic blow, especially since we have abandoned all operations - including counterterrorism operations - in Iraq.

They do believe that if we do not wage this war against terror in places like Baghdad and Kabul, we are more likely to have it waged in Baltimore and Kansas.

It was essentially for self defence that we went to war in Afghanistan and would go to war in Iraq.

We have to have a conversation about whether Obama's plan to increase spending to occupy Afghanistan helps make America a safer country, or not. I think at some point, we may decide that we don't have to have that size military and cost footprint in the country. You look at what you want to accomplish, how many soldiers you need.

The administration asserts that two thirds or three quarters of al-Qaeda’s managers have been captured or killed, and that al-Qaeda must therefore be on the ropes. Why spend vast sums defending against it?

A dangerous idea is gaining currency within a segment of the American populace. If a person does not support the United States-British bombing expedition in Afghanistan, it means that he or she backs Osama bin Laden and the Al-Qaeda

Fighting terrorists does not require half a trillion dollars worth of conventional and nuclear forces.

Find Al Quaeda and Kill Them

The problem was you didn’t have an approach against Al Qaeda because you didn’t have an approach against Afghanistan. And you didn’ have an approach against Afghanistan because you didn’t have an approach against Pakistan. And until we could get that right, we didn’t have a policy.

We may be fighting the wrong enemy in the wrong country.

It is very much in America's national security interests to ensure that the Taliban do not dominate Afghanistan and that neither ISIS nor al Qaeda continues their growth in the country.

Since Bin Laden's death, many Americans have decided that our job in Afghanistan is done. They see a victory in the counterterrorism campaign, and are tired of the corruption, confusion and dysfunction of the nation-building campaign.

I would have troops where they’re wanted, in our bases in Kuwait. I would have a contingency in case of an international terrorist attack. Our involvement in Iraq has led us to fail to focus on the true threat, al-Qaeda in Afghanistan... It was a mistake.

I vowed to our countrymen that I would do everything I could to protect the American people... That's why I said to Afghanistan: If you harbor a terrorist, you're just as guilty as the terrorist.

If we have Osama bin Laden in our sights and the Pakistani government is unable or unwilling to take them out, then, I think that we have to act and we will take them out. We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority.

At least, it is encouraging to me that President [Barack] Obama has put Afghanistan front and center in this broader so-called War on terror, and that he is taking a different approach to Afghanistan.

As I have said for two years now, when Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda were cornered in the mountains of Tora Bora, it was wrong to outsource the job of capturing them to Afghan warlords who a week earlier were fighting against us.

America roused to a righteous anger has always been a force for good. States that have been supporting if not Osama bin Laden, people like him need to feel pain. If we flatten part of Damascus or Tehran or whatever it takes, that is part of the solution.

The president made clear when he was a candidate for this office and when he took this office, that unfortunately prior to his taking office, because of the focus on Iraq, and the U.S. efforts there, that the original war, if you will, in Afghanistan had been neglected, the strategy there was unclear, and that it was not properly resourced.

I just want to say that we are going to hit ISIS hard, and I mean really hard, but I do think this.