Yuri Andropov Quotes

To leave Afghanistan as a playground for terrorists and adventurers was simply not possible anymore.

The real peril of war lies not in military defeat. It lies in war itself, whether we win or lose.

I would hope that we have in place the adequate resources to become an army of occupation because you’re going to walk into chaos

What I have learned about Afghanistan is that force carries more weight than anything else.

We can't afford to leave Afghanistan to the Taliban and the terrorists.

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.

By the time the United States went to war with Afghanistan in the fall of 2001, I had made three trips to the country. I covered the fall of the Taliban in Kandahar and have been returning routinely for the past 14 years.

We are not at war with Egypt. We are in an armed conflict.

I think all of us who have been in Afghanistan on the ground multiple times know that what we're doing there on the ground is just not sustainable.

Vietnam was a palpable failure. And of course, in retrospect, it was even more clearly a disaster and a failure than maybe people understood at the time.

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.

For eight years, you had the Bush administration with a very interventionist policy, driving into world affairs, driving primarily into the Islamic world, army first or fist first.

If we want to build the Iraqis' confidence about our intentions in their country, if we want to stop adding fuel to the fire of insurgency and terrorism, we must clarify our intent.

Some have called Afghanistan 'the graveyard of empires,' and it probably is the graveyard of empires.

Nothing is gained by military occupation. All occupations are failures.

Thinking about the war now and the occupation later is not an acceptable solution.

It’s not a very nice solution, but a wall is a hell of a lot better than a war

All wars are mishandled.

We should have known better after the first war.

The next time some neocon, demanding whatever military intervention neocons are demanding that day, invokes Hitler or Munich or appeasement, lock up your silver.

THIS WILL BE FINAL MESSAGE FROM SAIGON STATION…. IT HAS BEEN A LONG FLIGHT AND WE HAVE LOST…. THOSE WHO FAIL TO LEARN FROM HISTORY ARE FORCED TO REPEAT IT. LET US HOPE THAT WE WILL NOT HAVE ANOTHER VIETNAM EXPERIENCE AND THAT WE HAVE LEARNED A LESSON. SAIGON SIGNING OFF.

Right now, the choice isn't between war and peace. It is between war and endless war.

Defeat the Taliban. Secure the population.

In 2001, we were told that the war in Afghanistan was a feminist mission. The marines were liberating Afghan women from the Taliban. Can you really bomb feminism into a country? And now, after 25 years of brutal war - 10 years against the Soviet occupation, 15 years of US occupation - the Taliban is riding back to Kabul and will soon be back to doing business with the United States.

The war in Iraq was unwinnable.