Afghan Conflict Quotes

Overruling the Joint Chiefs of staff, overruling the State Department, overruling the CIA, President Reagan Authorized providing Stinger Missiles to the Mujahedeen Afghanis.

There's no reason why Americans should die when Afghans are perfectly capable of defending their own country.

As the result of two successful campaigns, of the employment of an enormous force, and of the expenditure of large sums of money, all that has yet been accomplished has been the disintegration of the [Afghan] State … and a condition of anarchy throughout the rest of the country.

Afghanistan can't police its borders, and its neighbors give sanctuary and assistance to insurgents.

In media coverage of the war, Afghans are often characterized as corrupt and deceitful. There has certainly been plenty of corruption and deceit in this conflict, but why? What inspires these behaviors? In 'Green on Blue,' I wanted to render a world that is often overlooked: that of the average Afghans who are helping America wage its war.

If there's ever an example that military power alone cannot be successful in Afghanistan, I think it was the Soviet experience.

The failings in Afghanistan don't fall on the shoulders of the American service personnel trying to complete their mission. The failure falls on military leadership unable to adapt to irregular warfare, and a Congress that blindly continues to fund failure.

But the war on terror as I have repeatedly said in the past, and the Afghan people believe in it, in truth, is that the war on terror is not in the Afghan villages or homes. Its in the sanctuaries, it is in the training grounds, its in the motivation factors and the money that comes to it.

In all the debate about Afghanistan, we don't hear much about our obligation to the wretched lives of Afghan women. They are being treated as collateral damage as the big boys discuss geopolitical goals.

As a 22-year Army Veteran who served in Operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom, and as a Civilian Advisor to the Afghan Army in Operation Enduring Freedom, I understand both the gravity of giving the order, and the challenge of carrying it out.

We all hoped in 2001 that we could put in place an Afghan government under President Karzai that would be able to control the country, make sure al-Qaeda didn't come back, and make sure the Taliban wasn't resurging. It didn't work out.

I have a particular disdain for Islamic extremism, and of course, in both 'The Kite Runner' and 'A Thousand Splendid Suns' that's obvious.

If it is terrorism, if it is war on terror, then the Afghan people will join you on terror.

After the Soviet withdrawal, many Afghan Communists had rebranded themselves as Islamists and joined the mujahedeen.

I tried to render the Afghan war as much as I could fro the perspective of the Afghans. I have served as an advisor to Afghan troops, and much of my war experience was seen through the lens of fighting that war alongside Afghan soldiers.

In December 2004, I travelled on the road from Uzbekistan across the Oxus River on which the first Soviet convoys had rolled into Afghanistan 25 years before.

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.

If you're an Afghan village leader in a small town down around Kandahar somewhere, and you know that the footprint is getting smaller for your security, and the Taliban saying don't forget, I'm going to be back real soon, who is your loyalty going to go through?

There is no Afghan Awakening Movement.

In Afghanistan, I was talking to Afghan elders who were world-weary of a lack of sustained attention from their own government and from the international community to stop problems early.

And as a result of the United States military, Taliban no longer is in existence.

I did a week-long assessment in 2005 at (then Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld's request. Following our return, I told him that Afghanistan was going to be the longest campaign of what we then termed "the long war."

President Trump should appoint a special presidential envoy and empower them to wage an unconventional war against Taliban and Daesh forces, to hold the corrupt officials accountable and to negotiate with their Afghan counterparts and the Afghan Taliban that are willing to reconcile with Kabul.

The Afghan "negotiation phase" immediately precedes the traditional Afghan "surrender phase." This entails the following: The defeated party surrenders and then comes out shooting. This is repeated several times. Finally, the vanquished party runs out of ammunition and is forced to surrender ' but seriously this time ' at which point the victors kill the foreigners and hug their fellow Afghans like long-lost brothers.

When Americans, who are serving in your country at great cost–in terms of lives and treasure–hear themselves compared with occupiers, told that they are only here to advance their own interest, and likened to the brutal enemies of the Afghan people… they are filled with confusion and grow weary of our effort here. At the point your leaders believe that we are doing more harm than good, when we reach a point that we feel our soldiers and civilians are being asked to sacrifice without a just cause, and our generous aid programs dismissed as totally ineffective and the source of all corruption… especially at a time our economy is suffering and our needs are not being met, the American people will ask for our forces to come home.