Afghanistan Security Quotes

There's no doubt that it's still a dangerous place, Afghanistan. The fortunate thing is that the United States was helping to provide security for Chairman Karzai. And it shows that the United States is committed to that regime.

We [Afghanistan government] were in the process of cleaning up the government when these attacks happened in the north - not only in Kunduz, but also in other provinces. Our special forces are limited - we cannot be everywhere at the same time and we had to defend every district regardless of how insignificant it might be, because of the very social and political makeup of this country.

To me, what success looks like is not to believe that Afghanistan can become a unified, Western-style democracy with a developed-country economy just yet. I think success in the American interest is some level of assurance that it's not going to be a place that again leads to an attack on the American homeland.

What NATO troops are doing in Afghanistan is to train, assist and advise Afghans, but they are actually doing the fighting. They are actually taking the responsibility for the security in their own country. And that is a great achievement, compared to what we saw just a few years ago, when NATO troops had to conduct the combat operations fighting the Taliban.

The U.S. must continue to carefully withdraw troops from Afghanistan at a pace based on assessment of the ground conditions so we do not leave our Afghan partners unable to guarantee long-term security or risk Afghanistan becoming a terrorist safe haven again.

It is imperative that Congress provides adequately funded and stable budgets which allow us to support Afghan personnel and ensure that Afghanistan does not become a breeding ground for terrorists again.

We're here so that Afghanistan does not once again become a sanctuary for transnational extremists the way it was when al-Qaeda planned the 9/11 attacks in the Kandahar area, conducted the initial training for the attackers in training camps in Afghanistan before they moved on to Germany and then to U.S. flight schools.

Certainly Afghans in general and women in particular want a country in which security is a daily reality rather than a campaign slogan or the focus of drive-by speeches from diplomats dropping in for the day.

The fact is that Iran doesn't want to see the Taliban come back any more than do most Afghan citizens.

Canada is preparing to play a major role in the continued stability and security of Afghanistan through ISAF.

In military terms, if you're not winning, sometimes you are losing. We've seen the Taliban and associated terrorist organizations make gains in recent years. It's time to stop those gains and roll them back. There's a lot of different techniques to do so, but we cannot allow Afghanistan to once again become an ungoverned country from which terrorist organizations can launch attacks against the United States and our citizens.

Eighty-five percent cannot read when they enter the security forces of Afghanistan. Why? Because the Taliban withheld education during the period of time in which these men and women would have learned to read.

I think it is a very important step in the right direction that the Afghans have taken over responsibility for the security in their own country, and NATO being able to end its combat presence in Afghanistan.