Afghanistan Quotes - Page 23

• In many cases, the authorities can't really prove if the person is in danger or not, because they can't send a person to Afghanistan to investigate each and every case.

  Andreas Koefoed

  Authority, Danger, Prove

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• Change can only come from local citizens and politicians - it cannot be imposed by well-meaning foreigners - not least because a society like Afghanistan or Iraq is suspicious of outsiders and often resistant to change. I am not going to get drawn into the ethics of intervening in other countries. My concern is the practical question. Can you actually achieve change in this way? My guess is we can stop wars sometimes as in the Balkans and topple regimes - but that the other stuff - such as corruption is not within our power to effect and alter.

  Rory Stewart

  Country, War, Outsiders

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

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• I left things out - my motivations, my history, my emotional responses - because I am not good at understanding them or writing about them. I tried and it was generally boring and always unconvincing. Most importantly I wanted to try to place Afghans and Afghanistan in the foreground rather than my own character.

  Rory Stewart

  Motivation, Writing, Character

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

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• I found incredible kindness, dignity and hospitality in both Iraq and Afghanistan - am only alive because of it - the most worthwhile lesson of a twenty month walk to these countries was a deepening appreciation of the kindness of strangers.

  Rory Stewart

  Country, Appreciation, Kindness

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

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• I don't think independance of Catalonia would have any great positive or negative impact on the rest of the world. As an internationalist, I don't really care if they are separate from Spain or not, or whether they are even richer than they already are, as I care much more about what is happening in places such as Afghanistan, Venezuela or North Korea.

  Andre Vltchek

  Thinking, Negative, World

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• Americans keep telling me they hate government. I always tell them: "Man, I've got a country for you: Go to Afghanistan; they don't have one." So if you're of that ilk, yes, you can have your private paradise, but if you're comfortable with government, then go with government.

  Uwe Reinhardt

  Country, Hate, Men

  "Frontline", www.pbs.org. November 10, 2007.

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• Certainly I am sometimes afraid, but my hope is greater than my fear, and the biggest enemy we all face is ignorance which breeds hatred, whether it be in America, or Afghanistan, or anywhere. We owe it to our children that we may give them all a legacy of peace, but it will take courage and compassion.

  Greg Mortenson

  Children, Ignorance, Compassion

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

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• My work to promote education and literacy in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan has become my life's mission. This takes a full-time commitment 365 24/7.

  Greg Mortenson

  Commitment, Literacy

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

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• There is still a desperate need for investment and promotion of education in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan. Official figures put Pakistan literacy rate over 45%, but in many rural areas we work it is about 10-15%, and for girls even lower.

  Greg Mortenson

  Girl, Literacy, Investment

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

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• My job is to cover the hell out of the story, very aggressively. The real place to be courageous if you're a news organization is where you put your people to cover the story. It's making sure that you have people going to Baghdad. It's making sure that you figure out how to cover the war in Afghanistan. While the journalist in me completely stands with them, the editor of the New York Times in me thinks my job is to figure out what the hell happened and cover the hell out of it, and that's more important than some symbolic drawing on the front page.

  Dean Baquet

  Real, War, Thinking

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• I am confident that there are hedge funds, banks or investment companies that could allocate five percent of their portfolios for risky investments. In any event, for countries like Afghanistan the formation of an entrepreneurial class is of vital importance.

  Ahmed Rashid

  Country, Investment, Entrepreneurial

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• The biggest mistake Barack Obama could have made is to change quite a few things in his Afghanistan policy. He increased the number of troops and at the same time set the US withdrawal date to 2014. Now the United States has to ensure that Afghanistan does not immediately collapse after being left to itself in 2014.

  Ahmed Rashid

  Mistake, Policy, Barack

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• To me, you can't win. You can't win. There's a war in Iraq; there's no way that they're ending that. The war in Afghanistan is still going on. There's no way that's going to end anytime soon. You can complain about it, you can throw rocks at it, but you really have to come to the conclusion that this is a really twisted place sometimes and some stuff you're not going to win.

  Lupe Fiasco

  War, Winning, Complaining

  Source: pitchfork.com

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• In countries like Afghanistan, the corruption is in your face. In Nigeria, I heard of judges making sex the bargaining chip rather than money. Now let's put that in the context of an honor-based society. Imagine that you're the brother of a woman who got raped by a judge to have her case heard in court. What do you want to do? You want to kill the judge. So here is an insurgent movement that hands you a gun. You have rage, and they give you an outlet for your rage.

  Sarah Chayes

  Country, Brother, Gun

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• Now, I can't help but feel inferior. When I'm out in public in Afghanistan, I feel inferior because I'm doing everything I can to stay hidden, silent. I feel inferior because I am seeing firsthand the impact of America's foreign policy and can't help but feel like a living, breathing representation of that - despite my own personal views about that policy. It reinforces to me that I want to be part of the solution - and I want my work to be part of the solution - not part of the problem.

  Beth Murphy

  Helping, Problem, Silent

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• The future of Afghanistan is incredibly dark, and decisions are happening incredibly quickly. Speculation is a fool's game, but I've seen many political projections that look like the Taliban could hold most of the country, and possibly Kabul, within perhaps a short time. I can't imagine how Afghanistan's fall isn't going to be ten times faster than Iraq's. The role of women in that space is terrifying, and the idea of retribution is a nightmare.

  Eliza Griswold

  Country, Fall, Dark

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• In most of the world, poetry has such a different reputation than it does in Western culture. Poetry is a popular genre in Afghanistan. If you turned on the radio, there would be a poetry program that would be as popular as The Real Housewives. People aren't listening to poetry as if they're taking their vitamins. Instead, it's a popular vessel you can fill with anything. You could fill it with sass. You could fill it with rage. You could fill it with political statements.

  Eliza Griswold

  Real, People, Political

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• One of the things about landays is that they thrive in a modern context. Early on I went to this incredible Pashtun novelist, Mustafa Salik, who is a bestselling novelist in Afghanistan and works for the BBC in Pashto. With the question of the sanctity of the poems in mind, I asked him, "Aren't you worried? They've been posted on Facebook and such." And he said, "Just the opposite. This is a folk form; they survive and thrive as people share them."

  Eliza Griswold

  People, Mind, Incredibles

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• If Afghan soldiers continue to kill American soldiers as is happening these days, it can hardly be assumed that they will stay in Afghanistan in the long term. And what role are they to play? There will not be enough soldiers to ensure the security of the country. But will the US still be permitted to kill terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan with un-manned drones? That could worsen the situation in the neighboring states and they could view Afghanistan as a threat.

  Ahmed Rashid

  Country, Long, Soldier

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• The Soviets held to the tradition of colonialism. They raped the country and killed many people. But they also built dams, electrical power plants, streets, and technical schools. They were communists and had the same vision for Afghanistan that Stalin and Lenin had for the Soviet Union: Progress is communism plus electrification. And today? Today Kabul gets its electrical power from Uzbekistan, Herat from Iran and Jalalabad from Pakistan.

  Ahmed Rashid

  Country, School, People

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• Everywhere I go in Pakistan and Afghanistan, I am touched by the fierce desire for education, and the outpouring of hospitality and generosity. The most important ingredient is the relationships. The process takes "Three Cups of Tea". First you are a stranger, second a friend, and the third, you become family, but the process takes several years. Here in America, we have 8 second sound bytes, 2 minute football drills, and thirty minute power lunches.

  Greg Mortenson

  Football, Generosity, Tea

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

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• I think that the needs of the VA and the needs of the veteran community are very, very significant. Цe're talking about a VA system in which, in the last years a million-and-a-half more people have come into the system. You're dealing with 500,000 people have come home from Iraq an Afghanistan with PTSD and TBI. You're dealing with an older veterans population from World War II and Korea who need some difficult medical help. We want to see it be more efficient. We want to see doctors go to where they're needed.

  Bernie Sanders

  War, Home, Thinking

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• There are many difficult challenges in Afghanistan. And we still have Taliban. We still have terrorist organizations there, and we will see violence and we will see conflict there also in the coming years,.

  Jens Stoltenberg

  Challenges, Violence, Conflict

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• I believed Afghanistan was always going to be hard. It's the fifth poorest country in the world. And when you fly over it, you realize that there's not much there. And, of course, it has the problem, too, of being on that border with Pakistan in basically an ungoverned region that has given the terrorists a staging ground. So it's a very difficult place. But I do believe that the mission there can succeed if success is defined as helping the Afghans to prevent the Taliban from being an existential threat to the Afghan government.

  Condoleezza Rice

  Country, Believe, World

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• For me, it's an honor for the military to ask me to go to Iraq, Afghanistan, or GITMO. I'm happy to go.

  R. Lee Ermey

  Military, Iraq, Honor

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