Afghan society is very complex, and Afghanistan has a very complex culture. Part of the reason it has remained unknown is because of this complexity.
As president, my goal in Afghanistan will be to complete a successful transition to Afghan security forces by the end of 2014. I will evaluate conditions on the ground and solicit the best advice of our military commanders. And I will affirm that my duty is not to my political prospects, but to the security of the nation.
To understand Afghanistan, you have to face the stress the average Afghan deals with.
Hospitality is one of the things the Afghan population is famous for, but nobody says that anymore. Now they're terrorists - and they're not. They're people.
The Afghan - obviously the parties will decide which course of action. The most important there, get a government that is seen as legitimate to the people and has the credibility to be a partner in the effort to secure Afghanistan so it's not a haven for al Qaeda or other type of terrorists or international terrorist organizations.
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.
There is a story which is not being told strongly enough of the Afghan employees of the UN inside the country who are saving hundreds of thousands of lives everyday by their bravery and nobody talks of them.
If we can't understand the Afghan family, we can't understand Afghanistan.
Protecting Afghan civilians is the cornerstone of our mission.
Seeing the Afghan women in their burqas, it's easy to say, "Well, they're not as fully aware as I am, so why do I have to worry so much about their plight?" But that's a misunderstanding. They are brutally aware of their station.
They [U. S. soldiers] are also building schools for the Afghan children so that there is hope and opportunity in our neighboring country of Afghanistan.
The fact is that Iran doesn't want to see the Taliban come back any more than do most Afghan citizens.
In the Afghan people, I found the most resilient, welcoming people who, for the first time in my career, never judged me over my right to tell this story - as a woman or a foreigner. A people who cherish their culture and history and the films that have captured that culture.
I myself had to grow a longer beard and Afghan clothes. I was in danger of being kidnapped by smugglers, though I didn't know it at the time.
It's the Afghan national army that went into Najaf and did the work there.
In early 1999, I was watching TV, when I came across a story on Afghanistan. It was a story about the Taliban and the restrictions they were imposing on the Afghan people, most notably women. At some point in the story, there was a casual reference to them having banned the game of kite fighting. This detail struck a personal chord with me, as I had grown up in Kabul flying kite with my friends.
The voice, Afghan matchmakers say, is more than half of love.
This might explain why Obama gave billions to Wall Street crooks, and dragged the Iraq and Afghan wars on and on. Happily for the busy lunatics who rule over us, we are permanently the United States of Amnesia. We learn nothing because we remember nothing. . . We have ceased to be a nation under law but instead a homeland where the withered Bill of Rights, like a dead trumpet vine, clings to our pseudo-Roman columns.
I don't think the Palestinian people or Afghan children or some other things I'm concerned about are at the top of other people's agendas - not right now, when America is going through such a recession and people are suffering across the board financially. But I think all that will change.
