Hurtling the Pentagon into an unprecedented budgetary meltdown is horrifically irresponsible. Obama doesn't care. This is war - not against the Taliban, but war against the GOP. He has Republicans on the ropes, and that's a victory he savors and desires - unlike Afghanistan, where he seems only to want to turn tail.
Afghanistan must never again be a safe haven for terrorism.
The Buddhas had to be destroyed by the Taliban to get the world thinking about Afghanistan.
Every time I visit Iraq or Afghanistan I am blown away.
If the United States is treating Afghanistan as a sovereign country it has to prove it.
It still puts burden on some troops of ours who are there [in Afghanistan and Iraq] as advisors and facilitators.
We have to be concerned that Russia is also increasing its military influence in Egypt, potentially in Libya, also in Afghanistan.
In a post 911 world, in which the uncritical essentializing of people from the "Third-World" has been legitimized; Iraq and Afghanistan have been dehumanized in an attempt to disseminate enlightenment in those "dark" regions; the discourse of "honor killings" is prevalent in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan and has carved a niche in Western academic discourse as another instance of the incorrigible bestiality of the Orient.
I'd play in Afghanistan if they wanted me to!
When we do in Grenada what the Soviet Union did in Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan, we lose moral authority and credibility.
I try to get over to Iraq and Afghanistan as much as I can.
One of the problems of not allowing the American people to read what bin Laden has said is that in October 2001 just after the war began in Afghanistan, he gave a speech that had two parts to it.
The problem is that so many of them are not getting told. This is a massive problem, not just in the Middle East but for places from Africa to Afghanistan. There are millions of stories out there, millions of potential Booksellers of Kabul or Valentino Achak Dengs.
Cults, or related social movements such as the Taliban in Afghanistan, result in massive military expenses.
The costs of the Bush-Obama wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are now estimated to run as high as $4. 4 trillion - a major victory for Osama bin Laden, whose announced goal was to bankrupt America by drawing it into a trap. The 2011 military budget - almost matching that of the rest of the world combined - is higher in real terms than at any time since World War II and is slated to go even higher.
Now, al Qaeda's on the run. Afghanistan is no longer a base of operations. The Afghan government is a friendly government that is trying to bring democracy to its people.
We know that much of the training and the direction for terrorists comes from Pakistan and the border area with Afghanistan
There are a lot of children in Afghanistan, but little childhood.
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.
It makes no sense to spend $6 billion a month to go after 100 Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.