Quotes About Afghanistan

Seen through the eyes of a U.S. soldier, Afghanistan is a scary place.

Mike Hall was my old friend and, more important, the finest soldier I'd ever known. After over 30 years of service and then 18 months at a good civilian job, a phone call had brought the retired command sergeant major back on active duty to become the senior enlisted adviser of all international forces in Afghanistan.

As a reporter, I embedded for modest stints with American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. When I'm asked about those experiences, I always say - and mean - that we civilians don't deserve the soldiers we have.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, our soldiers signed up intentionally. That's a huge difference from the largely conscripted army of my era.

We can no longer apply the classic criteria to clearly determine whether and when we should use military force. We are waging war in Afghanistan, for example, but it's an asymmetrical war where the enemies are criminals instead of soldiers.

The British soldiers serving in Afghanistan alongside Prince Harry were in exceptional danger until he was withdrawn.

For us, the death of Osama bin Laden is a time of profound reflection. With his death, we remember and mourn all the lives lost on September 11. We remember and mourn all the lives lost in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan. We remember and mourn the death of our soldiers.

The United States does not view our authority to use military force against Al Qaeda as being restricted solely to 'hot' battlefields like Afghanistan.

What we have seen with Islamist extremism, whether it is in Mali or Somalia or Afghanistan, is that the disease is not necessarily the individual country. The disease is the Islamist extremism, and that's what we have to fight; that's the narrative that we have to beat.

Some have called Afghanistan 'the graveyard of empires,' and it probably is the graveyard of empires.

I definitely pack coffee if I'm going someplace where it might not be available. When I went to Afghanistan in 2011, I brought a bunch of instant coffee. I didn't need to do that, of course, because army people drink industrial-strength coffee and have it going 24/7.

From the book he carefully tears out several maps, and in this light Afghanistan's mountains and hills and restlessly branching corridors of rock appear as though the pages are crumpled up, and there is a momentary wish in him to smooth them down. Laser-guided bombs are falling onto the pages in his hands, missiles summoned from the Arabian Sea, from American warships that are as long as the Empire State Building is tall.

At the gun shop, AK-47s were stacked six high on the shelves … The day after the West invaded Afghanistan, a 'piety discount' was introduced for those who wished to buy the weapon to go the jihad.

The Marines have landed, and we now own a piece of Afghanistan.

We did some shows - Soulfly played for the Marines twice and it was great meeting those guys. A lot of them are heavy metal fans and go to war areas like Iraq and Afghanistan and listen to their metal. I'm glad that my music has somehow helped them get through that at least a little bit.

We can stay in Afghanistan and the Middle East forever, and it won't make a difference.

When it comes to the greater Middle East, McMaster brings to the table his own deep knowledge of Iraq and Afghanistan, countries where he served for many years.

The fact is that Germany is taking on its responsibility in the world - in the fight against IS, but also in the Middle East, in Africa and in Afghanistan.

I mean, the United States has had an eighteen-year military commitment in Afghanistan, and frankly, I can't think of any country other than the United States which is even capable of such a commitment.

The Afghan security forces will always have the help of the U.S. American military to ensure that Afghanistan never fails.

Several million people inside and outside Afghanistan are destitute and desperately in need of help.

Afghanistan fortunately is one of the richest countries in terms of water, mineral resources, location and human capital.

Afghanistan has the capacity to become an industrialized country because of its mining and agriculture sectors. We can also create jobs for educated men and women by investing in information technology.

We had a couple of minor coups that made a big difference. We snared away from a competitor a correspondent already on the ground in Afghanistan. That was an enormous help to us, because there we were.