Afghanistan Quotes

Where's the progress that we're going to see in Afghanistan? You have to keep public support both on the economy and the war or these things will really become troubling.

Let us also reflect on the honorable service of our men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces currently serving our country overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan, and around the world.

When an army unit returns from service in Iraq or Afghanistan, it barely gets a breather before it begins training for its next deployment.

We're pursuing a strategic partnership with Afghanistan on the case of the United States and Afghanistan where we're going to push toward a future. It is the future that the Afghans desire with the United States. It is a future that the Afghans desire with the international community and we desire that as well.

I think we need to just be very clear about what we're trying to do in Afghanistan. Frankly, we're not trying to create the perfect democracy. We're never going to create some ideal society. We are simply there for our own national security.

Winning in Afghanistan is having a country that is stable enough to ensure that there is no safe haven for Al Qaida or for a militant Taliban that welcomes Al Qaida. That's really the measure of success for the United States.

America has survived and grown stronger through September 11th and subsequent wars with Afghanistan and Iraq and those who seek to do us harm. We have faced - and met - tremendous challenges ramping up a public health and safety system to protect Americans from future threats.

Romania will continue to fulfil its obligations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The president is being denounced for not taking the kind of pre-emptive action in Afghanistan that he has been so passionately denounced for taking in Iraq. Damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.

We did not go to war in Afghanistan or in Iraq to, quote, 'impose democracy.' We went to war in both places because we saw those regimes as a threat to the United States.

As we continue to make great progress in the war on terror, now more than ever, it is important that members of the international community stand-by and bolster the efforts of the emerging diplomatic leaders in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Afghanistan is going to be here a long time, and what's critical is that Afghanistan's relationship with its neighbors are, to the maximum extent they can be, constructive and operationally useful.

Look at Iraq; look at Afghanistan, where at great personal physical risk people have gone to the polls and have rejected the appeal from Bin Laden and his allies to stay at home.

We can be proud of our record as an international beacon of liberty. From fostering democracies in Eastern Europe to the stabilization of Iraq and Afghanistan, we have been true to that calling and helped spread freedom to oppressed peoples everywhere.

Afghanistan has moved forward and Afghanistan will defend itself. And the progress that we have achieved, the Afghan people will not allow it to be put back or reversed.

Now I'm doing a film festival for kids and writing a script about a kidnapped journalist in Afghanistan.

The question in their minds was, why did the outside world, and particularly the Western world, produce all these landmines, and send them to Afghanistan? This business must be stopped. It's a dirty business to produce such a horrible device.

Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and the war on terrorism have reduced the pace of military transformation and have revealed our lack of preparation for defensive and stability operations. This Administration has overextended our military.

And the narrative for the Taliban that they can wait us out is a flawed narrative. I think that the unambiguous international support for Afghanistan has been a very powerful message. You know, that was the message that came out of the NATO summit. We will not abandon Afghanistan.

But if too many countries, as has been the case, interfere too much in the internal affairs, the political situation of Afghanistan, then of course we can't hope satisfactory results.

From my films, you can at least learn about Iran, you can get a sense of the history and the society. But no such films have been made about Afghanistan, so you really can't know much about it.

I don't think the war in Afghanistan was ruthlessly enough waged.

It is the responsibility of Afghanistan's new government to gain better control over the country's administration and to resolutely fight the drug trade and corruption.

General McChrystal had to go. Whatever his virtues as a strategist and commander, the 'Rolling Stone' interview fatally compromised his ability to represent the United States in dealing with allies and to act within the circle of people who must make decisions in Afghanistan.

I just think it would be unrealistic to suggest we're going to eliminate every last domestic insurgent in Afghanistan. Certainly, the history of the country would indicate that's not a very realistic objective, and I think we have to have realistic objectives.

The war being fought in Afghanistan and Iraq is bringing about a fundamental change to the environment that has given rise and power to the extremists who export terrorism.

Since the intervention in Afghanistan, we suddenly began to notice when, in political discussions, we found ourselves only among Europeans or Israelis.

And across Afghanistan, every single day, Afghan soldiers, Afghan police and ISAF troops are serving shoulder-to-shoulder in some very difficult situations. And our engagement with them, our shoulder-to-shoulder relationship with them, our conduct of operations with them every single day defines the real relationship.

However, it does seem now that the international community, more importantly the powers that have influence, and, even more importantly, Afghanistan's neighbors realize that it is high time that they work together, and not against one another.

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.