Quotes About Afghanistan History

#1. The most interesting place by far was Afghanistan. Just because it is a place that I cannot see myself living. The hardness of the people and the history of the country is just so completely intense.

Henry Rollins

#2. Afghanistan is the most daring and ambition mission in the history of NATO.

George W. Bush

#3. We were not told how Alexander the Great was the last person in history to successfully 'pacify' what would become Afghanistan, over 2,000 years ago.

Jake Wood

#4. A trillion dollars spent, 2,000 American lives lost - Afghanistan is the longest war in American history. But you don't hear a word about it.

Michael Baumgartner

#5. If freedom is free and none need worry, then what blood drops for thee?

Ryan Goodrich

#6. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979.

Zbigniew Brzezinski

#7. Never underestimate the ability of political leaders to misread history on a monumental scale. The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan have both served to hasten western decline: they have both failed to achieve their objectives and in the process demonstrated an underlying western impotence.

Martin Jacques

#8. Fiction is a very powerful tool for teaching history. The Philippines was the first Iraq, the first Vietnam, the first Afghanistan, in the sense that it was the United States' initial or baptismal experience in nation-building.

Miguel Syjuco

#9. At sixteen, you still think you can escape from your father. You aren't listening to his voice speaking through your mouth, you don't see how your gestures already mirror his; you don't see him in the way you hold your body, in the way you sign your name. You don't hear his whisper in your blood.

Salman Rushdie

#10. My explanation remains the same: It was an attempt to make the point that anyone who opposed the war can achieve their objective by working within their sphere of influence, whether their political party or community of faith.

James P. Moran

#11. Liberia is not at the center of a massive geopolitical game. Afghanistan is and has always been. The history is dramatic, the politics are dramatic, the landscape is incredibly dramatic.

Tim Hetherington

#12. 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.

Mohsen Makhmalbaf

#13. I wish I felt like crying, because tears might bring a sense of release, but I don't.

Veronica Roth

#14. The first dishonest act is the most important one to prevent.

Dan Ariely

#15. Of course, Moomintrolls don't wear clothes, except sometimes in bed.

Tove Jansson

#16. Never did anyone ever stay longer than ten years because the resistance grows fiercer as your presence grows longer [in Afghanistan]. I don't think we are going to be any exception. What made us exempt from history?

Gwynne Dyer

#17. I believe there's an emerging American majority for progressive economic change.

Bill De Blasio

#18. It's ironic that early on in the war with Afghanistan, the Americans and the British were saying, 'We recognise there must be a Palestinian state,' then they rapidly forgot about it. I think history will show that that kind of amnesia will come back to haunt you.

Tom Paulin

#19. September 11, 2001: Citizens of the U.S., besieged by terror's sting,
rose up, weeping glory, as if on eagles' wings.
from the poem Angel of Remembrance: Candles for September 11, 2001

Aberjhani

#20. As a filmmaker coming from one of the youngest lands in the world, New Zealand - safe, green and democratic - I was intrigued by Afghanistan, with its literature and poetry, its old land and its deep history.

Pietra Brettkelly

#21. The Western world doesn't really give enough credit to the importance in history of the Soviet invasion and the subsequent war in Afghanistan. For us it was a sideshow of the Cold War. For the Islamic world it was an unprovoked infidel invasion of a Muslim country not unlike Iraq.

Michael Scheuer

#22. New music? Hell, there's been no new music since Stravinsky.

Duke Ellington

#23. If Iraq and Afghanistan have taught us anything in recent history, it is the unpredictability of war and that these things are easier to get into than to get out of, and, frankly, the facile way in which too many people talk about, 'Well, let's just go attack them.'

Robert M. Gates

#24. I'm trying to sum up President Obama's first 11 months in office. He gave billions to Wall Street, cracked down on illegal immigrants getting health care, and he's sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. You know something, he may go down in history as our greatest Republican president ever.

Jay Leno

#25. On the journey towards the beloved, you live by dying at every step

Nadeem Aslam

#26. I really love fantasy. I have to say it is my favourite genre to read and one of the genres I love the most to write.

Cassandra Clare

#27. 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.

Stephen Harper