Quotes About The Taliban

#1. The Taliban is the worst ... great heroin though.

Creed Bratton

#2. Thousands of civilians have lost their lives to terrorist attacks inside Pakistan, and thousands more will - because, unlike the Pakistani government, which has no coherent policy to deal with the radicals, the Taliban have one to deal with Pakistan and its citizens.

Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy

#3. The existence of the Taliban, in my view, is a tragedy for Afghanistan. We as Americans need to understand our role in helping bring that tragedy about. So I think it's important to look at the stories about why these people are fighting.

Anand Gopal

#4. As a matter of international law, the United States is in an armed conflict with al-Qa'ida, the Taliban, and associated forces, in response to the 9/11 attacks, and we may also use force consistent with our inherent right of national self-defense.

John O. Brennan

#5. But in Afghanistan, the general rule was that since you were fighting the Taliban, which was not a lawful government force, the Geneva Conventions did not apply. And that led to a lot of excesses in Afghanistan, excesses like Abu Ghraib that were already well-publicized.

Yaroslav Trofimov

#6. If a woman is wearing the burqa, it's not her wish. It's more that she feels secure from the Taliban, secure from acid if she were to show her face.

Malina Suliman

#7. Al Qaeda, the Taliban, a whole host of networks that are bent on attacking America, who have a distorted ideology, who have perverted the faith of Islam, and so we have to go after them.

Barack Obama

#8. Take the example of my daughter. A lot of people were speaking out about education when the Taliban were bombing schools in Swat Valley, but Malala's voice was like a crescendo. It spread all around the world. She was the smallest but her voice was the biggest, because she was speaking for herself.

Ziauddin Yousafzai

#9. I recommended to the president [George Bush] that our focus had to be on al-Qaida, the Taliban and Afghanistan. Those were the ones who attacked the United States of America on 9/11.

Colin Powell

#10. The saddest thing is an old bag lady, freezing to death in the snow on Christmas Eve, and the last thing she sees is a family in a nice warm diner getting beheaded by the Taliban.

Chris Onstad

#11. Let us pick up our books and our pens, they are the most powerful weapons. Malala Yousafzai, the schoolgirl who was shot in the head by the Taliban for wanting an education and survived, in her keynote speech to the United Nations, 12th July 2013.

Malala Yousafzai

#12. The Taliban has a huge leadership problem at a critical political moment, another caliph has announced himself to the world, and the Taliban has been silent. And that is getting noticed by militants across South Asia.

Graeme Smith

#13. By releasing these five top Taliban commanders, the U.S. is demonstrating that it is throwing in the towel in the long struggle against the Taliban and its al-Qaeda allies in Afghanistan.

Jonathan S. Tobin

#14. French troops arrived in Afghanistan last week, and not a minute too soon. The French are acting as advisers to the Taliban, to teach them how to surrender properly.

Jay Leno

#15. The great western error about the Taliban is to assume homogeneity.

Philip Hammond

#16. The Taliban has asked Osama bin Laden to voluntarily leave the country.They said they delivered him a note asking him to leave, which is a pretty goodtrick considering they claim they don't even know where he is.

Jay Leno

#17. [Today's left] would have left us with Slobodan Milosevic in power, Bosnia ethnically cleansed, Kosovo part of Greater Serbia, Afghanistan under the Taliban, and Iraq the property of a psychopathic crime family. Now, I'm sorry to say, I've no patience with that leftist mentality anymore.

Christopher Hitchens

#18. I don't think you can rely on Iran. I don't think you can rely on other radicals like the Taliban. They dispatched Al Qaida to bomb New York and Washington. What were they thinking? Were they that stupid? They weren't stupid. There is an irrationality there, and there is madness in this method.

Benjamin Netanyahu

#19. Never short of guns and guerrillas, Afghanistan has proven fertile ground for a host of insurgent groups in addition to the Taliban.

Anand Gopal

#20. When the Taliban took over in 1996, the news of their crimes hit the Toronto papers. As a feminist and as an anti-war activist, I heard about what was happening to women, and I wanted to do something to support those folks.

Deborah Ellis

#21. The Buddhas had to be destroyed by the Taliban to get the world thinking about Afghanistan.

Mohsen Makhmalbaf

#22. Mr. Speaker, we are a blessed Nation. We have not suffered another attack on our soil since September 11, and we are grateful. We have killed or captured dozens of members of al Qaeda and the Taliban. Our military and intelligence forces are working both hard and smart.

Marsha Blackburn

#23. There was expectations that the fights there, the operation there might be extended for several months, even for several years. But within a few weeks it ended, because obviously the Taliban wasn't a real force.

Bulent Ecevit

#24. When we started after Osama bin Laden, we really decided to go after the Taliban. And we seemed to be content to kick the Taliban out of Kandahar. And then we let Osama bin Laden escape from Tora Bora.

Wesley Clark

#25. Suppose something would happen to the president, who would be in charge? The Vice President. Joe Biden? You have got to be kidding today when you say the Taliban's not our enemy.

Douglas Wilder

#26. I would have to make an evaluation based on the circumstances at the time I took office as to how much help they continue to need. Because it's not just the Taliban. We now are seeing outposts of, you know, fighters claiming to be affiliated with ISIS.

Hillary Clinton

#27. I don't think the Taliban will ever come back to take Afghanistan, no.

Hamid Karzai

#28. The Taliban may pine for a pre-industrial society, but most Afghans do not.

Richard Engel

#29. As far as Iraq, the important thing is that the Taliban is gone in Afghanistan, three-quarters of the al-Qaida leadership is either dead or in jail, and we now have Saudi Arabia working with us, Pakistan working with us.

Peter T. King

#30. Wish we could, and allow the Taliban or anybody else to reclaim that country. But what we must do is some progress in Iraq, where finally the Iraqi army, which has not been a particularly effective fighting force, retook Ramadi.

Bernie Sanders

#31. I've come to the conclusion that, aside from Nazis, the Taliban, and possibly the honey badger, there is no one on the planet more merciless than a teenage girl once she's decided she dislikes you.

Meg Cabot

#32. Negotiating with the Taliban must be done from a position of strength. Negotiating from a position of weakness would be a disaster.

Philip Hammond

#33. The big question now is who will take power in Afghanistan once the Taliban is defeated. I was thinking, how about Al Gore? He's not doing anything, he needs a job, and he's already got the beard.

Jay Leno

#34. Given that the Taliban is a Pashtun movement, the tendency of the Pashtun man to emphasize his individuality through disagreement rather than agreement will come to the fore after the disappearance of the already 'loose' authority of Mullah Omar.

Khaled Ahmed

#35. I don't see myself as being injured by a landmine or the Taliban; I was injured by ignorance and hatred. When people do these things, they want to create more hatred. Fight it with love and education.

Giles Duley

#36. Some of the generals are saying, 'We're making progress. We are clearing an area.' But you really don't defeat the Taliban by clearing an area. They move.

Colin Powell

#37. When you say things like, 'We have to wipe out the Taliban,' what does that mean? The Taliban is not a fixed number of people. The Taliban is an ideology that has sprung out of a history that, you know, America created anyway.

Arundhati Roy

#38. Islam tells us every girl and boy should be educated. I don't know why the Taliban have forgotten it.

Malala Yousafzai

#39. When US-led forces toppled the Taliban government in November 2001, Afghans celebrated the downfall of a reviled and discredited regime.

Anand Gopal

#40. The change we need is fixing this broken economy from the bottom up.. not tax breaks for the wealthy and huge corporations that ship U.S. jobs overseas. We need to focus on defeating al Qaeda and the Taliban and restoring America's standing in the world.. not an unending commitment in Iraq.

Joe Biden

#41. We all hoped in 2001 that we could put in place an Afghan government under President Karzai that would be able to control the country, make sure al-Qaeda didn't come back, and make sure the Taliban wasn't resurging. It didn't work out.

Colin Powell

#42. It is very clear that the people in Afghanistan do not want the Taliban back.

Hillary Clinton

#43. Pakistan's ruler Pervez Musharraf predicted the Taliban will fall for hiding Osama bin Laden. Ex-king Zahir Shah is standing by to replace Mullah Mohammed Omar. And the most ominous sign of all, President Bush has learned all their names.

Argus Hamilton

#44. The Taliban travesty, a noxious combination of Deobandi rigidity, tribal chauvinism, and the aggression of the traumatized war orphan.

Karen Armstrong

#45. Since 1996, the Feminist Majority Foundation has been immersed in a campaign to support Afghan women and girls in their fight against the brutal oppression of the Taliban.

Eleanor Smeal

#46. Now the Taliban will pay a price.

George W. Bush

#47. It is no secret that many Islamic movements in the Middle East tend to be authoritarian, and some of the so-called 'Islamic regimes' such as Saudi Arabia, Iran - and the worst case was the Taliban in Afghanistan - they are pretty authoritarian. No doubt about that.

Mustafa Akyol

#48. Johnny Walker, the American that fought for the Taliban, is now talking with an Arabic accent. Have you heard him? It's ridiculous. I know how we should handle him. Let's bring him back here and take him to Cleveland Browns stadium and dress him up as a referee. They'll know how to take care of him!

Jay Leno

#49. I worked with two young women translators. One died and the other received a death threat from the Taliban.

Eliza Griswold

#50. Speculation is a fool's game, but I've seen many political projections that look like the Taliban could hold most of the country, and possibly Kabul, within perhaps a short time.

Eliza Griswold

#51. The Taliban rose to power in 1996, vowing stability and an end to the violence raging across the country between warring mujahedeen factions, and to implement rule by Sharia law, or strict Islamic rule.

Lynsey Addario

#52. Merchandise from Wal-Mart has become as ubiquitous as the water supply. Yet, still, the company is rebuked and reviled by anyone claiming a social conscience and is lambasted by legislators as if its bad behavior places it somewhere between investment bankers and the Taliban.

Charles Platt

#53. If you're an Afghan village leader in a small town down around Kandahar somewhere, and you know that the footprint is getting smaller for your security, and the Taliban saying don't forget, I'm going to be back real soon, who is your loyalty going to go through?

Mike Rogers

#54. We don't want the Taliban to put down roots, or the al Qaeda to put down roots in Afghanistan that can facilitate Afghanistan becoming - once again - a launching pad for international terrorism.

John R. Allen

#55. While the Taliban connives with foreign terrorists, the Afghan people suffer from poverty, drought and hunger

Jack Straw

#56. I am not against anyone, neither am I here to speak in terms of personal revenge against the Taliban or any other terrorist group. I'm here to speak up for the right of education for every child. I want education for the sons and daughters of the Taliban and all terrorists and extremists.

Malala Yousafzai

#57. If we're so cruel to minorities, why do they keep coming here? Why aren't they sneaking across the Mexican border to make their way to the Taliban?

Ann Coulter

#58. I think every religious person should have a deep sense of respect for other people's religious documents and religious symbols just as we were deeply opposed to the Taliban destroying the two historic buddhas which they blew up. So I think we ought to all oppose burning the Koran.

Newt Gingrich

#59. I mean, the Taliban, my view is that they have been weakened. We have not seen them able to conduct any kind of organized attack to regain any territory that they've lost. We've seen levels of violence going down.

Leon Panetta

#60. The United States finds itself with forces of reaction. Do I have to demonstrate this? The Taliban's annihilation of music and culture? The enslavement of women?

Christopher Hitchens

#61. We felt like the Taliban saw us as little dolls to control, telling us what to do and how to dress. I thought if God wanted us to be like that He wouldn't have made us all different.

Malala Yousafzai

#62. Living with a teenage daughter is like living with the Taliban a mum is not allowed to laugh, sing, dance or wear short skirts

Kathy Lette

#63. The book came after the fall of the Taliban, it says something about Afghan family life. Those kind of stories - what happens behind the scenes on a TV screen - are important.

Asne Seierstad

#64. Pakistan's political leadership needs to make a clear choice to fight the Taliban decisively, not with half measures, the burden is on Prime Minister Sharif to show he can unite the country to defend its children.

Bruce Riedel

#65. We don't see that the Taliban ultimately can succeed, and it's a combination both of what the international community can do to support Afghanistan, not just in the short term, but over the long term.

John R. Allen

#66. People in Afghanistan want peace, including the Taliban. They're also people like we all are. They have families, they have relatives, they have children, they are suffering a tough time.

Hamid Karzai

#67. Photography of any living being, according to Taliban rule, was illegal. So when I went to Afghanistan, immediately I was worried about photographing people. But it was what I wanted: to show what life was like under the Taliban, specifically for women.

Lynsey Addario

#68. If American forces leave Afghanistan, the Taliban is going to do what to America? Don't say you're worried about what they will do to the Afghan people. If that was America's concern, America's operational presence there would be much different.

Henry Rollins

#69. The armies, the difference of all of those armies that had been fighting each other and the Taliban took advantage of that to rule over the whole country.

Bulent Ecevit

#70. Know what the Taliban leaders like to do for fun? Just sit around and get bombed.

Jay Leno

#71. Fundamentalism, as practiced by the Taliban, is the enemy of real thought, and religion too.

Steve Earle

#72. The fact is that Iran doesn't want to see the Taliban come back any more than do most Afghan citizens.

David Petraeus

#73. Carolyn Maloney led the fight to make sure that DNA evidence kits are processed and passed the Debbie Smith Bill. She, when no one almost would listen to us on the whole issue of the Taliban and its treatment of women, she helped pass the Afghan Women's Empowerment Act.

Eleanor Smeal

#74. In 2008 alone, the Taliban bombed two hundred schools. Suicide bombings and targeted killings were regular occurrences.

Malala Yousafzai

#75. 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.

John R. Allen

#76. An information operations team was sent to Afghanistan to conduct various psychological operations on the Afghans and Taliban. The team was then asked not to focus on the Taliban but on manipulating senators into giving more funds and troops [to the war].

Michael Hastings

#77. Rockets fired by the Taliban generally aren't guided.

Richard Engel

#78. There are reports on the news tonight that members of the Taliban feel persecuted and fear their own safety. So now they know what it is like to feel like a woman in their country.

Jay Leno

#79. The leaders of the Taliban said today that killing bin Laden won't solve the problem. But, you know, it couldn't hurt.

Jay Leno

#80. Fighting the Taliban and the various radical organizations on the front lines is like adding a Band-Aid to a cut, it may stop the bleeding but unless you clean it with antiseptic, the germs stay and multiply.

Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy

#81. Any conception of human well-being you could plausibly have, the Taliban patently fails to maximize it.

Sam Harris

#82. Believe me, having a teenage daughter is like living with the Taliban.

Kathy Lette

#83. No possible future government in Kabul can be worse than the Taliban, and no thinkable future government would allow the level of Al Qaeda gangsterism to recur. So the outcome is proportionate and congruent with international principles of self-defense.

Christopher Hitchens

#84. Our mission is to go after Al Qaeda, not the Taliban. Right now, they are in Pakistan, not Afghanistan. We should go after them wherever they are.

Max Cleland

#85. I want education for the sons and the daughters of all the extremists, especially the Taliban.

Malala Yousafzai

#86. I don't want to be thought of as the "girl who was shot by the Taliban" but the "girl who fought for education." This is the cause to which I want to devote my life.

Malala Yousafzai

#87. We're told to go on living our lives as usual, because to do otherwise is to let the terrorists win, and really, what would upset the Taliban more than a gay woman wearing a suit in front of a room full of Jews?

Ellen DeGeneres

#88. Moscow has been helping the Northern Alliance because the Taliban was openly supported by Pakistan, .. until last week, Pakistani servicemen had taken part in war operations on the Taliban side.

Sergei Ivanov

#89. I was kidnapped by Sunni insurgents near Fallujah, in Iraq, ambushed by the Taliban in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan, and injured in a car accident that killed my driver while covering the Taliban occupation of the Swat Valley in Pakistan.

Lynsey Addario

#90. I don't want revenge on the Taliban, I want education for sons and daughters of the Taliban.

Malala Yousafzai

#91. In light of the strong correlation between female education and demographic decline, a purely empirical perspective on Malala Yousafzai, the poster girl for global female education, may indicate that the Taliban's attempt to silence her was perfectly rational and scientifically justifiable.

Theodore Beale

#92. The United States supports the reintegration of people who have fought with the Taliban into Afghan society provided they: one, renounce al Qaeda, two, lay down their arms and renounce violence, and three, participate in the public political life of the country in accordance with the constitution.

Richard Holbrooke

#93. We Pashtuns love shoes but don't love the cobbler; we love our scarves and blankets but do not respect the weaver. Manual workers made a great contribution to our society but received no recognition, and this is the reason so many of them joined the Taliban - to finally achieve status and power.

Malala Yousafzai

#94. The Taliban outlawed wearing polish in the late 1990s, punishing some offenders by amputating a fingertip. Importing polish was banned only in July 2001, which suggests that women were still wearing painted nails within the safety of their homes.

Virginia Postrel

#95. Allow the Taliban to open offices in Pakistan

Imran Khan

#96. You've got the watches," say the Taliban, "but we've got the time.

Steven Pressfield

#97. Where land mines are indiscriminate, cheap, and brutal, drones are discriminate, expensive, and brutal. And yet they are insufficiently discriminate: the assassination of the Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud in Pakistan in 2009 succeeded only on the seventeenth attempt.

Teju Cole

#98. The problem is, we have yet to convince the Taliban they are fellow passengers on spaceship Earth.

Will Durst

#99. After September 11, when the United States took action to overthrow the Taliban, our interests and Iran's aligned, and we were able to coordinate quietly but effectively.

Earl Blumenauer

#100. Barack Obama said he may negotiate with the Taliban. A lot of people are saying okay, but be careful. But I said this guy has experience negotiating with the enemy. For gosh sake, he lives with his mother-in-law, you know.

David Letterman