Afghanistan War Quotes

“This world’s anguish is no different
from the love we insist on holding back.”
― Aberjhani, Elemental: The Power of Illuminated Love

“Before the thunderous clamor of political debate or war set loose in the world, love insisted on its promise for the possibility of human unity: between men and women, between blacks and whites, northerners and southerners, haves and have-have-nots, self and self.”
― Aberjhani, The Wisdom of W.E.B. Du Bois

“In an age of bombs
guzzling blood, skylarks merge peace
with thought and action.”
― Aberjhani, The River of Winged Dreams

“My personal position on counterinsurgency in general, and on Iraq and Afghanistan in particular, could therefore be summarized as "Never again, but..." That is, we should avoid any future large-scale, unilateral military intervention in the Islamic world, for all the reasons already discussed. But, recognizing that while our conventional war-fighting superiority endures, any sensible enemy will choose to fight us in this manner, we should hold on to the knowledge and corporate memory so painfully acquired, across all the agencies of all the Coalition partners, in Afghanistan and Iraq. And should we find ourselves (by error or necessity) in a similar position once again, then the best practices we have rediscovered in current campaigns represent an effective approach: effective, but not recommended.”
― David Kilcullen, The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One

“You are going to war! It is no longer a question of if you are going to go, but a question of when. Look around! In a few years, or even a few months, several of you will be dead. Some of you will be severely wounded or so badly mutilated that your own mother can’t stand the sight of you. And for the real unlucky ones, you will come home so emotionally disfigured that you wish you had died over there.”
― Michael Anthony, Mass Casualties: A Young Medic's True Story of Death, Deception, and Dishonor in Iraq

“The West has to take a critical look at itself and examine the apparent double standards at work that allow it to attack Iraq for possessing weapons of mass destruction but not North Korea, whose leader shared Saddam Hussein's megalomaniacal qualities; that permit it to rail against Iran about nuclear weapons but be silent about Israel's arsenal; that allow it to only selectively demand enforcement of UN resolutions. The West has to own up to the mistakes it has made: such as with Abu Ghraib and the torture in Afghan prisons; in the errant attacks on civilians; in its disregard for the basic precept of a civilized legal system, which maintains that an accused person is innocent until proven guilty.”
― Kathy Gannon, I Is for Infidel: From Holy War to Holy Terror: 18 Years Inside Afghanistan

“I want to scream again, and I remember that last time I felt this way, riding with Baba in the tank of the fuel truck, buried in the dark with other refugees. I want to tear myself from this place, from this reality, rise up like a cloud and float away, melt into this this humid summer night and dissolve somewhere far, over the hills. But I am here, my leg blocks of concrete, my lungs empty of air, my throat burning. There will be no floating away. There will be no other reality tonight.”
― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

“Es la ironía de esta guerra: por una parte el ejército mejor entrenado y pertrechado del mundo, la fuerza aplastante del imperio más poderoso de la historia, y por otro unas tribus fanáticas dispuestas a defender su territorio como sea, a pedradas si faltan municiones. Goliat y David. El primero cuenta con insuperable tecnología y armamento, pero es un paquidermo trabado por el peso de todo lo que carga mientras que su enemigo es liviano, ágil, astuto y conoce el país.”
― Isabel Allende, Ripper

“On August 10, 1984, my plane landed in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. There were no skyscrapers here. The blue domes of the mosques and the faded mountains were the only things rising above the adobe duvals (the houses). The mosques came alive in the evening with multivoiced wailing: the mullahs were calling the faithful to evening prayer. It was such an unusual spectacle that, in the beginning, I used to leave the barracks to listen – the same way that, in Russia, on spring nights, people go outside to listen to the nightingales sing. For me, a nineteen-year-old boy who had lived his whole life in Leningrad, everything about Kabul was exotic: enormous skies – uncommonly starry – occasionally punctured by the blazing lines of tracers. And spread out before you, the mysterious Asian capital where strange people were bustling about like ants on an anthill: bearded men, faces darkend by the sun, in solid-colored wide cotton trousers and long shirts. Their modern jackets, worn over those outfits, looked completely unnatural. And women, hidden under plain dull garments that covered them from head to toe: only their hands visible, holding bulging shopping bags, and their feet, in worn-out shoes or sneakers, sticking out from under the hems.

And somewhere between this odd city and the deep black southern sky, the wailing, beautifully incomprehensible songs of the mullahs. The sounds didn't contradict each other, but rather, in a polyphonic echo, melted away among the narrow streets. The only thing missing was Scheherazade with her tales of A Thousand and One Arabian Nights ... A few days later I saw my first missile attack on Kabul. This country was at war.”
― Vladislav Tamarov, Afghanistan: A Russian Soldier's Story

“America first, Escape from Afghanistan”
― Arif Naseem

“The release of the book just tomorrow. Get ready for a good dose of adrenaline ;-) Meanwhile, I have for you next article. Let’s talk about terroritstic activity in Afghanistan. The problem with which we are dealing today almost everywhere. And turning back to the Wild Heads of War, in the book you will find a lot of military action in Afghanistan, led by NATO soldiers. One of them was my friend, who in 2009 was killed by IED (Improvised Explosive Device). The book tells the stories based on fiction but for all fans of the genre it will be surely good story.
Article below made just to bring you closer to terroritstic activity in Afghanistan, that is, what is worth knowing by reading Wild Heads of War.
Stabilization mission in Afghanistan belongs to one of the most dangerous. The problem is in the unremitting terroristic activity. The basis is war, which started in 1979 after USSR invasion. Soviets wanted to take control of Afghanistan by fighting with Mujahideen powered by US forces. Conflict was bloody since the beginning and killed many people. Consequence of all these happenings was activation of Taliban under the Osama Bin Laden’s leadership.
The situation became exacerbated after the downfall of Hussein and USA/coalition forces intervention. NATO army quickly took control and started realizing stabilization mission. Afghans consider soldiers to be aggressors and occupants. Taliban, radical Muslims, treat battle ideologically. Due to inconsistent forces, the battle is defined to be irregular. Taliban’s answer to strong, well-equiped Coalition Army is partisan war and terroristic attacks. Taliban do not dispose specialistic military equipment. They are mostly equipped with AK-47. However, they specialized in creating mines and IED (Improvised Explosive Device). They also captured huge part of weapons delivered to Afghan government by USA. Terroristic activity is also supported by poppy and opium crops, smuggling drugs. Problem in fighting with Afghan terrorists is also caused by harsh terrain and support of local population, which confesses islam. After refuting the Taliban in 2001, part of al Qaeda combatants found shelter on the borderland of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Afghan terrorists are also trained there.”
― Artur Fidler

“I disagreed with the conduct of the war, with bombing civilians, categorizing everyone as the enemy or simply as armed men, with the racism and the disregard for those people.”
― Joe Glenton, Soldier Box: Why I Won't Return to the War on Terror

“The Iraqi and Afghan wars have not ‘ended.’ Only America's involvement has ‘ended.’ … When a country leaves a war before achieving victory it is not called leaving. It is called defeat. … When the decent leave, the indecent win.”
― Dennis Prager, Dennis Prager: Volume I

“I joined the Taliban because they were stronger,' [he] said. 'I'm joining the Northern Alliance because they are stronger now'.”
― Dexter Filkins, The Forever War

“За речкой все, тем более пацаны из ОРБ, твердо знали, что они герои, понимали, что это очевидно и известно в Союзе всем, и по возвращении собирались скромно это отрицать. Сборы оказались напрасными. Никто ничего не то что не знал – даже не подозревал, даже краешком мысли не касался того факта, что не очень далеко от него несколько тысяч пацанов каждую секунду умирают – за него, и убивают – за него, и травятся, и плачут, и сгорают заживо – за него, за гражданина Советской страны, который об этом даже не подозревает и думать не хочет. Падла.
И всем похер. Всем всё было похер. И это было некруто и западло. Можно было даже подумать, что пацаны умирали и убивали зря, и молчали об этом зря, и героями себя считали зря.”
― Shamil Idiatullin

“If there was a group of men, one of them sipped his chai and told his story, and when he got to a point where he couldn’t continue, the point in the story I most wanted to hear, someone else
took a sip of his chai and began his own story, and so on and so forth, until everyone was given a say and not a single story was actually finished.”
― JAMIL JAN KOCHAI, 99 Nights in Logar

“Ice pellets made ticking noises as they fell, gathering in the folds of Parson's coat like spilled salt. He opened his compass and took a bearing, then sighed. The mist of his breath rose in the cold air, only to get torn away by the Afghan wind. (From THE MULLAH'S STORM)”
― Tom Young

“But the first casualty of the Afghanistan War wasn't truth. That had long before succumbed to the onslaught of Soviet lies about all aspects of life. The all-encompassing brainwashing makes the task of discerning what actually took place in Afghanistan especially difficult. The manufactured justifications that enabled many to close their eyes to the war's unspeakable abuses continue to influence perceptions-although the Soviets had no monopoly in that.”
― Gregory Feifer, The Great Gamble: The Soviet War in Afghanistan

“It would be an irony of history, or another lesson about the unintended consequences about using force, that [Najibullah's] regime would outlive the Soviet Union that was convinced it had a duty to teach the world how to think and live.”
― Gregory Feifer, The Great Gamble: The Soviet War in Afghanistan

“Many young men's more immediate and important problems were abuse from their superior, on top of their material privations. Perhaps nothing more could have been expected of a political system founded on mass murder and preserved with oppression.”
― Gregory Feifer, The Great Gamble: The Soviet War in Afghanistan

“The victory of a reactionary idea is always a defeat for humanity!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“Every second I am dying inside, for Ukraine. I'm dying for Afghanistan, I'm dying for Palestine, I'm dying for Kashmir. Even my pen pours blood. And this bleeding won't stop till I put an end to the bloodshed of the innocents.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Gentalist: There's No Social Work, Only Family Work

“A brief look back in history makes it evident that Jammu and Kashmir’s oppression and colonial exploitation started long before the formation of modern India. Ever since its annexation by the Mughal empire in 1589 AD, Kashmir has never been ruled by Jammu and Kashmir themselves. After the Mughals, the region was ruled by the Afghans (1753-1819), Sikhs (1819-46), and the Dogras (1846-1947) until the Indian and Pakistani states took over.”
― Jammu and Kashmir for JK's

“A bunch of really poor Afghans can defeat the USA military.”
― Steven Magee

“After spending time at [Camp] Wilson, which felt like we were at war, Kandahar Airfield looked like an ugly American city filled with lots of European tourists. Soldiers from a handful of nations, thanks to NATO—the Netherlands, the UK, Canada—walked around unarmed and apparently unfazed by the war that was being waged around them. Overhearing their conversations, I got the feeling that their most serious concern was a shortage of coffee at the French PX.

But for the guys who were having to do without, like the soldiers at Camp Wilson, a PX run was a treat. Parking the trucks, the team peeled off their gear and bounded across the street into what can only be compared to a Walmart at home. The warehouselike building was filled with junk food, sodas, magazines, and even obnoxious T-shirts advertising Operation Enduring Freedom.

Only Americans would make T-shirts for a war.”
― Kevin Maurer, Gentlemen Bastards: On the Ground in Afghanistan with America's Elite Special Forces

“Everybody knew that the only way for the United States to get out of Afghanistan was by creating a strong Afghan Army. The 101st called their effort to achieve this shonna ba shonna, translated as “shoulder to shoulder.”
― Kevin Maurer, Gentlemen Bastards: On the Ground in Afghanistan with America's Elite Special Forces