Zitat des Tages von Richard Holbrooke:
In short, you can't let the deadline define the mission. The mission has to define the duration.
You will never catch up with the spread of AIDS no matter how much money, no matter how many antiretrovirals are put into the system, unless you stop its growth. And the only way to stop its growth is prevention.
I think history is continuous. It doesn't begin or end on Pearl Harbor Day or the day Lyndon Johnson withdraws from the presidency or on 9/11. You have to learn from the past but not be imprisoned by it. You need to take counsel of history but never be imprisoned by it.
I think Americans understand that in Afghanistan, unlike in Iraq and Vietnam, we are fighting an enemy allied with the people who attacked us on 9/11.
The World War II generation believed the United States could do anything - anything... And Vietnam was a shattering experience for everyone.
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.
World War I was not inevitable, as many historians say. It could have been avoided, and it was a diplomatically botched negotiation.
The United Nations is an indispensable but deeply flawed organization. It is valuable to the United States, and the United States is invaluable to it. We need to reform it.
You have to test your hypothesis against other theories. Certainty in the face of complex situations is very dangerous.
Our enemy is Al Qaeda and its allies, people who have publicly said they wish to attack the United States again, people who have publicly called on nuclear physicists and engineers to help them gain access to nuclear weapons, which, as the whole world knows, Pakistan has.
United Nations peacekeepers are going all over the world spreading AIDS even while they're trying to bring peace. What a supreme irony.
I'm a product of the Kennedy era. Kennedy's Inaugural plus the accident of Dean Rusk brought me into the government. Those were my values.
A peace deal requires agreements, and you don't make agreements with your friends, you make agreements with your enemies.
Nothing generates more heat in the government than the question of who is chosen to participate in important meetings.
I still believe in the possibility of the United States, with all its will and all its strength, and I don't just mean military, persevering against any challenge. I still believe in that.
Diplomacy is like jazz: endless variations on a theme.
The male elites that run most countries are exceedingly uncomfortable with the subject of AIDS because it's a sexually transmitted disease.
Elections are rarely perfect.
If a country denies it has AIDS, that country will inevitably become an even greater victim.
I have worked in every - every Democratic administration since the Kennedy administration, and I know dysfunctionality when I see it.
