I do dream about Afghanistan. I wake up and think I'm still there.
I went to Afghanistan in '96 to write about terrorist training camps south of Jalalabad and Tora Bora, in the mountains. I was there right before the Taliban took over, literally a few weeks before they took Kabul. The frontline wasn't terribly active, but it was definitely there. And they swept into power.
The events of September 11 and what has happened since have made people understand that even a small, distant and far away country like Afghanistan cannot be left to break up into anarchy and chaos without consequences for the whole world.
Cults, or related social movements such as the Taliban in Afghanistan, result in massive military expenses.
In his first term, President Barack Obama played a cautious manager navigating the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression and cleaning up the messes left by President George W. Bush in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It is in American and Afghan interests for the U.S. to stay in Afghanistan so it doesn't turn into Iraq circa 2014, with the Taliban controlling much of the country while hosting a strong presence of ISIS and al-Qaeda as well as every other jihadist group of note.
If we finally chose as a country to take responsibility for the wars that we believe we must engage in, and rather than borrow money to exercise that authority to go to war, we actually pay for these wars, that would save us over a trillion dollars, because that's what we have spent in Iraq and Afghanistan - all through borrowed money.
I said if you want me to go back to Afghanistan and work, I'm happy to do that. If you think accepting my resignation is best for the cause and for the nation, then I have no complaint with that.
Afghanistan is very satisfied with Croatia's participation in the NATO-led peace mission and expects Croatia to expand its contribution to peace restoration in Afghanistan to other areas as well.
We want an Afghanistan that is shaped by the dreams of the great Afghan people, not by irrational fears and overreaching ambitions of others.
In my 20 years as a photographer, covering conflicts from Bosnia to Gaza to Iraq to Afghanistan, injured civilians and soldiers have passed through my life many times.
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.
Without U.S. forces in the country, there is a strong possibility Afghanistan could host a reinvigorated Taliban allied to a reinvigorated al Qaeda.
We can't afford to see Afghanistan roll backwards into a failed state that could become a base from which terrorist campaigns can be launched anywhere in the world.
We can't stay in Afghanistan forever.
Andrew Warren was a rarity in the CIA's Clandestine Service - African-American, fluent in Arabic, and relatively young for an agent who'd already spent nearly a decade chasing terrorists in Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq and Algeria, so deep undercover that few of his friends or family knew the nature of his work.
There's an 800 kilometer border between Iran and Afghanistan.
The terrorist attacks of September 11th and the courageous actions of our armed forces in Afghanistan and Iraq remind us that friends of tyranny and enemies of freedom still exist.
But you are absolutely right that when the international community decides to help in a meaningful manner a country like Afghanistan, then coordination between the various actors that are involved in these processes is very, very difficult indeed.
If there is a thread that unites all of our work, whether it's in Iowa or whether it's in Maryland or whether it's among our young men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan, I believe that it's the thread of human dignity.
That's driven by any number of factors, the most prominent of which have been the combat experience of two major campaigns - one in Afghanistan and the other in Iraq - and the ongoing demands of the global war on terrorism.
If there's ever an example that military power alone cannot be successful in Afghanistan, I think it was the Soviet experience.
Running on the pledge to end two wars, President Obama has the country entangled in three: Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, and that doesn't include the American's foray into Libya.
Our neighbor Canada has 2,200 troops serving in Afghanistan. Canada has also assumed responsibility for the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kandahar, which was originally established by our own military.
Pakistan is alarmed by the rising Indian influence in Afghanistan, and fears that an Afghanistan cleansed of the Taliban would be an Indian client state, thus sandwiching Pakistan between two hostile countries. The paranoia of Pakistan about India's supposed dark machinations should never be underestimated.
'Shortly Thereafter' chronicles all the aspects of an Afghanistan deployment, from the terrors of the unknown that await before leaving, to the perverse thrills and adrenaline rushes found in combat, to the return home to a land and a people now more foreign than the war itself was.
Another part of the global war on terrorism that Canada and the United States are working on together is in helping failed states, states like Afghanistan, where people have no voice.
Certainly the existence of these huge nuclear force was important for the ultimate confrontation, let's say, over western Europe. You just can't use them to deal with a situation like Afghanistan.
There's no doubt that it's still a dangerous place, Afghanistan. The fortunate thing is that the United States was helping to provide security for Chairman Karzai. And it shows that the United States is committed to that regime.
A democratic and stable Iraq and Afghanistan are essential to our broader efforts to make no place safe for terrorists and to win the War on Terrorism.
Both Presidents George Bush and Barack Obama pursued policies of regime change after 9/11 - with Bush removing al-Qaida's safe haven in Afghanistan and the sadistic anti-American dictator Saddam Hussein in Iraq - but Obama took it a step further and disregarded regional stability as a guiding factor for U.S. policy.
The 9/11 attack itself played out around the world, with planning meetings in Malaysia, operatives taking flight lessons in the United States, coordination by plot leaders based in Hamburg, and money transfers from Dubai - activities overseen by al-Qaeda's senior command from secure bases in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan is where much of the al Qaeda journey began. It is the main site where Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar and their cohort rose to prominence fighting the Soviets in the 1980s. Afghan territory holds special significance to the group, which is committed to retaking it and re-establishing it as the base of a global movement.
The war in Afghanistan is not of a peace with the rest of Obama's worldview. It's a holdover from the era that his election was supposed to bring to a close.
An interim government was set up in Afghanistan. It included two women, one of whom was Minister of Women's Affairs. Man, who'd she have to show her ankles to to get that job?
We as the Afghan people and government are willing to help Pakistan work for peace in Afghanistan and work for peace in Pakistan, together.
