Half as many [Soviet] soldiers died again following the decision to withdraw. By the time they leave, there’s nobody there to greet them. ibid.
It was out of this dark period that the Taliban emerged ... Many were the orphaned children of the Soviet war. ibid.
For millions of Afghans, Taliban rule was hell ... Yet the West did not interfere. ibid.
The US soon faced the almost irresistible temptations of empire. ibid.
Afghanistan has been for so many men a place of heroism, self-sacrifice, yet in the end all this energy, all this courage, is in pursuit of something that is simply wrong. ibid.
After September 11 Afghanistan agreed to negotiate but asked for proof of the culpability of Osama bin Laden in the September 11 attack. The Bush administration responded that they wouldn’t negotiate and they refused to provide the evidence. That’s because there is no evidence. Keith Thompson, New World Order Facts
American government told other governments about Afghan invasion in July 2001. US ‘planned attack on the Taliban’ before 9/11. George Arney, BBC
Many Afghans see the Americans and other Western troops as an occupation force like the Soviet Red Army. And that’s why they are supporting the call for Jihad. Rahimullah Yusufzai, Pakistan correspondent for BBC, ABC & Time magazine
If you map the proposed pipeline route across Afghanistan and you look at our bases – matches perfectly. Our bases are there to solve a problem that the Taliban could not solve ... It has nothing to do with Osama bin Laden. Lt Col Karen Kwiatkowski
What you see is American military hegemony covering 90% of the globe’s energy resources. Lt Col Karen Kwiatkowski
Traffic jams are a sign of prosperity, and this is what my government has managed to achieve. Hamid Karzai
Our core mission here is to take care of the civilians, not do harm to them. General David Petraeus
They are also building schools for the Afghan children so that there is hope and opportunity in our neighbouring country of Afghanistan. Sarah Palin, address fundraising dinner 5th October 2008
Gideon Polya who is an expert on these matters and has tracked very carefully the deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq said they’re much higher than official reports let on ... As a result of the invasion and the resulting shortage of food and water and various things, from all the factors, then something close to seven million people he concluded have been killed ... We are responsible for a carnage there, and destroying so many families. Professor David Ray Griffin, interview Guns and Butter 7th January 2009
The hunt for bin Laden has been the major pretext for selling the ongoing war in Afghanistan, which has now expanded into Pakistan, so it’s widely called the Af-Pak War. David Ray Griffin, interview Guns & Butter 22nd July 2009, author Osama bin Laden: Dead or Alive?
The war in Iraq was very clearly about oil as was the invasion of Afghanistan also. The oil pipeline that was planned – the best security for that was an occupation of Afghanistan. (Afghanistan & Iraq) Vandana Shiva, physicist
To be truthful about it, there was no way we could have got the public consent to have suddenly launched a campaign on Afghanistan but for what happened on September 11. Tony Blair 17th July 2002
In Saudi Arabia I was repeatedly ordered by high level State department officials to issue visas to unqualified applicants. These were essentially people who had no ties either to Saudi Arabia or to their own country. I complained bitterly at the time there. I returned to the US: I complained to the State Department here, to the General Accounting Office, to the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, and to the Inspector General’s office. I was met with silence. What I was protesting was in reality an effort to bring recruits, rounded up by Osama bin Laden, to the US for terrorist training by the CIA. They would then be returned to Afghanistan to fight against the then Soviets. Michael Springman, US Consulate Jeddah Saudi Arabia, under George H W Bush’s watch
You want to know where the headquarters of the Afghan Intelligence is? Find the headquarters of the ISI. They are in the same building. Bruce Riedel, CIA officer 1977-2006
I say to Mr Karzai we must start to fight the corruption in the staff of ministry, in the Presidential Palace, in the Supreme Court. Dr Ramazan Bashardost, Minister of Planning 2004
A lot of the people we were killing were effectively farmers ... We were conscious that for every one we killed we were probably feeding insurgency. Richard Dannatt, chief of the UK general staff 2006-2009
The Taliban leadership hibernated in Pakistan. They were not defeated or killed. Amrullah Saleh, head of Afghan Intelligence Agency 2004-2010
We clearly have moved from major combat activity to a period of stability and stabilisation and reconstruction activities. Donald Rumsfeld
Our mission is to protect the reconstruction. John Reid, UK Secretary of State for Defence
It’s important to give people a clear idea that there is an end to this. David Cameron
President Bush approves a plan using the CIA as a lead element in a war. Operation Enduring Freedom is the invasion of Afghanistan. CIA Declassified: The Fortress of War, Yesterday 2014
Throughout the 80s [bin Laden] was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage Jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al Qaeda, literally ‘The Database’, was originally the computer file of the thousands of Mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians. Robin Cook, British politician
When 9/11 happened – cui bono – who benefited? Afghanistan? Iraq? Did any Arab country? No. But the Bush Administration was given an open cheque-book with which to take control of the Afghani poppy-fields, the Iraqi oil-fields and the oil-rich and gas-rich Caspian Basin. And all protest over the two invasions was squashed before it started ... A large portion of al Qaeda funding comes from the Pakistani ISI and it still does. And yet the ISI is an openly admitted and funded wing of the CIA. The CIA created hundreds of thousands of extremists and trained them in radical Islamic thinking, and kept a database [al Qaeda] on them all. All these extremists still receive funding from the CIA channelled to them by the ISI. They don’t even realise they are really funded by them. The Big Picture – FINAL
Clearly the CIA is engaging in systematic assassinations of individuals. There is no review of what they do, and of course there is no accountability. So it is a zone in which law has been effectively excluded. Professor Philip Alston, former UN Special Rapporteur
The Afghan war resulted in a continuation of the dope trafficking – heroin out of Afghanistan. For certain, the Central Intelligence Agency, which was once headed by George Bush Senior, was trafficking in heroin to finance their operations. They were trafficking in heroin out of South East Asia. Anthony J Hilder
Contrary to the lies that were told to the American people, Iraq had absolutely no connections to 9/11. Al Qaeda was despised by the regime in Iraq which was a secular regime not interested in religion as such. But they still wanted to go for it. And so they delayed it. They went into Afghanistan first. Now why did they decide to go for Iraq, that’s the interesting question. Tariq Ali, author The Clash of Fundamentalisms
Afghanistan ... Two million people across the country are involved in the cultivation of opium. More than 70% of the world’s heroin originates in Afghanistan. Drugs Inc: Heroin, National Geographic 2010
Today, opium production in US-controlled Afghanistan, which now provides more than 90 per cent of the world’s heroin, breaks new production records nearly every year. The Washington Post, Afghanistan Opium Crop Sets New Record
Before 1980 Afghanistan produced 0% of the world’s opium. After the US/CIA backed Mujahideen won the Soviet/Afghan war, by 1986 they were producing 40% of the world’s heroin supply. By 1999, they were producing 80% of the total market supply. Michael C Ruppert, Crossing the Rubicon
Before the end of this year the last British troops will leave Afghanistan. 453 have lost their lives. This is the story of the Afghan war. Afghanistan: The Lion’s Last Roar? I, BBC 2014
A story of folly, the story of what may be Britain's last great foreign intervention. ibid.