Balkh is now little more than a sleepy Afghan town of overgrown ruins forgotten by the world. On market day, down lanes that wind through apple orchards and cherry orchards, merchants slowly make their way to the central bazaar, their wares teetering on donkey carts.

There is a story which is not being told strongly enough of the Afghan employees of the UN inside the country who are saving hundreds of thousands of lives everyday by their bravery and nobody talks of them.

We will also be funding projects that empower women and children in Afghanistan and now and then give scholarships to Afghan students here in the Bay Area.

We are not in Afghanistan because girls were not allowed to go to school, but helping them do so will give the Afghan people hope for a better future.

We as the Afghan people and government are willing to help Pakistan work for peace in Afghanistan and work for peace in Pakistan, together.

Images of burning Red Cross and UN buildings struck by US bombs contrasted with images of thousands of desperately poor Afghan women carrying sickly and starving children out of Afghanistan as they flee the might of the US military is tearing at international public confidence in our war against terrorism.

The draconian prohibitions of the Taliban years and the gains Afghan women have achieved since the Taliban government was overthrown in 2001 are now well known and often cited: Today, Afghans lucky enough to live in secure regions can go to school, women may work in offices, and the burqa is no longer mandatory.

We’ve been able to build up the Afghan security forces and stabilize it.

The family is the single most important institution in Afghan culture. It is described in the country’s constitution as the ‘fundamental pillar of society‘.

The Taliban’s acts of cultural vandalism – the most infamous being the destruction of the giant Bamiyan Buddhas – had a devastating effect on Afghan culture and the artistic scene. The Taliban burned countless films, VCRs, music tapes, books, and paintings. They jailed filmmakers, musicians, painters, and sculptors.

Protecting Afghan civilians is the cornerstone of our mission.

Jihad is the Afghan bling.

Being from Delhi I have been exposed to Afghan culture.

As a 22-year Army Veteran who served in Operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom, and as a Civilian Advisor to the Afghan Army in Operation Enduring Freedom, I understand both the gravity of giving the order, and the challenge of carrying it out.

I’m sorry,” Laila says, marveling at how every Afghan story is marked by death and loss and unimaginable grief. And yet, she sees, people find a way to survive, to go on.

The Taliban mostly attacks international and Afghan security forces. They rarely carry out attacks in markets.

It’s going to be really interesting to see what the heroin market does in the next two years or so. One thing you can be pretty sure of. The Afghan peasants who grow poppies won‘t get rich. The money will end up in places like Dubai.

WikiLeaks has revealed some hard truths about the Iraq and Afghan wars and broken stories about corporate corruption.

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?

The Afghans I met were some of the nicest and most honorable people I’ve ever encountered. There is a code called ‘Pashtunwali,’ so if someone invites you into their village, every last man will fight to protect your life. I was impressed by that.

In Afghan culture, you don’t date – you marry. Even talking to boys before marriage brings great shame to your family.

I do spend a lot of weekends on the road. I have to pace myself. It can be pretty busy, but I’m not out in the Afghan desert with 70 pounds on my back, away from my family for a year at a time. I keep a good perspective on it.

Afghan people are just so tired of war.

As the leader of a country, you are not free to enjoy the luxury of such feelings. The Afghan people want peace, which requires persistence. We are determined to defend our country, and the whole region and the entire world understands the justice of our cause and the principled way in which we have engaged in it.

Without women taking an active role in Afghan society, rebuilding Afghanistan is going to be very difficult.

Afghan human rights campaigners worry that U.S. forces may be using secret detention sites like the one allegedly at Rish-Khor to carry out interrogations away from prying eyes. The U.S. military, however, denies even having knowledge of the facility.

Because Iran understands Afghanistan far better than Americans do, making Iran a partner in a long-term effort to transform Afghan agriculture makes sense.

Seeing the Afghan women in their burqas, it’s easy to say, “Well, they’re not as fully aware as I am, so why do I have to worry so much about their plight?” But that’s a misunderstanding. They are brutally aware of their station.

Why don’t we focus on what Afghan women can do? They can cook, bear children, and pray. As I recall, that was fine for our grandmothers.

In Afghanistan, I was talking to Afghan elders who were world-weary of a lack of sustained attention from their own government and from the international community to stop problems early.

The reasoning for our civil-military plan is that lasting success will be when the Afghan government, security forces and people can resist the insurgents and terrorists themselves.

Well, the reports are correct that we’re conducting very robust military operations on the Afghan side of the border in areas where we think al-Qaida is operating and Taliban remnants are.

A society has no chance of success if its women are uneducated.

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.

Our troops shouldn’t be mired in taking land for the Afghan military, providing force protection and fighting a permanent insurgency.

Do we really think that the United States will have the protection of innocent Afghans in mind if it rains terror down on the Afghan infrastructure? We are supposedly fighting them because they immorally killed innocent civilians. That made them evil. If we do the same, are we any less immoral?

If you look back historically, admittedly a long time ago, there were three Afghan wars in which Britain didn’t even come a good second. In more recent years the Russians were there with 120,000 men for ten years.

We’ve got to see a state where the Afghan government can handle its own day-to-day security.

For a novelist, it’s kind of an onerous burden to represent an entire culture. That said, I’m in a unique position to speak on behalf of Afghanistan on certain issues that I feel are important, particularly the issue of Afghan refugees.

As I have said for two years now, when Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda were cornered in the mountains of Tora Bora, it was wrong to outsource the job of capturing them to Afghan warlords who a week earlier were fighting against us.

We’re pursuing a strategic partnership with Afghanistan on the case of the United States and Afghanistan where we’re going to push toward a future. It is the future that the Afghans desire with the United States. It is a future that the Afghans desire with the international community and we desire that as well.

We provide transit facilities, we cooperate in equipping the Afghan army and security forces with arms and helicopters, we cooperate in training officers for law enforcement agencies.

It’s fair to say average Americans think that the average Afghan doesn’t want American troops in their country.

In the calculus of western interests, there is no suffering, whatever its scale, which cannot be justified. Chechens, Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis are of little importance.

After literally hundreds of firefights, Chosen Company became increasingly battle-hardened. And they also became increasingly suspicious of their Afghan counterparts, believing – with their lives on the line at the end of the day – that they could only truly rely on themselves.

I myself had to grow a longer beard and Afghan clothes. I was in danger of being kidnapped by smugglers, though I didn’t know it at the time.

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

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.

The voice, Afghan matchmakers say,В is more than half of love.

We think it is in our nation’s interest that Afghan women – or any women around the world – not suffer.

In 1979, when I was toddler, the Russians invaded Afghanistan, and my whole family fled to Vienna, Virginia. Far from home, my parents were determined to raise my two sisters and me according to Afghan traditions.

The people suffering most from the Taliban were Afghans.

Once the Afghan people vote and they choose their President with direct, secret ballot from all over the country, there will be a lot of difference in this country and a lot of legitimate power to flow with implementation.

A problem was the lack of cooperation of the Afghan community itself. The women, though living in Iran, were under cover and not willing to participate in the film, and none of the ethnic groups were willing to work together or be together.

It is painful to talk about it, but even with its 110,000 elite soldiers, the Soviet Union never managed to gain control over the entire Afghan territory.

Too often, stories about Afghanistan center around the various wars, the opium trade, the war on terrorism. Precious little is said about the Afghan people themselves – their culture, their traditions, how they lived in their country and how they manage abroad as exiles.

As late as 2009, 90 per cent of Afghans reckoned Karzai’s performance was excellent, good or fair.

There is no Afghan Awakening Movement.

Carolyn Maloney has been a consistent fighter for Afghan women but also for International Family Planning Bills.

If any overarching conclusion emerges from the Afghan and Iraq Wars (and from their Israeli equivalents), it’s this: victory is a chimera.

I think the emancipation of women in Afghanistan has to come from inside, through Afghans themselves, gradually, over time.

It’s being made out that the whole point of the war was to topple the Taliban regime and liberate Afghan women from their burqas, we are being asked to believe that the U.S. marines are actually on a feminist mission.

If we can’t understand the Afghan family, we can’t understand Afghanistan.

The Afghans themselves say that if you put two Afghans in a room, you get three factions.

When I arrived in the summer of 2009 to command the war in Afghanistan, I entered an effort that was failing. Many Afghans, some ISAF coalition members, and much of the American public had lost confidence in both the trajectory of the war and our ability to correct it.

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.

Why don’t we focus on what Afghan women can do? They can cook, bear children and pray. As I recall, that was fine for our grandmothers.

The most significant thing is public participation. That assures the Afghan public that our promises are not empty.

No Afghans, as far as we know, have been involved in terrorist acts against our country. We shouldn’t be swatting at hornets‘ nests we know nothing about.

Family is so central to Afghan life that all Afghan stories are family stories. Family is something I simply can’t resist because all the great themes of human life – duty, grief, sacrifice, love, envy – you find all those things within families.

My husband stands on his own two feet; my religion is not a factor. God created and decided for me to be born in a Christian family. It’s not every day that a Lebanese marries an Afghan. I think God’s hand is also in there.

By protecting our Afghan friends from reprisals and welcoming them into our American family, we can assert that the United States is still a great and good country – and that we do not abandon those who risked their lives to serve with us.

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.

Maybe to feel like an Afghan I needed to be born and raised in the States, and maybe I needed to live in Afghanistan for nearly a decade to feel like an American. Both worlds shaped me, but neither one of them completely correspond to the picture I have of myself.

Mecca and Medinah is a very special place in the hearts of every Muslim but particularly for every Afghan.

The Afghans are probably the world champions in resisting foreign domination and infiltration into their country.

We want an Afghanistan that is shaped by the dreams of the great Afghan people, not by irrational fears and overreaching ambitions of others.

I mean, how many men would have gone on to the floor of the House as Carolyn Maloney did and wear a burkha to show the fight of Afghan women.

In the Afghan people, I found the most resilient, welcoming people who, for the first time in my career, never judged me over my right to tell this story – as a woman or a foreigner. A people who cherish their culture and history and the films that have captured that culture.

Unlike the Afghans and Iraqis, the South Korean people solidly supported the American military presence, which was part of a United Nations operation.

The family is the single most important institution in Afghan culture. It is described in the countrys constitution as the fundamental pillar of society.

These guys that were standing up to fight, for the most part, had pride in their country, and they wanted to do the best, and they wanted to go out and fight, and I was as close to these Afghans as I was to the Marines.

The U.S. must continue to carefully withdraw troops from Afghanistan at a pace based on assessment of the ground conditions so we do not leave our Afghan partners unable to guarantee long-term security or risk Afghanistan becoming a terrorist safe haven again.

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

The first time I visited Afghanistan in May 2000, I was 26 years old, and the country was under Taliban rule. I went there to document Afghan women and landmine victims.

After 9/11, a few hundred CIA and Special Operations personnel, backed by airpower and Afghan militias, devastated Taliban and al-Qaeda forces. That effort has since turned into a conventional Pentagon nation-building exercise and gone backward.

In all the debate about Afghanistan, we don’t hear much about our obligation to the wretched lives of Afghan women. They are being treated as collateral damage as the big boys discuss geopolitical goals.

“Come on,” I said, taking his hand. Clutching the afghan with the other hand, he trailed down the hall after me, a snow white giant in tiny red underwear.

President Trump should appoint a special presidential envoy and empower them to wage an unconventional war against Taliban and Daesh forces, to hold the corrupt officials accountable and to negotiate with their Afghan counterparts and the Afghan Taliban that are willing to reconcile with Kabul.

I have been involved with the UN refugee agency for a few years now, and we have done events to speak about refugees, focusing more and more on the situation with Afghan refugees.

There are tens of thousands of interactions every single day across Afghanistan between the Afghan troops and International Security Assistance Force. On most of those, every single day we continue to deepen and broaden the relationship we seek.

I’m a believer in the Afghan people, so I support an increase in forces there.

Back in 2010, it didn’t matter when it was only Cuban democrats, Zimbabwean dissidents, Afghan reformists and Russian bloggers whose lives and liberty were put at risk by Wikileaks‘ wilfully negligent data dumps.

My war buddies, some were Americans, but some were Afghans. These were the guys that I fought alongside. We bled alongside each other; we mourned together. When I came home, these weren’t people I could keep up with on Facebook.

Afghan society is very complex, and Afghanistan has a very complex culture. Part of the reason it has remained unknown is because of this complexity.

The majority of the Afghan people support a strategic partnership with the United States.

The overwhelming majority of Afghans are not tribal, and they’re not Pashtun.

Needless to say, innumerable challenges exist in all areas of governance, and much more needs to be done to help the Afghan government assume full responsibility for addressing the concerns of ordinary Afghan citizens.

The Afghan security forces will always have the help of the U.S. American military to ensure that Afghanistan never fails.

We could form a government of national unity fighting corruption. The ordinary Afghan is sick and tired of it, because it’s she or he that pays the price.

You must keep in mind that Pakistan has suffered the aftermaths of the Cold War, and that Cold War had left deep imprints on our society. We were the worst sufferers from the ills of the Afghan war.

We obviously don’t want to cause problems for the Afghan government, President Hamid Karzai and the Afghan people. In fact, we want them to support our efforts on their behalf and not see us as unwelcome occupiers.

They [U.S. soldiers] are also building schools for the Afghan children so that there is hope and opportunity in our neighboring country of Afghanistan.

Hospitality is one of the things the Afghan population is famous for, but nobody says that anymore. Now they’re terrorists – and they’re not. They’re people.

The Western media has depicted the Afghan woman as a helpless, weak individual. I have said it before, and I shall repeat it: The Afghan woman is strong. The Afghan woman is resourceful. The Afghan woman is resilient.

The jury is out as to whether the Afghans are up to the task of protecting their people.

Afghanistan has moved forward and Afghanistan will defend itself. And the progress that we have achieved, the Afghan people will not allow it to be put back or reversed.

To understand Afghanistan, you have to face the stress the average Afghan deals with.

It is imperative that Congress provides adequately funded and stable budgets which allow us to support Afghan personnel and ensure that Afghanistan does not become a breeding ground for terrorists again.

It’s the Afghan national army that went into Najaf and did the work there.

The dangers of an Afghan collapse are many: Afghan deaths, a loss of American prestige, a loss of NATO prestige, a moral blow to U.S. troops and veterans, a Taliban resurgence, huge setbacks for women, and greater power for Pakistan and Pakistani extremists.

Do you know Afghan children wear shoes when they sleep, so they can run easily if a bomb falls during the night? Iraq has been similarly pushed against the wall. What proof did the West ultimately have, what justification for raining bombs on them?

Now, al Qaeda’s on the run. Afghanistan is no longer a base of operations. The Afghan government is a friendly government that is trying to bring democracy to its people.

I mean, honestly, we have to be clear that the life for many Afghan women is not that much different than it was a hundred years ago, 200 years ago. The country has lived with so much violence and conflict that many people, men and women, just want it to be over.

Afghan women, as a group, I think their suffering has been equaled by very few other groups in recent world history.