Political Quotes

“The war in Afghanistan had a legitimate purpose when it began. That was the grounds from which Osama Bin Laden engineered the attack on the World Trade Center. Congress supported going into Afghanistan to take out Osama Bin Laden and to deny a safe haven to terrorists. At a certain point, the policy transformed from an effort to protect us against a base of operations into a nation- building mission. {time} 1520 That was a grave mistake. Adopting nation-building will be seen through the lens of history as being about as effective as trench warfare in World War I. Our military will do whatever is asked of them. Our job is to make requests of them that are reasonable for them to do. It is not the job of the men and women who serve in the U.S. military to build nation- states in Afghanistan. That policy failed militarily. That policy is unsustainable economically. That policy does not make us more secure. Why? One, it is not the job of the military to build nation-states. It is the job of the military--and it is one they do very well--to protect America from attack. Two, if you are attempting a nation-building strategy, you need an ally that is going to be a partner with you. The Karzai government is corrupt. It is infected with corruption. It has exceeded our wildest and most pessimistic expectations of what corruption can be. We do not have a reliable partner.…”