A Quote by Margaret Brennan
A lot of the traveling that I have done is for work. I've been to spots in Afghanistan and Iraq that are lovely, too, but I wouldn't put those on travel itineraries.
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Johnny Apple, a New York Times correspondent, wrote a front-page story saying Afghanistan could be a quagmire and he was mocked and derided. What is certainly true is that all sorts of resources that would have been used in Afghanistan were diverted to Iraq. Would those resources have helped? Almost undoubtedly. Whether or not Afghanistan would be a peaceful nation-state had we not gone into Iraq I doubt. Afghanistan is going to be Afghanistan, no matter how hard we try to make it something else.
Afghanistan would have been difficult enough without Iraq. Iraq made it impossible. The argument that had we just focused on Afghanistan we'd now be okay is persuasive, but it omits the fact that we weren't supposed to get involved in nation-building in Afghanistan.
The word 'hero' has been bandied about a lot to refer to anyone killed in Afghanistan or Iraq. But anyone who voluntarily goes to Afghanistan or Iraq [as a soldier] is fighting for an evil cause under an evil commander in chief.
Well, first, the situation in Afghanistan is much better than it was. But there is no comparison between Afghanistan and Iraq. Iraq has a bureaucracy, Iraq has wealth. Iraq has an educated class of people who are positioned to come in and take over.
Afghanistan would have been difficult enough without Iraq. Iraq made it impossible. The argument that had we just focused on Afghanistan we'd now be okay is persuasive, but it omits the fact that we weren't supposed to get involved in nation-building in Afghanistan.In my new book, I open with a quote from Donald Rumsfeld. In October 2001, he said of Afghanistan: "It's not a quagmire." Ten years later there are 150,000 Western troops there.
I also know that there are a lot of people around the United States who want my husband to win and who are for him and who support our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. And I feel good about those people, too.
I watched the Bush administration overreact to the Clinton administration, who believed they did too much nation building, sustaining other countries, and that's why we never put the commitment on Afghanistan and Iraq that should have been in there under their policy leadership.
I've been to Afghanistan and Iraq a few times, and then I've done deployments elsewhere - with Special Forces, we go all over the place.
I do love traveling, so I've been able to travel a lot.
What matters is that in this Iraq campaign that we clarify the different points of view. And there are a lot of people in the Democratic Party who believe that the best course of action is to leave Iraq before the job is done. Period. And they're wrong. And the American people have got to understand the consequence of leaving Iraq before the job is done. We're not going to leave Iraq before the job is done and we'll complete the mission in Iraq.
What we have done, I think, is build a model from a lot of hard lessons in Afghanistan and Iraq but in other places around the world, where we are working with them in an advisory capacity.
I can't say enough about the tremendous work the Missouri National Guard has done as part of our military efforts in Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries.
I had said from the start that I thought Iraq was a mistake, that we should have stayed focused on Afghanistan. I think it was the right decision because the Taliban at that point had gotten a lot of momentum before I'd gotten into office, partly because we hadn't been paying attention as much as we needed to to Afghanistan.
Iraq and Afghanistan will, over time, become stable. But the War on Terror will continue long after Iraq and Afghanistan have had success in standing up their own governments.
Any American who has spent time in Iraq or Afghanistan will tell you: the closer you get, the less certain you are of anything. If you are in Iraq, if you are in Afghanistan, everything is ambiguous. Everything is murky and gray and uncertain and possibly lethal.
Whether or not Afghanistan would be a peaceful nation-state had we not gone into Iraq I doubt. Afghanistan is going to be Afghanistan, no matter how hard we try to make it something else.
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