Ahmed Rashid Quotes
Afghanistan is not only the mirror of the Afghans: it is the mirror of the world. 'If you do not like the image in the mirror, do not break the mirror, break your face,' says an old Persian proverb.

-Ahmed Rashid
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When Allah had made the rest of the world, He saw that there was a lot of rubbish left over, bits and pieces and things that did not fit anywhere else. He collected them all together and threw them down on to the earth. That was Afghanistan,

-Ahmed Rashid
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They had no memories of the past, no plans for the future while the present was everything. They were literally the orphans of the war, the rootless and the restless, the jobless and the economically deprived with little self-knowledge. They admired war because it was the only occupat . . . Read more

-Ahmed Rashid
Thirdly, Casey committed CIA support to a long-standing ISI initiative to recruit radical Muslims from around the world to come to Pakistan and fight with the Afghan Mujaheddin. The ISI had encouraged this since 1982 and by now all the other players had their reasons for supporting th . . . Read more

-Ahmed Rashid
Within a few short, dramatic months Afghanistan had been catapulted into the centre of the intensified Cold War between the Soviet Union and the USA. The Afghan Mujaheddin were to become the US-backed, anti-Soviet shock troops. But for the Afghans the Soviet invasion was yet another a . . . Read more

-Ahmed Rashid
The USA and Unocal were essentially faced with a simple question in Afghanistan. Was it preferable to rely on Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to deliver the Taliban and obtain a temporary Afghan concensus in the old-fashioned way by reconquering the country? Or was it preferable for the USA . . . Read more

-Ahmed Rashid