Alexander Afghanistan Quotes

We were not told how Alexander the Great was the last person in history to successfully 'pacify' what would become Afghanistan, over 2,000 years ago.

A pure breed of steed is steered sheerly by the shadow of the lash, but even the spur cannot stir a mount of trash.

Alexander was no longer so much the master of his lust, having been fawned upon by Fortune, whom mortal men too little distrust.

The attempt to stabilize Afghanistan is estimated to have cost American taxpayers $3tn to date.

Alexander (at the trial of Philotas): How much happier to have fallen in the fighting, felled by a foe, rather than die by a countryman’s blow! Now, preserved from the only perils that I feared, I am beset by threats that should never have appeared.

We travelled with a bookshelf fixed above the back of our seat. The poor books were shaken madly during all these days, but we rejoiced to be able to lay our hand on the right volume at the right moment. Rubbing against each other were Marco Polo, Pelliot, Evans-Wentz, Vivekananda, Maritain, Jung, a life of Alexander the Great, Grousset, the Zend-Avesta. I picked The Darvishes by John P. Brown and H. A. Rose, and read aloud a passage about Jalal-ud-din Rumi.

Eight months [after 9/11], after the most intensive international investigation in history, the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation informed the press that they still didn't know who did it. He said they had suspicions. The suspicions were that the plot was hatched in Afghanistan but implemented in Germany and the United Arab Emirates, and, of course, in the United States. After 9/11, Bush II essentially ordered the Taliban to hand over Osama bin Laden, and they temporized. They might have handed him over, actually. They asked for evidence that he was involved in the attacks of 9/11. And, of course, the government, first of all, couldn't given them any evidence because they didn't have any. But secondly, they reacted with total contempt. How can you ask us for evidence if we want you to hand somebody over? What lèse-majesté is this? So Bush simply informed the people of Afghanistan that we're going to bomb you until the Taliban hand over Osama bin Laden. He said nothing about overthrowing the Taliban. That came three weeks later, when British admiral Michael Boyce, the head of the British Defense Staff, announced to the Afghans that we're going to continue bombing you until you overthrow your government. This fits the definition of terrorism exactly, but it's much worse. It's aggression. How did the Afghans feel about it? We actually don't know. There were leading Afghan anti-Taliban activists who were bitterly opposed to the bombing. In fact, a couple of weeks after the bombing started, the U.S. favorite, Abdul Haq, considered a great martyr in Afghanistan, was interviewed about this. He said that the Americans are carrying out the bombing only because they want to show their muscle. They're undermining our efforts to overthrow the Taliban from within, which we can do. If, instead of killing innocent Afghans, they help us, that's what will happen. Soon after that, there was a meeting in Peshawar in Pakistan of a thousand tribal leaders, some from Afghanistan who trekked across the border, some from Pakistan. They disagreed on a lot of things, but they were unanimous on one thing: stop the bombing. That was after about a month. Could the Taliban have been overthrown from within? It's very likely. There were strong anti-Taliban forces. But the United States didn't want that. It wanted to invade and conquer Afghanistan and impose its own rule. ...There are geostrategic reasons. They're not small. How dominant they are in the thinking of planners we can only speculate. But there is a reason why everybody has been invading Afghanistan since Alexander the Great. The country is in a highly strategic position relative to Central Asian, South Asia, and the Middle East. There are specific reasons in the present case having to do with pipeline projects, which are in the background. We don't know how important these considerations are, but since the 1990s the United States has been trying hard to establish the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline (TAPI)from Turkmenistan, which has a huge amount of natural gas, to India. It has to go through Kandahar, in fact. So Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India are all involved. The United States wants the pipeline for two reasons. One reason is to try to prevent Russia from having control of natural gas. That's the new "great game": Who controls Central Asian resources? The other reason has to do with isolating Iran. The natural way to get the energy resources India needs is from Iran, a pipeline right from Iran to Pakistan to India. The United States wants to block this from happening in the worst way. It's a complicated business. Pakistan has just agreed to let the pipeline run from Iran to Pakistan. The question is whether India will try to join in. The TAPI pipeline would be a good weapon to try to undercut that.

Alexander crashed through the Persian Empire: From Egypt, through Syria to Iraq, on to Central Asia and Afghanistan, and down to India, he chased the Persian ruler and destroyed his armies.

(It has been said that according to ancient designations, as well as its possession of the Indus River, Pakistan has a better claim to be called “India” than its neighbor.)

The grass around the village looked like it had been scorched by boiling water. The old people talked about airplanes that sprinkled bad rain. People were kept in the village-camp for months and then the Laotian and Vietnamese airplanes would pass overhead and many of the people would die afterwards. There was no need for guns. My mother, grandmother, and aunts did not know it, but chemical warfare was being used in the killing of the Hmong. It would be years later before U.S. Secretary of State Alexander Haig would state that poisonous gas had been used in Southeast Asia and the State Department could identify Laos, Cambodia, and Afghanistan as three places where Soviet-supervised chemical warfare attacks had taken place. The women just became afraid of the water and the grass.

Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.

Alexander’s latest wife Roxanne, the daughter of a Bactrian chieftain (and thus from what is now Afghanistan),

Elphinstone perceived flaws in the Afghan character, such as tendencies toward envy, avarice, discord, and revenge. Nevertheless, he saw much to admire, including their “lofty, martial spirit,” hospitality, and honesty, as well as their fondness for liberty. “They have also a degree of curiosity,” he wrote, “which is a relief to a person habituated to the apathy of the Indians.” He found the Afghans apprehensive of cultural assimilation by the Persians and said their sentiments toward that more advanced, if effete, civilization “greatly resemble those which we discovered some years ago towards the French.” He noted in addition: “I know no people in Asia who have fewer vices, or are less voluptuous or debauched.” But in this initial British examination of the country, Elphinstone summarized its enduring problem: “There is reason to fear that the societies into which the nation is divided, possess within themselves a principle of repulsion and disunion, too strong to be overcome, except by such a force as, while it united the whole into one solid body, would crush and obliterate the features of every one of the parts.

Until the end of the nineteenth century, this remote region was known as Kafiristan because of its infidel religion. But after the people in those valleys were forcibly converted to Islam the region became known as Nuristan, or the “Land of Light.” It is not improbable that descendants of the Greek-Bactrian kingdom, or even of Alexander’s men, live there.

Afghanistan. And then there’s …” He consulted the letter again. “Michael Longley, the poet—he’ll be there too. And there are lots of others.” Irene looked thoughtful. “It starts in two days’ time,” said Stuart. “It’s a bit rushed, but …