Thomas Meaney in the LRB (Photo by Andre Klimke on Unsplash):
Your cause is right and God is on your side!
Zbigniew Brzezinski, US national security adviser, to the Afghan mujahedin, 3 February 1980
I have benefited so greatly from the jihad in Afghanistan that it would have been impossible for me to gain such a benefit from any other chance, and this cannot be measured by tens of years but rather more than that.
Osama bin Laden, March 1997
Once, the Kabul Zoo housed ninety varieties of animals and got a thousand visitors a day, but in the era of fighting that followed the fall of the Soviets and then of Najibullah, the people stayed away, and the animals found themselves in a place more dangerous than any forest or jungle. For ten days, the elephant ran in circles, screaming, until shrapnel toppled her and she died. As the shelling went back and forth, the tigers and llamas, the ostriches, the elephant, were carried away to paradise. The aviary was ruptured and the birds flew free into the heavens from which the rockets rained.
Denis Johnson, 1 April 1997
Let’s step back a moment. Let’s just pause, just for a minute. And think through the implications of our actions today, so that this does not spiral out of control.
US Representative Barbara Lee, 14 September 2001
This crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take a while. And the American people must be patient. I’m going to be patient.
President George W. Bush, 17 September 2001
The Taliban regime already belongs to history.
Jürgen Habermas, December 2001
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