Neil Shea:

In Afghanistan every soldier or Marine, every civilian, possesses some small piece of the truth. Journalists pull these pieces together into stories, but it is impossible to collect them all. We generally believe, or hope, that others at higher levels and with grander titles have gathered more and see a larger collage of reality.

Arab Proverb:

It is good to know the truth, but it is better to speak of palm trees.

Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef:

The biggest mistake of American policy makers so far might be their profound lack of understanding of their enemy.

P.J. O'Rourke:

We're outsiders in Afghanistan, and this is Occam's razor for explaining the Taliban.

Traditionalism being one of the things that makes Afghanistan so hard for Americans to understand. We Americans have so many traditions. For instance our political traditions date back to the 12th-century English Parliament if not to the Roman Senate. Afghans, on the other hand, have had the representative democracy kind of politics for only six years. Afghanistan's political traditions are just beginning to develop. A Pashtun tribal leader told me that a "problem among Afghan politicians is that they do not tell the truth." It's a political system so new that that needed to be said out loud.

If Americans claim not to understand Afghan corruption, we're lying. Bribery has been a dominant part of our foreign policy in Afghanistan, the way it's been a dominant part of everyone's foreign policy in Afghanistan including al Qaeda's. What we Americans don't understand about Afghan corruption is why it's so transparent, just a matter of openly taking money.

Anatol Lieven:

Afghanistan is often called a "medieval" country as if this were an insult. It would in fact be a compliment -- if only it were true. In many respects, Afghanistan is in fact closer to the European Dark Ages than to the European -- or Muslim -- Middle Ages.

Robin Nagle:

You can understand the entire cosmos of a culture by looking at its definitions of dirty and clean, and acceptable versus unacceptable, the profane and the sacred.