I wouldn't want to roll the dice on Kabul by myself, because I really think getting killed is definitely a possibility there. A very good possibility.
When you walk down the street of Kabul your values for life changes, they do change.
Kabul is... a thousand tragedies per square mile.
I was out there for 12 days. There are more beggars in Soho than there are in Kabul.
The strategy for peace-building in Afghanistan is economic aid, reconstruction, international security forces. On those lines, the U.S. has been extremely slow. And it has even blocked expanding security forces from Kabul to other cities.
I'd rather we were rebuilding Philadelphia, as opposed to Kabul...There are American cities with serious infrastructure problems and we're not addressing them.
You have extreme poverty and high crime and you have to admit that the governance of the Kabul regime has been poor and has been losing its popular legitimacy. You have a corrupt police force, not to mention homelessness, joblessness. The problems are huge.
Kabul was very popular with the hippies in the Sixties and Seventies. It was very quiet and peaceful.
If I could go to Kabul and not die, I would go back to Afghanistan as soon as I could. And, that was the most interesting place that I've been to.
I would be quite happy to see the Northern Alliance steam across northern Afghanistan and take Kabul.
All politics are local, whether in Kabul or in Canada.
The problem is that so many of them are not getting told. This is a massive problem, not just in the Middle East but for places from Africa to Afghanistan. There are millions of stories out there, millions of potential Booksellers of Kabul or Valentino Achak Dengs.
