Like Vietnam, Afghanistan was never about troop levels; it is about how troops are utilized.
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When the United States first went into Afghanistan in 2001, it devastated the Taliban and Al Qaeda in a matter of weeks using only a few hundred C.I.A. and Special Operations personnel, backed by American air power. Later, when the United States transitioned to conventional Pentagon stability operations, this success was reversed.Erik Prince
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President Obama has said that our aspirations should be realistic. We are not going to turn one of the poorest countries in the world, that was plunged into 30 years of war, into an advanced, industrialized, Western-style democracy. What we want to achieve is Afghanistan's capacity to secure and govern itself.David Petraeus
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As you will recall, soon after the 9/11 attacks, an international coalition led by the United States conducted an impressive campaign to defeat the Taliban, al Qaeda, and other associated extremist groups in Afghanistan.David Petraeus
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Al-Qaeda, which means 'the base' in English, lost its base and training camps in Afghanistan, while its leaders were on the run, captured, or dead. One year after the 9/11 attacks, al-Qaeda was still on life support.Peter Bergen
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Our nation has endured and flourished because people of goodwill adapt and innovate productive solutions to our nation's problems - not because of top-down dictates.Erik Prince
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I built Blackwater to stay connected to the SEAL teams and to serve that whole community.Erik Prince
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You pretty much remove the entire political texture from Blackwater when you come to China. What they look at is our 100 per cent success rate.Erik Prince
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My fight-or-flight mechanism... had served me well in Gaza, in Afghanistan, and all the places I'd been.Michael Finkel
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For people to mischaracterize my time or ownership of Blackwater as being some great financial bonanza, it was not. It was most definitely not.Erik Prince
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