“The key to breaking the Taliban taboo against women and the cultural brainwashing that the Taliban imposed upon many Afghans is to get women back into the workforce.”

The Soviets held to the tradition of colonialism. They raped the country and killed many people. But they also built dams, electrical power plants, streets, and technical schools.

The Taliban had become deeply unpopular and were actually discarded by the Pashtun population almost as quickly as they were in the north. I don’t see the Taliban coming back in any way.

The West would be well advised to change its approach towards failing states. At present, no major power can find the correct ways and means – and the numbers of failing states are increasing.

It would have been better if the United Nations had sent a team to Mali right away to mediate between the government and the rebels. But where is the political initiative?

Of course, many of them did support the Taliban. But you cannot equate all Pashtuns with the Taliban.

And China is not keen that the U.S. should be so close to its borders over a long period of time. Certainly, if the U.S. is going to be there for a long time, it’s going to exacerbate regional tensions.

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.

There will not be enough soldiers to ensure the security of the country. But will the US still be permitted to kill terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan with un-manned drones? That could worsen the situation in the neighboring states and they could view Afghanistan as a threat.

You have a lot of suspicion from the neighbors of Afghanistan about U.S. intentions. Iran is already, to some extent, trying to undermine the U.S. in Afghanistan.

You need intelligence and special forces. And, most importantly, you need to resurrect Afghanistan from what is literally the graveyard of countries and transform it into a normal country, which the Afghans want.

We should remember that the Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan.

The idea of a permanent U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, as opposed to an economic presence, is going to create a new wave of hostility toward the United States.

Pashtun nationalism is reasserting itself. Its political history spans several hundred years.

In my view, the Western model of influencing the development of third world countries is doomed to failure.

vThis region harbors enormous potential. Pakistan could become the hub for the energy that is transported from Central Asia to South Asia. That could change the whole region.

What everyone underestimated was the acute unpopularity of the Taliban, even in the Pashtun areas.

Rather it is a place of individuation where a person rubs up against oneself and against the partner, bumps up against the person in love and in rejection

But also read against yourselves, read for questioning and impotence, for despair and erudition…

If the deployment of ground troops helps in the fight against Daesh, why is that World War III?

We cannot afford to dissemble about crimes against humanity.

So I started to think like, “well if I’m going to fight against this, I should learn how to direct”.

I consider that 9/11 was the day when war was started against my own work and against myself.

Every writer I had ever known wrote his best work when he had his back up against the wall and thought he would never write another word.

Like a pet fish unaware of the fishbowl it lives in, each of us inherently discriminates against young people without knowing it.