We originally said that we don’t do nation-building but there is no way to ensure that al-Qaida won’t come back without it,
-- Stephen Hadley, deputy national security adviser to George W. Bush (Chapter One: A Muddled Mission paragraph 1)

Importance: Stephen Hadley, deputy national security adviser to George W. Bush, is quoted here post-factually justifying the US occupation project. Hadley’s tone is almost apologetic. It anticipates critiques of the project to refashion Afghanistan’s political institutions after the United States. It raises the illusive specter of disorganized terrorist plotting to continue the war.

If there is a landscape less welcoming to humans anywhere on earth, apart from the Sahara, the Poles, and the cauldrons of Kilauea, I cannot imagine it, and I certainly don’t intend to go there,
-- Green Beret Roger Pardo-Maurer (Chapter Two: “Who are the Bad Guys?” paragraph 1)

Importance: Green Beret Roger Pardo-Maurer pens these lines by way of reporting from his posting in Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan. Whitlock recounts some of the biting commentary that the former Nicaraguan contra volunteer and financier writes...