Top 25 Lakhdar Brahimi Quotes

So, the international community are all the countries that are important: the United States definitely everywhere; the European Union because it is very important, and also, they do show a great deal of international responsibility; and then the local players.

But I knew that what had happened was an eye-opener not only to the United States but also to Pakistan, who realized that after what has happened on the 11th of September, it was simply impossible to continue to play those games in Afghanistan.

The events of September 11 and what has happened since have made people understand that even a small, distant and far away country like Afghanistan cannot be left to break up into anarchy and chaos without consequences for the whole world.

Several million people inside and outside Afghanistan are destitute and desperately in need of help.

There is an element of luck, there is an element of trial and error, sometimes you fail, sometimes you succeed. It’s not as beautifully simple as it may seem when we are talking about it.

You are dealing with people who have taken the responsibility of killing their own because they think that they are right, they think that they are serving the interests of their people. They not going to give that up easily, just because you’ve shown up.

However, it does seem now that the international community, more importantly the powers that have influence, and, even more importantly, Afghanistan’s neighbors realize that it is high time that they work together, and not against one another.

Iraq is a country that has been invaded. It’s not a failing state that you want to help. It’s a country that was functioning good or bad, with a horrible dictator, but you have invaded.

Probably I understand very much the people who rise against injustice.

In Rwanda that genocide happened because the international community and the Security Council refused to give, again, another 5000 troops which would have cost, I don’t know, maybe fifty, a hundred, million dollars.

Afghanistan is a land-locked country.

The mandate you go with is intimidating and also is a source of respect that you gain, because you have come with this mandate from the United Nations.

What again I tell my people is that no matter how much you know, it’s never enough. You will always discover, after the fact, that you’ve missed something.

The third point is that for some time the UN has been talking about helping Afghanistan in the reconstruction of the country but there has never been any real commitment by the international community to provide resources for that.

Of course the UN brings in a lot of moral authority.

In the globalized world that is ours, maybe we are moving towards a global village, but that global village brings in a lot of different people, a lot of different ideas, lots of different backgrounds, lots of different aspirations.

To leave Afghanistan as a playground for terrorists and adventurers was simply not possible anymore.

People now realize that globalization is not only for the multi-nationals and the circulation of money.

There again, that is a fundamental principle: no two situations are alike.

There is a firm, clear commitment to provide resources and ideas to enable us to organize the Afghans towards starting the process of rehabilitation and reconstruction.

There is a story which is not being told strongly enough of the Afghan employees of the UN inside the country who are saving hundreds of thousands of lives everyday by their bravery and nobody talks of them.

But you are absolutely right that when the international community decides to help in a meaningful manner a country like Afghanistan, then coordination between the various actors that are involved in these processes is very, very difficult indeed.

When you go from one place to another, you go with experience, you don’t go with prescriptions.

At times one feels that what is being said in the West is that the fact that you are a Muslim predisposes you to this blind, stupid terrorism.

There is an expression now that is commonly used about these so-called internal conflicts which are not really internal, because they have connections to the outside world.