Self-reliance is not just words, but deeds.
Economics taught in most of the elite universities are practically useless in my context. My country is dominated by drug economy and a mafia. Textbook economics does not work in my context, and I have very few recommendations from anybody as to how to put together a legal economy.
By terrorising the people, the Taliban have sown deep doubts about the government.
Mecca and Medinah is a very special place in the hearts of every Muslim but particularly for every Afghan.
We need to get a stable Afghanistan that can ensure the security of Americans, Europeans, and others on the one hand, but more fundamentally our own democratic rights and institutions.
I cannot tolerate immorality.
Pathology by Daesh is distinctively to swallow its opponents, to frighten the population. In that regard, the threat is very real.
Afghanistan has the capacity to become an industrialized country because of its mining and agriculture sectors. We can also create jobs for educated men and women by investing in information technology.
Afghanistan cannot be a burden on the international community and it has to become an asset.
Peace is not a luxury. Peace is a necessity.
You cannot have good terrorists and bad terrorists.
This hand is free of blood, and this hand is free from the stain of corruption.
You can get together, you can talk as much as you want, but if there's not a decision-making process - that's where democracy really matters.
If we looked in the world of 1945 and looked at the map of capitalist economies and democratic polities, they were the rare exception, not the norm.
Money is not capital in most of the developing countries. It's just cash. Because it lacks the institutional, organizational, managerial forms to turn it into capital.
You would think that the U.S. government would not think that American firms needed subsidizing to function in developing countries, provide advice, but they do.
My father's mother really had a profound influence on me. She literally began her day with an hour of reading. But the most fundamental impact was education.
When we get peace in Afghanistan, we'll go to New Zealand to learn best practices for raising sheep. We'll go to Switzerland and study hydroelectric projects.
Organizations are accumulations of historical debris. They are not consciously thought. So when you ask the Education Ministry ‘What's your core function and who's your client?' they laugh at you. When I say that the client is the Afghan child - and the Ministry is an instrument, not the goal - it's greeted with shock. It's a new idea.
President Obama called me on his last day in office and said the only person who never asked him for anything was me.
