Hamid Karzai
Current President of Afghanistan.
In the past we suffered alone. This time everybody will suffer with us.
Let me tell the world that we Afghans today stand with full dignity and declare to the world that we are rising from the ashes of invasion and will live forever……
Every time we ignore the suffering of others or stand by and watch, we do not only act against our own interests but we violate a part of our humanity.
We must not turn away when we hear the cries of the hungry. We must not stand by when we see the killing and terrorizing of the innocent. We should not wait until hundreds and, in some cases, thousands of our fellow human beings have died as occurred in Afghanistan, before we act.
We are bloody determined. It is not going to be Pakistan playing the Pashtun, non-Pashtun game in Afghanistan. It is not going to be Iran playing this or that game or any other country. We can play the same game with a lot more historical power, with a lot more power in our history than others can. They should know that very well.
There is no doubt that people are angry. When a family is hit by a bomb and I am the president here with the responsibility -- when a suicide bomb takes places and murders the people of this nation -- I am the president of this country and it is my responsibility to bring peace to these people.
I am burning out. When I feel burned out I am immediately reminded of Frost's great poem: "The woods are lovely, dark and deep/ But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep/ and miles to go before I sleep." We have a lot of miles to go. A lot of miles to go. I think no Afghan president, even after my term is complete, will have an option on this account. I have to work very hard. You can't imagine how destroyed this country was. You can't imagine how dispirited this country had become. How miserable it had become. Unbelievable. When you go to the country, to the mountains where I was fighting the Taliban, I came across families and people who had nothing on earth. Nothing. And if they survived it worked. We have to provide them a better life. It will take time, it will take effort, and it will take very hard work. And no vacations.
Terrorism sees, in the prosperity of the Afghan people, its ultimate defeat.
The past is gone. We were unaware: The Soviets came, invaded us and we went out of Afghanistan to defend our country. We defended our country and that was right, but we made a mistake by leaving our country. It was one of the biggest mistakes we made, leaving the country.