Democracy Quote by Yaroslav Trofimov

If you are an eighteen or nineteen-year-old with little education, as is often the case, and you're put in charge of many, many people…

— Yaroslav Trofimov

The American official was trying to talk about aid and development projects and finally a local tribal chief got up and said, "Even if…

— Yaroslav Trofimov

Even if you look at Iran, those campaigners for human rights there, they don't want to have anything to do with America, because they…

— Yaroslav Trofimov

But in Afghanistan, the general rule was that since you were fighting the Taliban, which was not a lawful government force, the Geneva Conventions…

— Yaroslav Trofimov

Now as to the behavior of the soldiers: occupations always corrupt the occupiers.

— Yaroslav Trofimov

I think the behavior of the troops has been a huge factor in the rise of the insurgency and in the rise of the…

— Yaroslav Trofimov

In a country like Iraq with its culture of blood feuds - is that the more locals are killed, the more motivation there is…

— Yaroslav Trofimov

In the occupation in Afghanistan, there are tragedies as well. It's not as bad as in Iraq because there are fewer American troops. But,…

— Yaroslav Trofimov

Because no matter how much money we spend there [in Iraq], as long as the people there see this money as... as assistance that…

— Yaroslav Trofimov

The other problem is that the priority of many soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan is operational security: not getting killed. Now that is a…

— Yaroslav Trofimov

I did some embedded stuff. And if you are embedded, the only things you see are what the soldiers see, and if the people…

— Yaroslav Trofimov

So our own actions sometimes have undermined our safety, in our efforts to fight terrorism. The only way this can work is if we…

— Yaroslav Trofimov