Yaroslav Trofimov Quotes

#1. But in Afghanistan, the general rule was that since you were fighting the Taliban, which was not a lawful government force, the Geneva Conventions did not apply. And that led to a lot of excesses in Afghanistan, excesses like Abu Ghraib that were already well-publicized.

Yaroslav Trofimov

#2. Well, it's a problem in general with the American military. If you are the biggest and the strongest military power in the world, you have this natural reluctance to learn the quirky ways of the natives in faraway lands.

Yaroslav Trofimov

#3. 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 are afraid that having American support will be the kiss of death for their movement. And that's really tragic.

Yaroslav Trofimov

#4. I think in Baghdad, any westerner, journalist or not, has a big dollar sign on his or her forehead. So, first and foremost, you are a ticket to unimaginable wealth. And that makes any trips out of the safe zones very risky.

Yaroslav Trofimov

#5. Long before 9/11 and the war in Iraq, a lot of people hated the United States and the West. But what the Iraqi war seems to have done, at least in ... I mean, I'm just reporting what I see from the people on the ground, is that it has silenced many pro-American forces in the Muslim world.

Yaroslav Trofimov

#6. 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 on the other end of the world, you have absolute power and you're not prepared for it.

Yaroslav Trofimov

#7. Because no matter how much money we spend there [in Iraq], as long as the people there see this money as ... as assistance that is unwelcome, as long as they continue to be humiliated in their own country by us ... I mean, the future looked bleak, and the future after that was in fact very bleak.

Yaroslav Trofimov

#8. I think the behavior of the troops has been a huge factor in the rise of the insurgency and in the rise of the anti-American feelings there[in Iraq].

Yaroslav Trofimov

#9. And if you look at the experience of Turkey, for example, where the modern Islamists are in power and are doing fine - this is very good. Because democracy is not possible in the Muslim world without bringing in the Islamists or part of the Islamists who hate us now into these governments.

Yaroslav Trofimov

#10. The American official was trying to talk about aid and development projects and finally a local tribal chief got up and said, "Even if you turn our country into heaven, we don't want it from you. Just leave us."

Yaroslav Trofimov

#11. The other problem is that the priority of many soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan is operational security: not getting killed. Now that is a very valid priority, but it has to be balanced against many other priorities, especially not killing too many locals in the process.

Yaroslav Trofimov

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

Yaroslav Trofimov

#13. 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, as I describe in the book, going out on patrol and coming into a village, the soldiers found a stash of documents and decided this was Taliban propaganda.

Yaroslav Trofimov