Richard Engel Quotes

“Every child is taught if you try to please everyone, you end up upsetting everyone.”

— Richard Engel

Insurgencies are easy to make and hard to stop. Only a few ingredients need to combine to create an insurgency; like oxygen and fire, they're very common and mix all too often. The recipe is, simply, a legitimate grievance against a state, a state that refuses to compromise, a quorum of angry people, and access to weapons.

— Richard Engel

'Shabiha' is a difficult word to translate into English. It comes from the word Syrians used to describe the luxury Mercedes favored by the Assad family's operatives that the enforcers of the regime used to move money, smuggle weapons and intimidate opponents.

— Richard Engel

“For years, Lebanese have known that Palestinian camps like Nahr al-Barid and Ain al-Helwe - hopeless slums crowded with generations of disenfranchised Palestinian refugees who can't go home because of Israel, and can't work because of Lebanese laws - are awash with gunmen, criminals and, since the war in Iraq, al-Qaida inspired jihadists.”

— Richard Engel

“Shaped like Texas, but twice as big, Mali is one of the poorest countries in the world. It exports almost nothing - mostly just cotton, gold and livestock - and doesn't have enough money to import much of anything, either.”

— Richard Engel

“I have seen heroics - soldiers saving other soldiers' lives - and horrors.”

— Richard Engel

“War does horrible things to human beings, to societies. It brings out the best, but most often the worst, in our human nature.”

— Richard Engel

“Many senior government officials, CIA, FBI, counter terrorism officials - when they look back at the decade, they effectively conclude that the United States overreacted after 9/11.”

— Richard Engel

“Many in the U.S. military believe ISIS needs to be immediately, and repeatedly, smashed by American drones and warplanes.”

— Richard Engel

“I'm basically a pacifist.”

— Richard Engel

“I think it's really important to start thinking about infrastructure as essential national security.”

— Richard Engel

Every war has its demons.

— Richard Engel

The dangers of an Afghan collapse are many: Afghan deaths, a loss of American prestige, a loss of NATO prestige, a moral blow to U.S. troops and veterans, a Taliban resurgence, huge setbacks for women, and greater power for Pakistan and Pakistani extremists.

— Richard Engel

“Foreign aid projects have pumped billions of dollars into the Afghan economy.”

— Richard Engel

“The Taliban may pine for a pre-industrial society, but most Afghans do not.”

— Richard Engel

9/11 was a terrible, horrific, tragic day.

— Richard Engel

“If democracy brings an undemocratic group to power, is that a victory for democracy?”

— Richard Engel

“Many governments are quick to condemn Assad, but a dwindling number of them would celebrate a rebel victory in Damascus.”

— Richard Engel

The Muslim Brotherhood is much more hardline than Turkish Islamists.

— Richard Engel

“The people of Gaza are trapped. Israel has sealed the border, and they have no way to leave the Gaza Strip to do business.”

— Richard Engel

“There weren't many weapons in Egypt in the 1990s. Police controls on guns were very strict back then. That is no longer the case in Egypt today.”

— Richard Engel

“Traditionally, all the kings of Saudi Arabia have been sons of the founder of Saudi Arabia, and they've gone from one son to the next.”

— Richard Engel

“There was an insurgency under President Hosni Mubarak in the 1990s. Egyptian police and soldiers fought weekly battles with Islamists in the sugarcane fields and thick reeds along the Nile in rural southern villages like Minya, Sohag, Enna and Assiout.”

— Richard Engel

“Based on the people l've spoken to, I think the impression is: Is America safer from Al Qaeda? Yes. Is America weaker as a nation because we have overspent and over-focused on Al Qaeda? Yes. I think that would be the conclusion that people seem to have come to and that I tend to agree with.”

— Richard Engel

President George W. Bush, in his now-rare public appearances and interviews, still refuses to acknowledge he did anything to help Iran. But it doesn't really matter what he thinks.

— Richard Engel

“The United States encouraged Iraqis to rise up after Saddam Hussein's army was driven out of Kuwait. Washington assumed Saddam was weak after losing the 1991 Gulf War. Iraqis rose up, but Saddam's troops killed thousands - Iraqis say tens of thousands - in a counter-offensive.”

— Richard Engel

“Israel sees the world just beyond its borders collapsing.”

— Richard Engel

“It seems nothing good comes out of Abu Ghraib.”

— Richard Engel

“Unfortunately, the American policy towards Pakistan is just to worry and express concern, and that is not a clear policy at all.”

— Richard Engel

“Afghanistan was always a backwater in the Islamic world.”

— Richard Engel

Every country where the the United States maintains troops has a status of forces agreement.

— Richard Engel

Hamas is a Palestinian political party with an aggressive militant wing.

— Richard Engel

“I had some training on how to cope with hostage-taking.”

— Richard Engel

“Iraq was home of the Abbasid Caliphate, a golden age when the Muslim world was at the forefront of math, science and medicine.”

— Richard Engel

“ISIS is in many ways a creation of the Syrian regime.”

— Richard Engel

“Israel is shutting out the Arab world and shutting itself in.”

— Richard Engel

It's probably time to end the global war on terrorism.

— Richard Engel

“Not surprisingly, in most Sunni regions there has little appetite for free U.S.-sponsored elections.”

— Richard Engel

“Once you start bombing in Syria, when you start looking for targets, there will be a lot.”

— Richard Engel

“There is no Afghan Awakening Movement.”

— Richard Engel

Under Islamic law, adoption is difficult.

— Richard Engel

“War is not a petri dish to examine and analyze our emotions.”

— Richard Engel

A nuclear program has arguably worked as a deterrent for North Korea and other states - would Moammar Gadhafi have been deposed and summarily killed if Libya had had nuclear weapons? Iranians might not think so.

— Richard Engel

“Hezbollah and the government are only two of 18 political factions in Lebanon, most of them armed. There are militant Christian groups, Palestinian radicals, al-Qaida, Druze militias and even armed bands of Marxists still operating in Lebanon.”

— Richard Engel

If you're in part of rebel-controlled Syria, and suddenly your house blows up or a building next to you blows up, it would be convenient for rebels to say, 'It was the Americans.'

— Richard Engel

“In popular Egyptian and regional culture, women are seen as weak, easy victims to temptation in the same way Eve couldn't resist that shiny apple in the Garden of Eden.”

— Richard Engel

“Syrians need to prepare for the aftermath if the Assad regime falls. Atrocities that could be considered war crimes have been committed in this country, and Syrians should rightly demand that the perpetrators be held accountable.”

— Richard Engel

“When you look at - when you talk to people in Africa and across the Middle East, they're not satisfied with the way things are going. Sure, this idea of democracy was injected into the region, but it has brought mostly chaos.”

— Richard Engel

“You gotta love the names. They're so eager, earnest, and hopeful: Camp Prosperity, Camp Liberty, and Camp Victory are the names of just a few of the U.S. military bases in Baghdad.”

— Richard Engel

“Everest has a special place in all of our imaginations. For centuries, Everest was a little bit like the moon. It was the place where everyone wanted to go. Empires wanted to be able to say that they were the first to put a climber on top of Everest. So when a tragedy happens up on that mountain, I think it has a global resonance. Everybody's heard of Everest. Everybody knows what Everest is and what it means, and the significance.”

— Richard Engel