Richard Engel

Richard Engel
Richard Engelis an American journalist and author who is NBC News' chief foreign correspondent. He was assigned to that position on April 18, 2008, after being the network's Middle East correspondent and Beirut Bureau chief. Engel was the first broadcast journalist recipient of the Medill Medal for Courage in Journalism for his report "War Zone Diary"...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth16 September 1973
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
ISIS controls a territory roughly the size of Maryland where 8 million people live. If it's attacked and toppled, who will fill the void?
Mali exists mostly to itself. Few people go there. Few Malians leave. Most of Mali's 13 million people live, and seem to live quite happily, off the rice, corn and millet they grow and the long-horn cattle and goats they keep.
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.
Egypt has a devout population. People go out, they pray, they fast.
The people of Gaza are trapped. Israel has sealed the border, and they have no way to leave the Gaza Strip to do business.
I think the Chinese model is one that appeals more and more in the developing world. People see that an authoritarian state can hold onto power, can hold on to stability and can drive the economy forward.
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.
How can you claim infallibility and claim that in these 114 [drone] strikes there was just one mistake -- one person killed that was a civilian -- and at the same time say, 'Well, we don't really know how many people were killed or who they were, but we know they weren't civilians'? I don't know how you can do that.
Putting a bomb in a dumpster or putting it with a timer by a race, it is not the kind of - similar to the attacks that we've seen where people open fire with assault rifles and things like that.
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.
Israel specifically does not want Syria to hand over weapons, chemical or conventional, to Hezbollah.
Israel sees the world just beyond its borders collapsing.
Israel is shutting out the Arab world and shutting itself in.
Israel is becoming a fortress. Fences along the borders with Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria.