Pope inadvertently quotes Putin to chide West's Afghan war

Pope Francis criticized the West’s recent involvement in Afghanistan as an outsider’s attempt to impose democracy — although he did it by citing Russia’s Vladimir Putin while thinking he was quoting Germany’s Angela Merkel

MADRID -- Pope Francis has criticized the West's recent involvement in Afghanistan as an outsider's attempt to impose democracy — although he did it by citing Russia's Vladimir Putin while thinking he was quoting Germany's Angela Merkel. Asked during a radio interview aired Wednesday about the new political map taking shape in Afghanistan after the United States and its allies withdrew from the Taliban-controlled country after 20 years of war, the pope said he would answer with a quote that he attributed to the German chancellor, whom he described as “one of the world's greatest political figures.” “It’s necessary to stop the irresponsible policy of enforcing its own values on others and attempts to build democracy in other countries based on outside models without taking into account historic, ethnic and religious issues and fully ignoring other people’s traditions,” the pope said, using his own translation into Spanish. But the words were spoken last month by the Russian president in the presence of Merkel, during her visit to Moscow.