AP IMPACT: study suggests drones kill far fewer civilians than many Pakistanis believe

[eridani]

72. If they wanted to violently spread religion--

--then why weren't they doing it in 1950? How could anyone possibly take over a country if they aren't strong enough to employ any tactic other than terrorism, other than by the sponsorship of an imperial power such as the US?

BTW, terrorists have been in charge of Saudi Arabia since the 30s, when the Wahabists did a deal with the US and Britain. That's where the 9/11 hijackers came from, remember? The elites give the terrorists pretty much free reign over the general population to preserve their own privileges in exchange for our domination of their oil fields.

The way to fight terrorists is to quit trying to dominate their countries. They would instantly lose any appeal they have now to the general populace in those places.

BTW, the answer to the 1950 question is that ME nationalism in that era was strictly secular. The US and Britain overthrew the secular democrat Mossadegh in Iran for the crime of wanting to use his country's resources to benefit their own population. In that process, we specifically funded and encouraged the fundie whackjobs (who later supported Khomeini) to oppose secular democracy. Israel, for the same reasons, funded Hamas as an alternative to the secular PLO. The US and Pakistan established and funded the religious extremists in Afghanistan in the 80s.

Stop fucking with those countries and promoting religious nuts to fight secular nationalists, and the terrorism stops. Our involvement with Pakistan should be limited to keeping their nuclear stockpike out of the hands of nutcases. Easy enough to do through regular security procedures--no war necessary.