From the NYT Op-ed: "The Terrorist Want to Destroy Pakistan, Too"

President Zardari of Pakistan wrote an interesting Op-Ed piece in the New York Times, where he cites the influence of the Cold War on the modern day terrorist situation:

(an excerpt, if I may)

These militants did not arise from whole cloth. Pakistan was an ally of the West throughout the cold war. The world worked to exploit religion against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan by empowering the most fanatic extremists as an instrument of destruction of a superpower. The strategy worked, but its legacy was the creation of an extremist militia with its own dynamic.

Pakistan continues to pay the price: the legacy of dictatorship, the fatigue of fanaticism, the dismemberment of civil society and the destruction of our democratic infrastructure. The resulting poverty continues to fuel the extremists and has created a culture of grievance and victimhood."

Read the complete article here :

(PS - when he says, "the world," in the first paragraph, feel free to replace "the world" with "the United States," and/or "The Reagan Administration")