The rise of jihadism in the cold war

I wanted to write an article about the connections of the US cold war policies and the rise of jihadism but during my research I found this piece at Salon.com. Its a comprehensible overview of how the cold war policies and the anti left paranoia of the Reagean aera have created the monstrosities that haunt us today.

"History takes no prisoners. It shows, with absolute lucidity, that the Islamic extremism ravaging the world today was borne out of the Western foreign policy of yesteryear."

President Reagan meeting with the Afghan Mujahideen in the Oval Office in 1983 (Credit: U.S. government)