In The Beginning Was Money

And the money was given to the ISI (via wired):

A very broad pattern was established in which the CIA subcontracted the anti-Soviet jihad to ISI. Pakistani intelligene is a division of the Pakistani army and not organized as a civilian intelligence service. ISI is generally commanded by a two-star general, and its cadres are drawn from the officer corps of the Pakistan army.

They are organized in clandestine regional bureaus. The Afghan Bureau became the instrument of the anti-Soviet jihad. These were often Pashtuns, who had language and local identity and were seconded to the Bureau for long periods of time.

Why did the CIA turn over its political program in the jihad to ISI? Partly the Agency was scarred by its experience in Vietnam, and there was a sense of no more "hearts and minds" for us. We’ll let the Pakistanis figure out who the winners and losers are politically. If they have a complicated regional agenda that is even more Islamist than we would like, so be it. We will focus on the main adversary, the Soviet Union. We won’t try to tell the Pakistanis how to run politics in the region.”

That established a pattern in which the United States and the Saudis together turned over enormous sums of money to ISI and said, “You pick the winners.” ISI chose Hekmatyar as their primary winner, and Hekmatyar, in turn, created a nexus in which al Qaeda thrived by the end of the 1980s.

And the we in the region suffer while the country that started it all goes on.

SIMI

A dispassionate analysis of how SIMI turned to violence. Very informative.

...adding, why don't we get more of such analyses instead of generalizations about all Muslims being somehow predisposed to violence and terrorism and Islam being a religion that advocates jihad etc...

Breeding Violence

From DH:

But that was when I saw the wide, silent eyes of the families’ children as we screamed at their father — their hero, their protector — and wrested from him the reins of power inside his own house. And that’s when it started to dawn on me just what kind of effect our actions were having on the next generation.

And Times Now invited an Israeli commentator to discuss how to combat terror just after the UP bombings. Though another Indian expert did point out that Israel was a theocratic state that was using overwhelming military power - with consequent toll of civilians - to achieve its aims.