| Terrorist attacks have been increasing every year since the 1990s, and especially since September 11, 2001. All this goes back to the early 1970s, when OPEC (the Arab dominated oil cartel) was formed and the price of oil more than doubled. Most of the new cash went to Saudi Arabia and a lot of it was donated to Islamic charities. These groups, and the Saudi government, then sent money (to build mosques and religious schools) and missionaries to Moslem countries to spread the very conservative brand of Saudi Sunni Islam. This and the Iranian revolution of 1979 (that created a Shia Moslem religious dictatorship in Iran during the 1980s) are the cause of most of the subsequent increase in Islamic terrorism. The Islamic radicals were inspired, and able to network, in Pakistan during the 1980s, where the Saudis supplied billions of dollars for weapons and other supplies to support Afghan tribesmen fighting Russians in Afghanistan. Thousands of Islamic radicals from all over the world went to Pakistan to help out. Moslems pitched this as a jihad and a victory, despite the fact that the Russians left more because of economic collapse in the Soviet Union than anything else. But Islam has always thrived on fictional victories and that continues. |