You're welcome, @kurtbeil! Hopefully more people will check this out - it's always nice to have a perspective other than the default provided by our mainstream media. Even after having lived and worked in the region, I still feel kinda limited in my understanding of the situation (I was a flight attendant, nothing super fancy). But, I did get to meet people from various parts of the world, and listen to their perspectives on this, as well as share mine as a U.S. expat. It seems like many of the misconceptions people have come not from willful ignorance, but from a lack of transparency surrounding the true politcal and economic forces that are causing the confusion and paranoia, allowing a climate of "terrorism" to flourish for the benefit of those who have the advantage of seeing the whole picture while simultanrously obscuring it from the public view.

The facts are out there (as you've just demonstrated with your super informative article and links), we've just gotta look a lot harder for it than we should. At least we've got platforms in which we can encourage independant critical thought and info (such as in your post), and things will be changing for the better soon. :)