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I spent November and December in Bangladesh, based in the NW corner of the country.  Most young men I spoke with said they were either planning to go or dreaming of going to Pakistan to seek out the Taliban and sign up.  Why?  Because, “America is trying to take away our religion and we must fight!”  Even very poor subsistence farmers and teashop owners asked me over and over, “Why does America want to take away our religion?  We are the poorest people on the planet, why does the richest want to come and take the one thing we have, our religion?”  Also, a response heard over and over was, “We have to fight because we don’t want our daughters becoming Britney Spears drug addict whores like all the rest of America’s daughters.”  When asked if they thought the U.S. would change now that Obama would be in power, they thought that the U.S. would not really change because it is a Christian nation that is trying to wipe out Islam.  

posted 4 years, 1 month ago
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