"The Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan is only about 7 years old, there never having been Pakistani Taliban until the early 21st century–it was a phenomenon of the Soviet ethnic cleansing of Afghans, which forced 3 million into refugee camps in Pakistan, where many became radicalized. (And were encouraged in that direction by the Reagan administration)."

But, when I think of the timelines, the events you site were basically back in the 1980's. So, if they were the cause, you'd have expected the TTP to arise at around the same time. Yet, you point out that they only arose 7 years ago.

What happened 7 or 8 years ago? It was Bush and the Democrats both agreeing that launching a war on Afghanistan in the region was a great idea.

Doesn't it seem much more likely that the rising of this new group in the last 7 years is much more to do with the US bipartisan war in the region that it had as anything to do with Charlie Wilson's war of 20 years ago?

Starving and bombing the civilians of Gaza falls under that definition, as does the regular murder of Afghan civilians being undertaken by those CIA people when they were blown up. But blowing up people engaged in such activity in someone else's country is not terrorism by the Pentagon's definition, no more than it would have been terrorism for one of Washington's soldiers to set a match to some gunpowder to kill senior British officers at the cost of his own life.

And it must be said that although the British burned some American seaports, they never contemplated the sorts of atrocities that are routine in America's colonial wars today.

New details have emerged of the failures that led to the deaths of seven CIA agents and one Jordanian agent in Afghanistan

The Meaning of al Qaeda's Double Agent

The jihadists are showing impressive counterintelligence ability that the CIA seems to have underestimated

It is certainly higher now, as much less food is entering, unfortunately I don't think a solid figure is available.

From Glen Greenwald's piece "Helen Thomas Deviates From the Terrorism Script":

"The evidence of what motivates Terrorism when directed at the U.S. is so overwhelming and undeniable that it takes an extreme propagandist to pretend it doesn't exist.

What is (John) Brennan so afraid of? It's true that religious fanaticism is a part of their collective motivation, but why can't he just say what's so obviously true: "they claim that the U.S. is interfering in, occupying and bringing violence to their part of the world, they cite things like civilian deaths and our support for Israel and Guantanamo and torture, and claim that their terrorism is in retaliation"? "

Do you not believe in self defense?

Maybe your use of this phrase hinges on the word "crackpots", because surely by invading and occupying a country you are responsible for the ensuing civil unrest. You can't expect to illegally invade a country without encountering legitimate resistance.

Otherwise, for example, the Nazis would be blameless for the actions of the French Resistance. I wouldn't call them crackpots. Would you have expected them to behave like MLK?