Reaffirming Pakistan's resolve to defeat the militant insurgency, President Asif Ali Zardari said on Sunday that every effort would be made to keep collateral damage to the minimum, while fighting extremism in the hope of finding a solution. "We don't want to make one million dead," the president said, while citing the killings that took place in the anti-terror operations in Algiers and in Afghanistan, among other countries. Addressing a largely attended meeting of Pakistani-Americans at a local hotel here, he urged them to read contemporary history, not age-old history, about several instances of large-scale deaths resulting from several countries' attempts to wipe out insurgencies. "We want to avoid bloodshed," so that the effect was minimal and a solution found. "This moment calls for a lot of courage and at the same time a lot of thinking."