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The Yikes Years (My tile: World History - Where are we headed?)
Washington Post Magazine ^ | Sunday, November 21, 2004; Page W16 | David Von Drehle

Posted on 11/21/2004 12:13:23 PM PST by ironman

[sinp] February 1998. A bloodthirsty zealot with a billionaire father declared war on America. Weird. From some cave or compound in Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden dispatched a fatwa to a London newspaper announcing the sacred duty of Muslims to kill Americans anywhere they could find us. Only a handful of us even noticed. But this strange event turned out to be truly historic.

[snip] So while most Washington journalists were tracking each up and down of the presidential campaign, I tried to look past this single election, and even Bush's second term, toward the larger pattern of things. I began reading books with titles like The Future of Freedom and The Clash of Civilizations, magazines with names like Foreign Affairs and the National Interest and Technology Review. I began e-mailing provocative young scholars and sage older ones. I started paying visits to the offices of learned women and men who are paid to ponder where America is and where it is headed. I discovered that they tend to be concentrated along a stretch of Massachusetts Avenue NW, which I came to refer to as "Big Think Boulevard."

[snip] I found that some of these thinkers fear we are living through the end of the Western alliance, while others believe America's power is already seeping away to China. I met thinkers who fret most about nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists and others who prefer to worry about the speed at which our debtor nation is skidding toward fiscal crisis. You know things are scary when you find a wistful note of nostalgia for the relative stability of the Cold War creeping into the voices of level-headed people.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: democracy; history; islamicism; superpower
This is a long but interesting article.
1 posted on 11/21/2004 12:13:23 PM PST by ironman
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To: ironman

My "Tile"?


2 posted on 11/21/2004 12:25:51 PM PST by stockpirate (Not we must take our mandate and do the deed.)
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To: stockpirate

Excellent comment. Not.


3 posted on 11/21/2004 12:43:22 PM PST by ironman
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To: ironman

Um, so what is the conclusion of the article (he said, not willing to give the Wash Post a page view)... Are we doomed?


4 posted on 11/21/2004 12:53:47 PM PST by The Electrician
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To: ironman

Should be "my title?" the mods will correct if you ask.


5 posted on 11/21/2004 1:16:52 PM PST by stockpirate (Not we must take our mandate and do the deed.)
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To: ironman
"I found that some of these thinkers fear we are living through the end of the Western alliance. Or... ...we're living through the last years in western history when western people can negotiate and appease their way out of extinction.
6 posted on 11/21/2004 1:51:27 PM PST by eagle11 (Judge a religion not by the words of its adherents, but by their actions.)
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To: ironman
".....Osama bin Laden.....Only a handful of us even noticed......"

Unfortunately, that "handful" did not include anyone within the Klintoon Administration including Bubba himself.

7 posted on 11/21/2004 1:56:06 PM PST by DoctorMichael (The Fourth Estate is a Fifth Column!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
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To: stockpirate

You could have asked instead of posting a useless comment.


8 posted on 11/21/2004 2:26:50 PM PST by ironman
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To: ironman

Bookmarking.


9 posted on 11/21/2004 2:50:07 PM PST by headsonpikes (Spirit of '76 bttt!)
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To: ironman

I wasn't sure that is why I put a question mark.


10 posted on 11/21/2004 3:10:13 PM PST by stockpirate (Not we must take our mandate and do the deed.)
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