In 2010, Obama will have a miserable year, NATO may lose in Afghanistan, the UK gets a regime change, China needs to chill, India's factories will overtake its farms, Europe risks becoming an irrelevant museum, the stimulus will need an exit strategy, the G20 will see a challenge from the "G2", African football will unite Korea, conflict over natural resources will grow, Sarkozy will be unloved and unrivalled, the kids will come together to solve the world's problems (because their elders are unable), technology will grow ever more ubiquitous, we'll all charge our phones via USB, MBAs will be uncool, the Space Shuttle will be put to rest, and Somalia will be the worst country in the world. And so the Tens begin.

The Economist: The World in 2010. [more inside]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Nov 14, 2009 - 60 comments

Well, for a fact or two, The Beirut Wall Isn't Falling, Lebanon is not Ukraine and it is not democracy that's on the march in the Middle East. And while remembering all those arguments made 1,500 deaths ago--not to mention those so far uncounted but estimated at 100,000+ civilian deaths--let it be, all the while the Iraq War compels Pentagon to rethink Big-Picture Strategy, it is that American military intevention which makes America as a Revolutionary Force in the Middle East, according to some. Meanwhile, Kishore Mahbubani, author of Beyond the Age of Innocence: Rebuilding Trust between America and the World lists Five Strategic Mistakes the West has made which continue to destabilize the Islamic world. Along related lines, comes The Origins of al Qaeda’s Ideology: Implications for US Strategy. Sound bites, wishful thoughts and stage managed demonstrations aside, could it be something more thoughtful might be required? Say, like, Understanding Islamism ? (Now available in new slow acting convenient Word or pdf form) Say, Which War Is This Anyway ?
posted by y2karl on Mar 11, 2005 - 54 comments

A View from the Eye of the Storm. An Arab intellectual in Europe ponders on the Muslim world and comes to some interesting conclusions. Israel is a sideshow. Iran is the most dangerous country in the world.. in the long run the only way for us (the West) to win the war of terror is to force the problem nations to reform both politically and culturally.via Steven Den Beste weblog
posted by stbalbach on Jun 25, 2004 - 45 comments

Muslim states hate us because their culture is backwards and corrupt, according to a Wall Street Journal editorial. The writer, tired of America-bashing, explores the inferiority complex of the Arab world: "Like Third World Marxists of the 1960s, who put blame for their own self-inflicted misery upon corporations, colonialism and racism--anything other than the absence of real markets and a free society--the Islamic intelligentsia recognizes the Muslim world's inferiority vis-à-vis the West, but it then seeks to fault others for its own self-created fiasco. Government spokesmen in the Middle East should ignore the nonsense of the cultural relativists and discredited Marxists and have the courage to say that they are poor because their populations are nearly half illiterate, that their governments are not free, that their economies are not open, and that their fundamentalists impede scientific inquiry, unpopular expression and cultural exchange." via kuro5hin
posted by swift on Feb 26, 2002 - 36 comments