In the December 7, 2009 issue of Time magazine there was a seven page article about the last decade which it called the decade from hell, the writer claimed that the first ten years of the twenty first century will very likely go down as the most dispiriting and disillusioning decade Americans have lived through in the post world war two era.  In fact the last decade has been similarly hellish to lots of people allover the world including my own country which has been practically destroyed as a result of its invasion y the Americans and my own family when our lives turned upside down as a result of the mistaken and senseless shooting of my son by an American soldier in Baghdad on the 29th of March 2004, a calamity which left him in a vegetative state which I am sure a lot of this blog’s visitors are pretty familiar with, but today I am not talking about my son’s tragedy I am going to try highlighting some of the major events which had taken place during the last decade which is closing up in few days time.

When I started working on this update I was greatly tempted to call it like the Time’s piece a decade from hell, but I was a bit worried I might be infringing on the magazine’s rights I also thought that the magazine’s title was extra-sensational although the decade it was talking about was unusually dreadful, the last ten years has seen some of the most terrible events man has seen in the post second world war era. So I finally settled to the one I am using now.

The first decade of the 21st century started very inauspiciously, 2000 saw some terrible events in the united states and in the world, very early on in the year an air France Concorde crashed killing 13, the would be prime minister of Israel-Ariel Sharon- went to the temple mount, a visit which was not welcomed by the Palestinians and sparked the intifada which is still going on now and has already claimed thousands of lives on both sides. A conflict over which every effort to bring peace between the two belligerents have crumbled.

In the united states itself the year was equally appalling, very early on al-Qaeda attacked the American naval vessel Cole in the Yemeni waters killing 17 servicemen, the economic situation was showing unmistakable signs of deterioration which culminated in the terrible beating it took later on, now the wall street indicators have dropped to their lowest levels in a long time, the price of gasoline has shot to two dollars a gallon for the first time, the economy  would go early in 2001 into a very serious recession, to make things even worse the political situation in the country was gripped in a very nasty quarrel between the republicans and the democrats over the results of  presidential elections, the balloting w in favor of George W Bush [the Republican] but with an extremely narrow majority, a result which was challenged by the democrats shouting deception and fraud and started a long and very divisive litigation which was settled finally in favor of the winner by the supreme court, but it left the country badly divided and polarized.

George Bush was inaugurated in January he came to Washington with an ultraconservative team, the incident in Yemen has awakened them to the dangers to this country’s security from this organization and its affiliates and they were determined to crush it once and for all and they called their efforts the war on terrorism. But before they were comfortably settled in their places al-Qaeda attacked in a most vicious and brutal way on the 11th of September, 2001.  On that fateful day nineteen Islamic fanatics-fundamentalists were able to highjack few civilian jets and fly them into the world trade center bringing it down to earth killing 3000 and the other one hit one of the pentagon wings creating  great damage and some deaths , September 11 was a real shock and it forced the Americans to seriously question the security they had enjoyed before, sept 11 was a defining moment, everything changed after it, it redefined global politics , nothing after it was like before it. The Bush administration retaliated by waging war in Afghanistan ostensibly to capture bin-laden and his Talban protectors without any success allowing the war to drag on until now and getting deadlier. And then came the American’s fiasco in Iraq.  And don’t forget the wave of Wall Street scandals highlighted by Enron and WorldCom the largest bankruptcies in United States economic history to date.

In 2002 congress authorized military action in Iraq on the pretext that Saddam was becoming a threat to world peace and security because of his huge arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, he was already a real menace to his own people plus certain connections to al-Qaeda so he had to go. Emboldened by the carte blanche from congress the Bush administration began invading Iraq on the 19th march 2003 by carpet bombing Baghdad which was followed very swiftly by occupying the whole country in 19 days at the end of which Saddam fled his palace and his regime was in total collapse. President Bush said at that moment that the mission has been accomplished, but at the same time a vey committed and vicious insurgency was growing which would create incredible problems to the Americans with a great loss of blood and fortune during the following years. With the death toll in Iraq reaching more than a thousand in 2004.  In spite of the great troubles facing the Bush administration and the escalating opposition to the Iraq war president Bush was re-elected to a second term defeating the democratic senator john Kerry.  2003 also witnessed the Colombia space shuttle tragedy which disintegrated during its re-entry into the earth atmosphere after a very successful few days in outer space. The world  saw truly ferocious terrorist attacks on trains in Madrid killing more than 200, and on top of all that there was the Tsunami which killed more than 200,000 people in about a dozen countries in Southeast Asia and Africa.

In 2005 hurricane katrina struck new Orleans in southeast Louisiana killing more than 1500 and causing a 100 billion$ damage, it was the worst natural disaster in this country’s history. during the last days of 2006 saddam Hussein was executed by hanging with the American casualties reaching 3000. In 2007 the economic situation was getting worse with the gallon of gasoline reaching 3$and the federal bank chairman warning of a worsening economy. In 2008 democratic senator Barack Obama defeated the republican senator john  McCain in a wave of popular support promising change .

2008 was dominated by the collapse of the market when the Dow Jones dropped nearly 34% for the year, Lehman bothers filed for bankruptcy the stock market plunging in the worst decline since 1937, the barrel of oil hit 147$, on the Iraqi war front the death toll for the US troops reached 4.000, and during all that turmoil Illinois governor  was auctioning the senate seat which was vacated by president Obama. In 2009 The Government rescued GM and Chrysler -after they declared bankruptcy- by lending them billons of dollars and became part owner, Obama signed a787 billion dollars as a package to stimulate the economy to prevent its complete meltdown. Obama announces 275 billion dollars to stop  foreclosures which by that time have reached almost 2 million houses and were a very important factor in the economy’s collapse, the proposed budget was 3.6 trillion dollars with a projected deficit of 1.75 trillion dollars. The swindler Bernie Madoff  pleads guilty to fraud which was worth 65 billion dollars, he was ultimately sent to prison to serve a 150 years sentence

2009 was a very unusual and an extremely turbulent year in a very unusual and an extremely turbulent decade. there were many terrible events during that year, but 2009 was dominated in the US by two major issues, one is the efforts to reform the health care system, the other is the war in Afghanistan, but I am not going to talk about them, they are extremely complex and controversial, still unresolved, but I want to say few last words about Sarah Palin, remember her, don’t be surprise if you see her on the top of the republican ticket for the 2012 presidential campaign.

Merry Christmas and a very happy and prosperous new year.

Najeeb Hanoudi

Friday, Dec.25, 2009

Southfield/Michigan

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