Random Thoughts on the Future Past

So,.last night, I went to see "V for Vendetta." Decent movie. Some of the anti-Bush rhetoric either wasn't there (prob just more MSM-whipped hysteria, IMN-SHO) or fairly oblique. If you remember all of the "scene borrowing" the Wachowski Brothers did in the Matrix, you'll spend just as much time with their latest. Here's what I referenced:

• 1984
• Beauty and the Beast
• Les Miserables
• Phantom of the Opera
• Man in the Iron Mask
• Any James Bond movie (scene with V viewed down the barrel of a pistol)

Anyway, my friends and I (yes, I have them), engaged in a spirited political debate afterwards and some of the topics raised go me to thinking:

Back in 1980, Josep Broz Tito was dictator of a contructed country called "Yugoslavia." Socially, it was a disparate group of varying ethnicities forced to live together under the barrel of an army rifle. Then, Tito passed way.

A power vacuum was created. Dictatorial figures seized power. Civil war broke out. Ethnic violence and genocide ran rampant through the Balkans.

And now, after nearly two decades, what has become of Yugoslavia?

• Slovenia - stable democracy, burgeoning economy and EU member
• Croatia - stable democracy, burgeoning economy and future EU member
• Macedonia - making slow and steady headway towards stabilizing its sovereignty
  
• Serbia - Once the heart of Yugoslavia, now trying to move on from its past. Largely ignored the death of dictator Slobodan Milosevic
• Montenegro - Partnered with Serbia in a joint republic, but struggling to secede from Serbia
• Bosnia - Its future is uncertain. Largely occupied by UNtied Nations troops.
  

Does any of this sound familiar? Can we afford the two-decade incubation period in the Middle East? Will the MSMedia allow the same?

In the year 2026, will the Unites States be doing business with Iraq, or Kurdistan, a Sunni republic and a Shi'a republic?

The phone lines, as always, are open.