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http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/2/AmericanFlag.jpg This decade was as awful as any peacetime decade in the nation's entire history. Between the West's ongoing struggle against radical Islam and our recent near-death economic experience (http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1942834,00.html)

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/lifted-chevy-truck-001.jpgAndy Serwer - TIME (http://www.time.com) - Nov 24, 2009

But will things get better? Please - no more economic disasters, attacks, pain at the pump --Ed.

At exactly two minutes after midnight on Jan. 1, 2000, an alarm sounded at a nuclear power plant in Onagawa, Japan. Government officials and computer scientists around the globe held their breath. Was this the beginning of a massive Y2K computer meltdown? Actually, no. It was an isolated event, one of a handful of glitches to occur (including the failure of 500 slot machines at two racetracks in Delaware) as the sun rose on the new decade. The dreaded millennial meltdown never happened.

Instead, it was the American Dream that was about to dim. Bookended by 9/11 at the start and a financial wipeout at the end, the first 10 years of this century will very likely go down as the most dispiriting and disillusioning decade Americans have lived through in the post–World War II era. We're still weeks away from the end of '09, but it's not too early to pass judgment. Call it the Decade from Hell, or the Reckoning, or the Decade of Broken Dreams, or the Lost Decade. Call it whatever you want — just give thanks that it is nearly over....http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1942834,00.html

Broken link to the original article. It has been a bummer of a decade. I feel for those whose retirement plans have been set back a decade.

Broken link to the original article. It has been a bummer of a decade. I feel for those whose retirement plans have been set back a decade.linked fixed

This decade has been bad all the way around...poll choices impacts the others

I didn't vote for the first one because it says "America" as opposed to "Worldwide." Also the 1st and 4th choices seem to me to be pretty much be the same thing, because wealth is more or less power in a well linked global economy

The wars that America has waged and the terrorist acts committed have been major contributing factors to the bad economy IMHO. Therefore for me it was the logical choice.

I think 9/11 and the war that has arisen from it has been the worst. Money and property can be replaced.

The lives of those who have died by terrorists are forever gone and cannot be brought back. There is nothing more disturbing than to be in fear for your life from cowardly fanatics who use planes, suicide and roadside bombs to kill. God bless our troops and bring them home safely. :flag: - Dale

Is it just me, or is it a little strange that Serwer calls this a "peacetime decade"?

Is it just me, or is it a little strange that Serwer calls this a "peacetime decade"?An interesting question.

It may not be like WWII, but this could be "The Mother of Asymetric Wars".

I don't know if Congress will ever declare war again...only time that might happen is against a major power with nuclear weapons and the Beltway may be a crater before that happens. ;)

Apparently, Congress rarely declares war (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_war_by_the_United_States#Formal). But they did authorize military force in Afghanistan and Iraq. It seems odd to me that what were clearly wars (and huge black holes for tax dollars) wouldn't be considered wars. Obviously neither was World War II (the last war formally declared by Congress), but they seem to contradict the idea of calling this a "peacetime decade."

If this was a peacetime decade I don't want to see the alternative. Tell that to the amputees who come home from the middle east. :( - Dale

Since my son was born this decade, I have a hard time seeing it as completely "bad". Some bad things but a whole lot of wonderful things have happened in my personal life.

But in the bigger sphere, it has been a dark era in too many ways to list here. The economic mining of the middle class, and the little-noticed gutting of our fundamental civil liberties are awful, but ultimately take a close second and third.

To me 9/11 and Iraq top it all. Besides the thousands of American lives lost in the 9/11 attacks and the "War on Terror" -- and tens of thousands of American soldiers damaged in various ways -- the number of Iraqi lives lost, by all legitimate accounts, greatly exceeds 100,000. They're people too. All in all the human suffering caused by these conflicts is hard to fathom.

To me 9/11 and Iraq top it all. Besides the thousands of American lives lost in the 9/11 attacks and the "War on Terror" -- and tens of thousands of American soldiers damaged in various ways -- the number of Iraqi lives lost, by all legitimate accounts, greatly exceeds 100,000. They're people too. All in all the human suffering caused by these conflicts is hard to fathom.

9/11.

Not because of the attack itself. I'm from the UK so I'm used to terrorism.

9/11 led to the 2nd Iraq war.