Vladimir Putin's clairvoyance

Osama bin Laden; attacks on New York and Washington; Islamic extremism - Reading an editorial containing the preceding subjects would be nothing out of the ordinary these days, rather par for the course in any discussion on the War on Terror. Now imagine these ideas being bandied about almost two years before September 11, 2001. In fact, they were penned in an op-ed by Russian leader Vladamir Putin, in November of 1999. Most extraordinary, Putin wrote the following cryptic scenario:

"....ordinary New Yorkers or Washingtonians, asleep in their homes. Then, in a flash, hundreds perish in explosions at the Watergate, or at an apartment complex on Manhattan's West Side. Thousands are injured, some horribly disfigured. Panic engulfs a neighborhood, then a nation."

His point of reference was the violence afflicted by Chechen separatists in the on-going conflict on Russian soil. For all the criticism thrown Putin's way by western media, this one editorial of his has validated his analysis on what it takes to combat extremism, a blueprint followed by his American comrade, George Bush, for the last 6 and a half years.