Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Torture and the empire slogging toward doom

Sometimes it seems as if the opportunities are just too ripe. I've switched my emphasis to doing a book on drug legalization rather than foreign policy, because I think legalization at least of marijuana is just around the corner and I'd like to nudge the process along a bit. But there's so much evidence that the American Empire is in close to a terminal state that it makes me wonder which will crumble first. Oh, I know, Obama may not pull out of Iraq completely and he's committed not just to a surge but to nation-building in Afghanistan and something similar in Pakistan. But that effort will come a cropper and be recognized as futile faster than the Iraq war was. As I suggest in my most recent column for Antiwar.com, which touches on torture as well, it's as if the empire is a mindless machine that can't help continuing to do stupid things, and it drags those who think they're in charge along with it.

I think I'm going to live to see the end of the drug war and something like the end of empire, whether it's admitted or done consciously or not. Do you know how exciting that is? And I thought the end of the Soviet Empire (which I knew was coming at least 10 years before) was exciting.

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