Afghanistan's fall, a harbinger of US empire's decline?

THE World Trade Center attack that occurred 20 years ago, commemorated on Thursday in the US, still stands as the worst act of terrorism ever, with 3,000, mostly New Yorkers, killed.

But the US revenge for the attack - its wars against Afghanistan, Iraq and four Middle Eastern countries - is now being viewed as the most irrational, hubris-driven and even crime-laden violence inflicted by one country against another, in fact against six nations.