Parallels between the War On Terror/Drugs: According to Glenn Greenwald

Glenn Greenwald wrote last week on the issues of both the War On Drugs and the War On Terror. The focus of the linked article was that both "Wars" are loosely defined, extremely expensive, and have led to an erosion of the basic civil liberties guaranteed in the constitution. Greenwald is an unabashed liberal, and his columns are certainly aimed towards like-minded liberals (although I'm sure many libertarians and quite a few conservatives would agree with the assertions of this article as well.)

Eisenhower warned this country against the the rise of the "Military Industrial" complex, meaning that the people that work for and build weapons to assist with war will, obviously, lobby in favor of war. And, given that a few major wars had built up a massive industry for the creation of munitions and other military goods, the investors in this industry had a vested interest in keeping the status quo, and an enormous amount of money with which to lobby politicians to continue using their goods and services. This continual cycle of private business propped up by government funding, Greenwald argues, is the background of a wide assortment of essentially unnecessary wars and unnecessary government programs. He makes the point that more and more, prisons have been privatized, providing financial incentive to increase the number of inmates, and to increase their sentences. The owners (and shareholders) of these prisons are paid per prisoner, per day. It goes without saying that an business built on incarceration will lobby for harsher laws and longer sentences. Greenwald then compares the American prison system with the rest of the world, and shows that we have by far the highest level of incarceration in the world, and American prison inmates account for 25% of all inmates in the world, coming from a country that makes up just 5% of the world's population.

Glenn Greenwald makes an argument for an end of the War On Drugs, and an end to the system that both imprisons these non-violent criminals and props up both the drug cartels and the owners and lobbyists of private prisons.

The issue of drug legalization is complicated. There are countless factors, ranging from moral or religious objection, to the concerns that drug legalization will increase addiction rates. Several countries have altered their drug laws with mixed results, but that is no guarantee that any such measure would work in this country.

I find this opinion article to be mostly reasonable, with the concerns very real. This country should reevaluate any industry or law when a part of it (I.E., the ratio of inmates in our prisons) is out of whack with the rest of the developed world. The article has a slight liberal bias, as expected, and many will disagree with his proposed solutions to this problem, but I would argue that most would agree that the prison system in American is a real problem.