>and has even lead the debacle in some instances (see: how he
>actually bragged and was proud of authoring the Patriot Act)

Hey, it's got "patriot" in the name and we all know that's good.

>Question: Do you think this is a universal truth? That is:
>is there any candidate you could see changing this arc of
>history? Or are we perhaps looking to the wrong person/entity
>(a United States President) for this change - as it's
>something that has to take effect within the larger
>culture/body politic?

I mean, winding down empire is necessarily a messy process and nobody initiates it out of the kindness of their own heart. One area where we typically see eye to eye, even though it's always fun to talk about candidates, is that they're tools to be used and I think (and you may disagree here) that any theory of change that starts from the top is going to fail because the credentials that we require to get that job in the first place are a thirst for this sort of violence.

BUT, as your question also aptly indicates - it's the one area where the President has immense, unchecked power. So I guess there's no good reason to discard the possibility. As long as we have a USA, we're going to have a president. One that is disinclined to pursue all this bloodshed can do a ton of good, and do it without many institutional obstacles. Or, at least, we have to believe that if we want democracy right? That at some point we can say, loudly, "stop blowing people up" and they ... will? Or maybe not. The end of the fourth republic in France was precipitated by (among other things) a large and violent public outcry about France's violence abroad - but the outcome was, uh, obviously a lot more ambiguous than "no more of that".

I imagine we have too much invested in this imperial project. It feels like it would take an immense shift in culture to:

a)pay attention to what we do abroad
b)care
c)move to stop it

and even then, we're so good at rationalizing that the next colonial disaster would inevitably be treated as a different case, requiring a different standard, etc.

So, I guess my answer is "no"