SNIP
>Someone, alot smarter than me, recently pointed out that the American Empire is just an extension of the British Empire. While the British Empire declined the American one rose, its actually reasonable to just view them as one in the same.

I would not call that person smarter than you. In fact, I would call him uninformed. Look at the the actions of the U.S. overseas - good and bad - and look at the history of the once British Empire and there is no comparison. We have definitely stuck our nose where it does not belong and stayed longer than was needed, but at least we did not murder hundreds of thousands of natives, take over the country and its government, and monepolized their production. The two countries that we could be acused of 'ruling' or 'occupying' (although that is a poor interpretation and is only used to put a more negative spin on it) are still in their infancy stage with no established government and successful police force to maintain security. In two or three years it can be reviewed again and scrutinized in compared to the British past but it is still to early for those. That does not take into consideration our history of supporting insurgents in other countries but we never took over those countries and ran them and controled the locals for own benefit as other countries have done. As for England, Egypt and cotton come immediately to mind... let's not forget the Sudan, India, and on and on and on...