Are you a domestic terrorist?

[kandrathe]

And, as I said, you'd be wrong. The US was projecting its power across the entire continent almost two hundred years ago, and across the entire globe over one hundred years ago. This is not a post-WWII phenomenon. This is not restricted to Central America.

Seeing that the Constitution was not even ratified until December 15, 1791... Two hundred years is a stretch. I seem to recall some hootenanny around 1812-1814 where some hooligans took turns burning down each others public buildings. I wouldn't quite call the US a world power at that time projecting power across the continent. I mean, unless you call a few regiments of militia men with muskets a projections of world power. The US army military across the whole of the US at the start of the war was at most 7,000 inexperienced, poorly outfitted, and poorly led men. Had Britain actually tried, they would have walked over the US in a heart beat. I'm not saying that the US was isolated before WWII, and not engaged in skirmishes around the globe. They were, but mostly things that required a squad of marines to scare away pirates or escort some stranded US citizen to safety. Even for WWI, we sent over a token force of ill trained men who ran in unprepared and were slaughtered.

I mean, the only people that we might have intimidated prior to WWII would have been Canada and Mexico... well, I see what you mean. :-)