We'd be "administering" places we occupied during WWIISure, amongst intelligent members of the world community it is a tongue-in-cheek joke at Americans we know to have broad shoulders and much to be proud of.
But the legacy of history can not be lightly airbrushed away. A great deal of America's founding wealth (like Britain's) was dependent upon the evils of the slave trade. The USA quite rightly avoided the model of social hegemony of the traditional 19th century empires - but it certainly chose to benefit from maintaining an economic choke lead around the throat of many territories in its power through the course of the first and second world wars.
The current context of this same argument is over the degree of indebtedness of so-called Third World countries. We are currently achieving a more disastrous effect on the states of Africa by financially bleeding them dry than by the worst byproducts of the imperial era.
But this is not much to do with words... so raise your glasses, all, to a fine and much abused word:
justice![/rant]
