RoadClosed... anytime... let me know when you're in town
bballad....firstly lets get this right, there has been no empire for donkeys years I'm not that stupid.... neither am I one of those misty eyed English people that dream of better days during the Empire - my argument with you has absolutely nothing to do with the old empire anyway - it's more about your attitude towards people who are, perhaps wrongly, your friends
Influence is not restricted to military might - once you pull your head out of the ground you might recognise that. A country (whether its the UK or any other) cannot be said to be irrelevant if it still has political or economic influence. Economically the UK currently has one of the strongest positions in Europe and I think the latest figures show that the UK is amongst the top 5 richest nations in the world - which I wouldn't say was totally irrelevant.
Also you should keep in mind that currently the UK is one of your strongest political supporters in Europe (especially w.r.t the war on terrorism) - you seem to quickly forget how our own PM went around doing the diplomatic effort on behalf of America because Bush probably isn't capable of doing it that well. I'm not going into whether Blair should have done that or not, the fact is he did and the fact is that America had a lot more support in Europe than you would otherwise have done for going into Iraq for example. Now if you're going to tell me that kind of political influence is irrelevant then you are far more naive than I ever thought.
Coming back to Empires for a second... if America wants to be the next Empire... it isn't all a bed of roses you know - you have to take responsibility for your actions and you have to clean up the mess you leave behind - the UK didn't do such a great job of that so don't make the same mistake as we did
Z
