Slurs, Imperialism and what it all means

I was reading the comments section of Loonwatch.com here and was somewhat taken aback by one poster who objected to what he/she called slurs in response to another poster who criticized the imperial government in the White House.  A third poster to the thread cited this source which I think made an excellent point of underscoring the imperial nature of today’s America  naming 135 countries that are currently home to American troops. More current data suggest that number is even higher.  That comes out to 66% of the countries in the world that  have US forces in them. I’m at a loss to understand what is the significance of having American troops in Cameroon, Australia, Kenya or Latvia, Nepal, Sweden or Suriname to name a few and ask are there troops from any of those countries here in America?  Hardly, but to this observer’s mind this more than anything else shows how  intent America is in leaving its footprint on the world’s stage and anyway you cut it that’s the classical definition of imperialism, something that was pointed out by other posters in Loonwatch‘s comment section. Perhaps the initial commenter objected to the negative connotation the word “imperialism” usually brings to political discussions but then he/she is displaying their bias.  Most likely many in US government don’t think the presence of American troops in 135+ countries is a bad thing as long as they are promoting “freedom” and “liberty” in those countries but such phrases as “freedom” and “liberty” are subjective terms whose implementation  might not be agreeable to the host countries.  Therefore the insistence of the presence of foreign forces in a country is also a condition of  imperialism.