I beg to differ. The surveillance dtate enacted by the British makes the US look like a libertarian paradise. Snowden himself said the intelligence take in the UK is extensive enough to make the NSA salivate.
I was talking less about state surveillance (but yes, it's apalling. Especially infuriating is how they don't even think it's an issue.) but more about political rhetoric and things like the patriot act/ invading whole countries. You can't deny that the invasion of Iraq was based on fearmongering - remember those weapons of mass destruction?
Believe it or not, I'm arguing that the invasion of Iraq was a lot more "business as usual" in the course of empire than an anomaly. Vietnam was justified by the Gulf of Tonkin incident. We did the same thing with the war in the Philippines, the Mexican American war, etc. We've always been trigger-happy.