Are you joking? The last thing in the World I would ever want, aside from being castrated by a rusty milling machine, is for my country to be the "most powerful country in the world". Such countries are without exception tyrants. They are universally detested. I enjoy being a citizen of a country that is NOT the most powerful country in the World.

I'm not jealous of the USA, I am anxious about what the USA may do next. The USA is armed and dangerous.

The USA would never have been invaded by the Nazis in the '40's. They were utterly incapable of such a transatlantic logistical effort. They weren't even strong enough at sea to invade England across a 20 mile channel, for God's sake! Did you know that Admiral Raeder, the German navy commander, told Hitler when the war started that with the naval forces available to him all his men could promise was to "die gallantly" (and they did...). It was England which ruled the seas in Europe.

You did not fight the Germans out of "foresight", you fought them because the Japanese were silly enough to attack you first, and Hitler was then silly enough to immediately declare war ON the USA a day later!!!!!!! Did you know that? He saved you guys the trouble of making your own minds up about it, and I bet you would have waited another 6 months to do it if he hadn't been such a prat as to do it for you.

What Chamberlain did was try to buy time, because he felt that Britain was not strongly armed enough with modern weapons yet in 1938...and because he was naive enough to believe that Hitler would keep his word and NOT occupy all of Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain declared war on Hitler when Poland was invaded a year later, because he had been lied to and fooled once and that was enough. I don't necessarily call that appeasement, but I do call it poor judgement. They should have called Hitler's bluff in 1938. If they had, the German army would have overthrown Hitler's government with a coup and declared martial law, and the Nazis would have been kaput. Too bad it didn't happen.

The French, by the way, fought bravely against the Germans in 1940, but with WWI tactics. They were completely out-thought by the new German blitzkrieg tactics, mainly enabled by the Luftwaffe and the tank divisions. The French and British outnumbered the Germans significantly on the ground in men, tanks, and artillery. They were virtually equal to the Germans in aircraft. The French tanks were superior one-on-one to the German tanks, and so were the British heavy Matilda tanks, which were almost impregnable to any German tank gun of the time. But...the Germans used new, imaginative air and bitzkrieg tactics which proved absolutely decisive. Those tactics involved first nullifying the enemy airforce by hitting forward airfields, then breaking through a fortified line in one small area with massive air and tank forces and enveloping supply routes to the rear, thus nullifying the enemy forces in that line.

In a similar way, the Isrealis utterly defeated powerful Arab air and ground forces in 1967.

I never said Prescott Bush gave the Germans ALL their arms, though I bet he wished he could have landed such a big contract! He wsa making good money. I said he (among others) armed them. He helped arm them. Look it up.

I am not minimizing the American accomplishments in WWII, which were huge. I am pointing out that others also made huge contributions to victory. It was the USA which stood to profit most in the end, because no one could reach them and bomb them and their own land was left undamaged. This enabled the USA to become the most powerful country in the World after 1945, because they were the only participant not to be materially and financially devastated by that war.

When one empire fades, another takes over. The British Empire faded after 1945 and the American and Russian empires took its place. The USA then took 50 years to spend the Russian empire into bankruptcy, causing the collapse of the Soviet Union. The USA now figures it can do anything it wants in the world, and Britain is riding on the USA's coattails, like a jackal hoping to get a bite or two for itself when the big lion is finished eating.

What you don't get, Pogo, is that imperial powers are not nice guys who go around trying to help other people and give them freedom. They are devouring carnivores with big appetites. They must delude their own public into believing they are doing it for all kinds of wonderful idealistic reasons, otherwise their own public would stop supporting the government.

The British did that for 300 years. Napoleon did it for maybe 15 years. Hitler did it for a few years. Tojo did it for a few years. The Soviet Union did it for more than 50 years. The USA has been doing it ever since they took land belonging to some unfortunate Mexicans and Indians, but they've been doing it on a much bigger scale since 1945, and specially since George Bush the Elder took office.