I had just turned 10-years-old when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and plunged America into World War II.

America was probably Europe's equal scientifically by the end of World War I and certainly surpassed it after the chaos of World War II.

As British and French imperialism ebbed following the end of the Second World War, America became the main outside player in Arab affairs.

'War on terror' is a misnomer. It would be like calling America's involvement in World War II a 'war on kamikazism.' Terrorism, like kamikazism, is a tactic.

I was four years old when Pearl Harbor was bombed on December 7, 1941 by Japan, and overnight, the world was plunged into a world war. America suddenly was swept up by hysteria.

Even the building of a second British empire in the 19th century never fully healed the wound of losing America, and the end of Britain's imperial prestige after the second world war has cut deeper.

Once Europe's colonial empires were sent into deep decline, thanks to World War II, America became globalization's primary replicating force, integrating Asia into its low-end production networks across the second half of the twentieth century - just like Europe had integrated the U.S. before.

If you walk into the front hallway of the CIA, you will see, on your left, a statue of William 'Wild Bill' Donovan. Bill Donovan was the person who created the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services, which was America's spy agency during World War II and then kind of morphed into what's now the CIA.

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