Sing along with me Penn State! Gimme that funky James Brown sound!

IIIIIII FEEL GOOD. Da-duh da-duh da-duh DAH. We beat those Iraquis. Da-duh da-duh da-duh DAH. Casualties were low! Da-duh da-duh da-duh da. Now Saddam is low too. Da-dah da-duh da-duh dump ... It's true! Bomp, bomp. George knew! Bomp. He's won ninety-two! Bomp bomp bomp BOMP BA-dump! YEEOOOW!

Good morning America! Ain't it good to be the King? Hell yeah. We kicked Iraq's butt and finally reclaimed our rightful place as biggest brother in the family of nations. All those backwards foreigners that didn't get with the program can go suck sand cause the USA is on top again!

Our grandparents knew what it was like. They pretty much won the number one spot in the Second World War. But hey, that was 46 years ago and let's face it, we pissed that predominance away chasing the short-term buck and spending quintzillions on defense.

Yeah, things were looking mighty bleak. Remember Vietnam, malaise, hostages in Iran, trade deficits, budget deficits, and drug wars? Looked like one 20-year juggernaut slide down the toilet of history didn't it? But that's over now. Things have changed.

We've finally relearned what Teddy Roosevelt knew years ago: speak softly and carry a big stick. Hell, that's been our problem since World War II, not knowing how to handle those tricky foreigners. But then again how can you? They speak gibberish, dress funny, worship strange pagan deities, and can't drive to save their lives. C'mon how are were we supposed to figure them out?

It's not like anyone ever prepared us to deal with the world on an equal level. Foreigners were supposed to be like Ricky Ricardo, or Hadji on "Jonny Quest": exotic and obedient, quaintly aspiring to the higher plane of American-ness. The challenges thrown at us by everyone from Khomeini to Honda Motor Co. just weren't fair.

But that's OK now, cause we won the war in the Gulf. Yep ... things are looking good.

Are any of you buying this? I sure hope not. Because despite what the conventional wisdom du jour is telling us, our problems are far from over. To the contrary, becoming a nation -- now the only remaining superpower -- that can only deal with the world with a gun in it's hand is a trap more dangerous and seductive than any "Saddam line" drawn in the sands of Kuwait.

The real enemy is our own ignorance of what's going on in the rest of the international community, and our incompetence for competing in any theater other than military conflict. The world is becoming less and less forgiving of that ignorance, and rightfully so.

I tend to resist getting too global in these columns so let's look for a good metaphor here at home. Good old Penn State: pretty much white, pretty much middle class, with a small community of visiting foreign nationals, mainly graduate students. The way they mesh into the overall student body is a decent example of our problem as a whole.

We don't see much of them do we? And when we do they don't get a lot of respect. They're too unfamiliar, too uncool, too unlike you and me to mix in well. Shall I give it a try, risking my notions of being able to handle everything the world can toss at me? Not today thanks.

The most visible illustration is our treatment of foreign teaching assistants. How many foreign TAs get icily tolerated, when we even show up for class? We seem to see them as unqualified front line goons in some academic bait-and-switch conspiracy. "This stuff is hard enough to understand in perfect English, the accent makes it impossible" we say, as if this excuse for not trying will substitute for the education we are passing by.

The truth is that most of these guys are brilliant people. Consider the pressure jungle examination systems most of them had to conquer just to make it into a decent undergraduate school at home. Then, despite the textbooks written in English, despite the seperation from home and family, despite whatever oppressive government they may have had to contend with, they make it here, and excell without a shred of home-court advantage -- while we bitch about accents.

Ok, Zoom back out camera one.

Once upon a time the whole world had to put up with our attitude problem. They toed the line or they didn't get fed, didn't get economic aid, didn't get weapons. We were the only game in town. Those days are over, and the Gulf War, reminder of the gravy days of our grandparents that it is, has not changed that. I'm glad we can still win a war. I will be happier when we become as talented in winning a peace.

To do this we first need to lose our discomfort about things foreign to the United States. We do need them. We really do. And if we continue to resist the internationalization of America we are only putting ourselves farther behind the competition. Each day you ignore learning a foreign language just increases the chance that the first words you'll need to learn will be "Yes, boss."

We thrill to the success of smart weapons, while the Japanese quietly use the same chips in smart dishwashers and other such mundane stuff. Not as glamorous an application but one hell of a lot more rewarding in peacetime. An extended world peace requires understanding and mutually beneficial relationships. And peacetime is what we want isn't it? Let's hope that we don't end up finding war more rewarding.

Because that which gets rewarded generally gets done.