Thank You, President Clinton, for Reminding Americans and the World How Dignified a Super Power Can Be

To many Americans, superpower means paranoid grandstanding and empty threats that are the hallmark of cowards.

But many of them don't know that a USA existed barely half a century ago with none of this.

Yes, a USA existed which had NO ENEMIES on this planet.

Those days, world leaders wanted US Presidents, their Secretary of States or their delegated high-ranking envoys to travel by ship to settle disputes worldwide. Not easy tasks, considering there was no air transportation at that time.

Still our leaders did it, because as the only nation in the world with no enemies, other nations had high hopes on us, of behaving with dignity and integrity. They couldn't think of anybody else to mediate peace in this world.

Unfortunately, the crooked brain of none other than the "great" Winston Churchill, refused to pass on the advanced information his secret service received about the impending attack on Pearl Harbor, so that we would be drawn into the World War.

From that day we started inheriting the paranoia and cowardice that entered into this country in the wake of the World War.

Thus it became our duty to wage wars which were none of our business.

From then on it became our duty to play the rowdy games started by others.

And it became our responsibility to father all the pettiness and treachery of other nations.

That included making every immigrant's enemy our enemy too. The cardinal principle of immigration - that an immigrant to this land is a new being, leaving all his or her past hostilities and prejudices behind - was soon forgotten.

We started even scratching the butts of small-fry nations which normally wouldn't even merit a mention in Pentagon's consideration because of their small size. And they in turn became over-paranoid, having visions of the US armada gobbling them up.

When USA became the launching pad of the animosities of all its immigrants, we started behaving like empty-headed musclemen - a far cry from the dignified American forefathers who helped to ink the countless forgotten peace treaties that bind the world today, especially Europe.

When younger generations were born into this mess, they thought the USA they are seeing before them was the actual USA. To them USA was born only after the World Wars, wars of not our making. To them it appeared bullying and threats were the hallmark of Americans. They never knew of a USA that had no enemies in the world.

And patriotism needed a scarecrow of an enemy to be aroused!

World leadership and diplomacy are not the prerogatives of those who know only to shamelessly send a young intern in a pink thong into the oval office and then anonymously pay her legal fees. That also showed how much respect they had for womanhood.

To tell you the truth, today I have been watching and watching and watching the dignified way President Clinton carried himself, that too in a hostile territory, that even the enemy willingly honored him.

Then that is the real worth of an American. Not that of a nosy-poker or street-side rowdy. And it took long time to see that dignity in the present state of the world.

Yes, I am continuing to watch the last acts of dignity Clinton performed at the door of the plane: He lifted his arms and laid them across his chest in salute. Then he raised his hands to his head in salute. Then he waved.

When a Superpower behaves in so dignified a way, the onlookers witnessing that act have no choice but be humbled.

And that was exactly what happened. His hosts were so humbled that the waving and clapping were unprecedented and spontaneous.

Remember, when the world acknowledges you as a Super Power, you are already talking from a position of strength. No need to threaten the world or do grandstanding gimmicks or engage in loose talks again and again and again like a paranoid or a coward. At any rate, that was not the intention of the founding fathers of this great nation.