America is failing to honor its own codes

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Several weeks ago I traveled to Warsaw. Coming through Copenhagen Airport, with hideous pictures from Abu Ghraib staring out at me from every publication, I hesitated to show my passport. I felt tainted and ashamed. Not because I think that American soldiers are any worse than the soldiers of other countries; on the contrary, I know many U.S. soldiers and have the highest respect for their commitment to what they believe to be the cause of bringing democracy to Iraq and their professionalism in carrying out their mission.
But we Americans claim to be better; we claim to be setting an example for others, beginning with the Iraqis themselves. Indeed, we publicly divide the world along an axis of good and evil and present ourselves as a force of good. And yet we make a decision not even to count Iraqi deaths, military or civilian, in our casualty count; we preach human dignity and yet deny even the most basic rights to those we deem our enemies. When we fail so manifestly to honor our own professed convictions we can hardly blame others from seeking to investigate our "true motives" - oil or power or the protection of Israel.
Hubris and hypocrisy are a deadly combination. President George W. Bush should know this; doesn't the Bible tell him that pride goeth before a fall? It is human nature worldwide to revel in the humbling and indeed the humiliation of America. But just as anti-Americanism may seem increasingly justified, it obscures and distorts a far more important struggle between a Western liberal heritage of tolerance and individual rights versus a dark and twisted vision of 14th-century Islam.
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http://www.iht.com/articles/521034.html

On the other hand, the Administration's wingnuts and their supporters have spent years attacking the "liberal heritage of tolerance" ...

liberal western heritage is based on words, not deeds, western nations have been killing eastern people, poorer people for as far back as you can go, but cloaking it in this moral message of 'being better' - dark & twisted 14th century Islam is represented by a fringe element of that religion - we have been falsely advertising our commitment to western liberalism as a cover for our less than noble actions. While some folks may believe that they and their governments espouse such values of tolerance - the inhabitants of Vietnam, muslim countries and Africa cant help but see that that is a sham.

25 years of serious efforts for true American patriots to "un-do" or repair the severe damage that this administration has done in four years. This is why, when so many of the good and decent people on here say that a Kerry administration ALONE can NOT change America, many of us old and moldy members agree : Kerry is but the first step in what MUST be a long progression towards reclaiming the American dream. Yet it is important that we take that first step come November. I've said this before: George Bush is a liar. Robert Kennedy told the truth. Dick Cheney is a liar. Martin Luther King told the truth. Men like Kennedy and King did not lie to us. They did not die in vain. We are going to reach that promised land. We are going on that great journey. But we don't need to pack our bags. The administration needs to start packing theirs.