[Mb-civic] MUST READ: Replant the American Dream - David Ignatius - Washington Post Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

Replant the American Dream

By David Ignatius
Friday, November 25, 2005; A37

When I lived abroad, Thanksgiving was always my favorite holiday. It was 
a chance to scrounge up a turkey, gather foreign and American friends, 
and celebrate what America represented to the world. I liked to give a 
sentimental toast when the turkey arrived at the table, and more than 
once I had my foreign guests in tears. They loved the American dream as 
much as I did.

I don't think Americans realize how much we have tarnished those ideals 
in the eyes of the rest of the world these past few years. The public 
opinion polls tell us that America isn't just disliked or feared 
overseas -- it is reviled. We are seen as hypocrites who boast of our 
democratic values but who behave lawlessly and with contempt for others. 
I hate this America-bashing, but when I try to defend the United States 
and its values in my travels abroad, I find foreigners increasingly are 
dismissive. How do you deny the reality of Abu Ghraib, they ask, when 
the vice president of the United States is actively lobbying against 
rules that would ban torture?

Of all the reversals the United States has suffered in recent years, 
this may be the worst. We are slowly shredding the fabric that defines 
what it means to be an American.

Not so long ago our country really was seen as different. Foreigners 
queued up outside any institution that called itself an "American 
university," hoping for a chance at their piece of the dream. My own 
ancestors were educated at such a college, and their children's and 
grandchildren's success in the new land was part of a global chain of 
American affirmation and renewal.

We are eating up this seed corn. That's what I have seen in recent 
years. We inherited incredible riches of goodwill -- a world that 
admired our values and wanted a seat at our table -- and we have been 
squandering them. The Bush administration didn't begin this wasting of 
American ideals, but it has been making the problem worse. Certainly 
George W. Bush has been spending our international political capital at 
an astounding clip.

When I began traveling as a foreign correspondent 25 years ago, I 
thought I understood what the face of evil looked like. There were 
governments that used torture against their enemies; they might call it 
"enhanced interrogation" or some other euphemism, but it was torture, 
and you just hoped, as an American, that you were never unlucky enough 
to be their prisoner. There were governments that "disappeared" people 
-- snatched them off the street and put them without charges in secret 
prisons where nobody could find them. There were countries that 
threatened journalists with physical harm.

As an American in those days, I felt that I traveled with a kind of 
white flag. We were different. The world knew it. We might have allies 
in the Middle East or Latin America who used such horrifying methods. 
But these were techniques that Americans would never, ever use -- or 
even joke about. That was our seed corn -- the fact that we were different.

The United States must begin to replenish this stock of support for 
America in the world. I would love to see the Bush administration take 
the lead, but its officials seem not to understand the problem. Even if 
they turned course, much of the world wouldn't believe them. Sadly, when 
President Bush eloquently evokes our values, the world seems to tune 
out. So this task falls instead to the American public. It's a job that 
involves traveling, sharing, living our values, encouraging our children 
to learn foreign languages and work and study abroad. In short, it means 
giving something back to the world.

We must stop behaving as if we are in a permanent state of war, in which 
any practice is justified by the exigencies of the moment. That's my 
biggest problem with Vice President Cheney's anything-goes jeremiads 
against terrorism. They suggest we will always be at war, and so it 
doesn't matter what the world thinks of our behavior. That's a 
dangerously mistaken view. We are in a long war but not an endless one, 
and we need to begin rebuilding the bridges to normal life.

On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving each year, the Wall Street Journal 
republishes twin editorials that evoke America's special gifts: "The 
Desolate Wilderness" and "And the Fair Land." They describe the 
pilgrims' fears as they departed Europe in 1620, and the measureless 
bounty they and their descendants found in the new land. The spirit we 
celebrate on Thanksgiving Day is our most powerful national asset. We 
need to put America's riches back on the table and share them with the 
world, humbly and gratefully.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/24/AR2005112400474.html?nav=hcmodule
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