George W. Bush promised us a foreign policy with humility. Instead, he has brought us humiliation in the eyes of the world. He promised to “restore honor and integrity to the White House.” Instead, he has brought deep dishonor to our country and built a reputation as the most dishonest president since Richard Nixon.

Honor? He decided not to honor the Geneva Convention. Just as he would not honor the United Nations, international treaties, the opinions of our allies, the role of Congress and the courts, or what Jefferson described as “a decent respect for the opinion of mankind.” He did not honor the advice, experience and judgment of our military leaders in designing his invasion of Iraq. And now he will not honor our fallen dead by attending any funerals.

How did we get from Sept. 12, 2001, when a leading French newspaper ran a giant headline with the words “We Are All Americans Now,” and when we had the good will and empathy of all the world—to the horror that we all felt in witnessing the pictures of torture in Abu Ghraib?

From its earliest days in power, this administration sought to radically destroy the foreign policy consensus that had guided America since the end of World War II. The long-successful strategy of containment was abandoned in favor of the new strategy of “preemption.” And what they meant by preemption was not the inherent right of any nation to act preemptively against an imminent threat, but rather an exotic new approach that asserted a unique and unilateral US right to ignore international law wherever it wished to do so, even in circumstances where there was no imminent threat.

More disturbing was the frequent use of the word “dominance” to describe their strategic goal, because an American policy of dominance is as repugnant to the rest of the world as the ugly dominance of the helpless, naked Iraqi prisoners has been to the American people. Dominance is as dominance does.

Dominance is not a strategic policy or political philosophy at all. It is a seductive illusion that tempts the powerful to satiate their hunger for more power still by striking a Faustian bargain. And as always happens—sooner or later—to those who shake hands with the devil, they find out too late that what they have given up in the bargain is their soul.

One of the clearest indications of the impending loss of intimacy with one’s soul is the failure to recognize the existence of a soul in those over whom power is exercised.

Those pictures of torture and sexual abuse came to us embedded in a wave of news about escalating casualties and growing chaos enveloping our entire policy in Iraq. But in order to understand the failure of our overall policy, it is important to focus specifically on what happened in the Abu Ghraib prison, and ask whether or not those actions were representative of who we are as Americans. Obviously the quick answer is no, but unfortunately it’s more complicated than that.

There is good and evil in every person. And what makes the United States special in the history of nations is our commitment to the rule of law and our carefully constructed system of checks and balances.

Our founders understood full well that a system of checks and balances is needed in our Constitution because every human being lives with an internal system of checks and balances.

What happened at the prison, it is now clear, was not the result of random acts by “a few bad apples;” it was the natural consequence of the Bush Administration policy that has dismantled those wise constraints and has made war on America’s checks and balances.

The abuse of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib flowed directly from the abuse of the truth that characterized the Administration’s march to war, and the abuse of the trust that had been placed in President Bush by the American people in the aftermath of September 11.

There was then, there is now and there would have been regardless of what Bush did, a threat of terrorism that we would have to deal with. But instead of making it better, he has made it worse. We are less safe because of his policies. He has created more anger and indignation against us as Americans than any leader of our country in the 228 years of our existence—because of his attitude of contempt for any person, institution or nation who disagrees with him.

He has exposed Americans abroad and Americans in every US town and city to a greater danger of attack by terrorists because of his arrogance, willfulness, and bungling at stirring up hornet’s nests. And by pursuing policies that have resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocent men, women and children, all of it done in our name.

And the worst still lies ahead. General Joseph Hoar, the former head of the Marine Corps, said “I believe we are absolutely on the brink of failure. We are looking into the abyss.”

When a senior, respected military leader like Joe Hoar uses the word “abyss,” then the rest of us damn well better listen. Here is what he means: more American soldiers dying, Iraq slipping into worse chaos and violence, with our influence and moral authority seriously damaged.

Retired Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni, who headed Central Command before becoming President Bush’s emissary to the Middle East, said recently that our nation’s current course is “headed over Niagara Falls.” Army Colonel Paul Hughes, who directed strategic planning for the US occupation authority in Baghdad, compared what he sees in Iraq to the Vietnam War, in which he lost his brother: “I promised myself when I came on active duty that I would do everything in my power to prevent that…from happening again. “

The White House spokesman, Dan Bartlett, was asked on live television about these scathing condemnations by Generals involved in the highest levels of Pentagon planning and he replied, “Well they’re retired, and we take our advice from active duty officers.”

But amazingly, even active duty military officers are speaking out against President Bush. For example, the Washington Post quoted an unnamed senior General at the Pentagon as saying, “the current OSD (Office of the Secretary of Defense) refused to listen or adhere to military advice.” Rarely if ever in American history have uniformed commanders felt compelled to challenge their commander in chief in public.

The soldiers who are accused of committing these atrocities are, of course, responsible for their own actions and if found guilty, must be severely and appropriately punished. But they are not the ones primarily responsible for the disgrace that has been brought upon the United States of America.

Private Lynndie England did not make the decision that the United States would not observe the Geneva Convention. Specialist Charles Graner was not the one who approved a policy of establishing an American Gulag of dark rooms with naked prisoners to be “stressed” and even—we must use the word: tortured—to force them to say things that legal procedures might not induce them to say.

These policies were designed and insisted upon by the Bush White House.

President Bush set the tone for our attitude for suspects in his State of the Union address. He noted that more than 3,000 “suspected terrorists” had been arrested in many countries and then he added, “and many others have met a different fate. Let’s put it this way: they are no longer a problem to the United States and our allies.”

How dare they blame their misdeeds on enlisted personnel from a Reserve unit in upstate New York?

President Bush owes more than one apology. On the list of those he let down are the young soldiers who are themselves apparently culpable, but who were clearly put into a moral cesspool. The perpetrators as well as the victims were both placed in their relationship to one another by the policies of George W. Bush.

How dare the incompetent and willful members of this Bush/Cheney Administration humiliate our nation and our people in the eyes of the world and in the conscience of our own people? How dare they subject us to such dishonor and disgrace? How dare they drag the good name of the United States of America through the mud of Saddam Hussein’s torture prison?

In December of 2000, even though I strongly disagreed with the decision by the US Supreme Court to order a halt to the counting of legally cast ballots, I saw it as my duty to reaffirm my own strong belief that we are a nation of laws and not only accept the decision, but do what I could to prevent efforts to delegitimize George Bush as he took the oath of office as president.

I did not at that moment imagine that Bush would, in the presidency that ensued, demonstrate utter contempt for the rule of law and work at every turn to frustrate accountability…

So today, I want to speak on behalf of those Americans who feel that President Bush has betrayed our nation’s trust, those who are horrified at what has been done in our name, and all those who want the rest of the world to know that we Americans see the abuses that occurred in the prisons of Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo and secret locations as yet undisclosed as completely out of keeping with the character and basic nature of the American people and at odds with the principles on which America stands.

I believe we have a duty to hold President Bush accountable—and I believe we will. As Lincoln said at our time of greatest trial, “We—even we here—hold the power, and bear the responsibility.”

An excerpt from an address given by former Vice President Al Gore in New York City on May 26. The entire speech can be seen at MoveOn.org.