Two articles that appeared this week are essential reading for those who want to understand the difficulties that America faces in convincing the world of the justice of its military exploits abroad — in Iraq above all.

One, a report in last Sunday’s Los Angeles Times, reveals that during the Vietnam War the U.S. Army sought to discredit soldiers who reported instances of torture and mistreatment of detainees — even though the army’s own investigators found evidence of much more widespread and severe abuse. Army records compiled in the early 1970s detailed 141 instances of detainee abuse, including the use of beatings, water torture, and electric shocks. Yet few soldiers were punished even after admitting their war crimes, and none served any prison time. In one case, military investigators recommended formal charges against 22 interrogators in an intelligence unit particularly notorious for torturing prisoners. Not one was disciplined. One of the interrogators, who admitted torturing a Vietnamese man who died soon afterward, told the Times he wasn’t “ashamed” of anything he did. “I would most likely conduct myself in the same manner if placed in a Vietnam-type situation again,” he said.

The other article, which appeared in GQ magazine, is the story of Joe Darby, the soldier who first alerted authorities to detainee abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. For having the courage to do what he felt was right, Darby has been vilified throughout the military as a traitor, scorned by members of his own family, and run out of his hometown in Maryland. “People there don’t look at the fact that I knew right from wrong,” he says. “They look at the fact that I put an Iraqi before an American.”

That’s the crux of the problem. Whether decades ago in Vietnam, or today in Iraq, we see the same pattern: ends justifying unsavory means, expediency trumping ethics. America is rightly focused on promoting its own interests, but in Vietnam and now Iraq it has gone to the extreme of compromising its fundamental principles. Those who tortured prisoners in Vietnam and Iraq clearly believed they were doing what was best for their country. But the zeal to defend America from its enemies ultimately became a zeal for the most abhorrent cruelty.

Why does it matter if American soldiers bend the rules? In today’s world, the conflicts that America and its allies face are increasingly global in scope, and ideological in nature. They’re also harder to win. America no longer has the luxury of stamping out another nation’s conventional forces with its superior military might, as it did in the World Wars of the last century. The fighting today is asymmetrical, the endurance of guerrilla armies endless, and the conditions of victory almost impossible to attain. (Consider, for instance, that Hezbollah can plausibly claim victory in Lebanon after weeks of devastating strikes by Israel.) The key to victory under these conditions lies not just in a nation’s strength of arms, but also in its ability to stake out the moral high ground. America has failed to do that in Iraq. It has failed to present a compelling ideal that can persuade the American people to persevere in the struggle, and dissuade people elsewhere from adopting the cause of its enemies. It has failed for various reasons, but one reason is especially striking: The torture of past and present has eroded America’s moral authority.

“If they’d really taken action about the bad apples and been honest about it,” Lt. Col. Anthony B. Herbert, one of the Vietnam whistleblowers, told the Times, “then they wouldn’t be arguing about Abu Ghraib and different places today.” Even if Iraq is already lost, perhaps a return to principled leadership can avert similar failures in the conflicts yet to come. Otherwise, an overzealous military and reckless leadership may bring the entire edifice of American ideals — once such a source of inspiration to the world — crashing to the ground.

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen