John F. Kennedy was no saint - and America is not God. But, indisputably, JFK did inspire countless people at home and around the world to aspire to a higher standard. When he implored Americans to 'ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country', he was not suggesting torture.
That is the essence of an impassioned message from Theodore Sorensen, JFK's special counsel and gold-standard speechwriter. 'Future historians studying the decline and fall of America will mark this as the time the tide began to turn,' he told graduates of the New School, in New York. His speech did not mention President George W. Bush or the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq by name, but looking for higher ground on which to plant a new platform for America, Mr Sorensen said: 'The damage done to this country by its own misconduct is far greater and longer-lasting than any damage that any terrorist could possibly inflict on us.'
From the Arab and Islamic perspective, America is anything but blameless in world history. Even Asians who love the US know there is some truth in that. They know that the mistreatment and torture of prisoners by Americans is a throwback to cold war foreign policy. It is a throwback to pre-democracy days in Taiwan, when the Taiwan Garrison Command and the Bureau of Investigation arrested anyone they wished. It is a throwback to the pre-democracy days of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency in South Korea, that did what ever it wanted to alleged communists and unionists.
These Asian internal-security organisations, representing governments that had good relations with Washington, did not often practice the values of human rights and democracy that the US preached - and still does.
Is America essentially good? The point is disputable, but Mr Sorensen proffers that whatever our past misdeeds, we must hold ourselves to the highest standard if we are to contribute to building a 21st century world order demonstrably superior to that of the 20th century.
'No military victory can endure unless the victor occupies the high moral ground,' Mr Sorensen told the students.
