Every day, some Babylonian atrocity conspires to wake us from our self-imposed sleep. Each day in Iraq brings proof that a tree with such deep roots in the soil of cynicism and moral duplicity is incapable of producing anything remotely resembling good fruit.

Three years into a war ostensibly waged to end the reign of a despot, we're secretly nostalgic for the authoritarian rule that kept the warring factions under heel.

Whenever a great military power finds itself in the kind of hole the United States is digging for itself in Iraq, warlords waste no time dipping into their ever expanding arsenal of sentimental cliches to keep the guilt-stricken civilians in line.

Because there is no draft or shared burden for defending the country, those of us who have never marched in formation are expected to keep our mouths shut and our morality to ourselves.

We're told that even suggesting that there is a higher morality than pure expediency detracts from the war effort.

Since most of us will never experience the dread of battle, who are we to impose our bourgeois morality on the men and women fighting on our behalf in the godforsaken corners of the earth? It feels churlish to tell folks in the military under what conditions we're willing to have them die for us, but that's our right, too.

That's why civilians chuckle whenever the subject of reinforcing "core values" in the military comes up.

As long as Donald Rumsfeld is secretary of defense, the whole notion of teaching "core values" in the military is like a burglar preaching to an apprentice the virtue of an honest day's work. It's oxymoronic on its face.

Prior to Haditha, who would have thought it was necessary to remind anyone that shooting 24 unarmed men, women and children couldn't be justified under any scenario?

But instead of thoughtful reflection on the perversity of this war, Haditha has generated enough partisan sophistry to make the devil weep.

Conservatives take offense at comparisons between My Lai and Haditha and split hairs over whether the military covered it up. They refuse to address the fundamental question of whether it is immoral to put stressed-out Marines in a position to "snap" when a comrade is killed in the first place.

Since it is never in the interest of a weak president to depart from the script extolling the unassailable virtue of the troops, the myth of their equanimity in the face of escalating horror continues. President Bush parrots what everyone already knows: that most soldiers in Iraq serve honorably.

What Mr. Bush refuses to give voice to is what everyone suspects but are waiting for a true leader to say: Enlisting in the military doesn't make a person a "hero." Putting on a uniform doesn't exempt a soldier from observing the obligations that tether all of us to the same moral order.

We shouldn't allow this president to insult the dignity of the men and women in the military by lowering the bar for what constitutes a hero. Heroism has to be earned.

This country may finally have had its fill of dime store patriotism. There aren't as many flags flying on front porches and lawns anymore. The Dixie Chicks have been rehabilitated and people are finally asking tough questions about the war, albeit three years down the road.

Even as the Pentagon schemes to remove a ban on "humiliating and degrading treatment" of prisoners from the revamped guide to soldier conduct, our troops understand that true service to the country stems from adhering to values that make the brutalization of the enemy impossible.

It isn't the enlisted men and women in the U.S. military who need a primer in ethics. It is the civilian leadership in Congress and the Pentagon who desperately need "core values" training. Ultimately, the failure in Iraq reflects the moral confusion of an inept president and his merry band of civilian and military enablers.