Over the past few years, the sanctioning of policies that degrade our humanity has swiftly reversed centuries of American tradition. We have adopted interrogation practices that were unthinkable in the last world war. In our haste to shore up our security, we needlessly unfastened our laws and practices from the values that have defined our extraordinary nation since its inception.

This was both a moral and strategic error. Our virtue has never been a weakness. The narrative that America has written, and continues to write, impacts a larger struggle. Human morality, which restrains civilization, is indelibly shaped by our actions.

As men who have served our nation and presided over service of our fellow citizens, we see the tragic loss of our stature in the world. America's current policies and practices are unrecognizable to many of us who have served in the armed forces over many decades. We witness the wounds from betraying our unwritten code of moral conduct and we foresee the treacherous consequences of these policies.

Our leadership may have failed us but our values have not. We have joined a bipartisan coalition comprised of three former secretaries of state, three former secretaries of defense, retired military leaders, national security authorities, counterterrorism experts and religious leaders of many faiths to urge the president to issue an executive order that absolutely bans torture and cruelty. Our Declaration of Principles for a Presidential Executive Order on Prisoner Treatment, Torture and Cruelty asks the president to ensure that we abide by six core moral principles:

• The Golden Rule principle affirms that our nation will not use any methods of interrogation that we would not find acceptable if used against Americans.

• One national standard requires that all U.S. personnel and agencies apply the same standards for interrogation.

• The rule of law requires that the United States notify our courts and the International Committee of the Red Cross of all prisoners we hold and requires adequate judicial processes for detainees to prove their innocence.

• The duty to protect means our responsibility to protect people in our custody from being tortured by other countries after transfer from our government.

• The principle of checks and balances reaffirms the legitimate role of the legislative and judicial branches of the federal government in understanding, reviewing and setting detention policies.

• Finally, clarity and accountability requires total clarity about the legal rules governing the behavior of U.S. personnel with the full understanding that all who violate those rules will be held accountable, regardless of rank or position.

The politics of fear often drapes a thick haze over the truth. Yet the facts about torture remain clear. Torture places our own soldiers at greater risk and fails to yield actionable intelligence; it discourages cooperation from key allies, whose support is vital for combating extremists; and it hinders the prosecution of terror suspects, creating legal quagmires that deny justice. In addition, our embrace of torture and cruelty, rather than making us appear strong, weakens our image in the eyes of friend and foe alike.

In our search for strength, we must remember simple truths. We live on an unknowable Earth, graced by a beauty we could never have dreamt up, linked through invisible threads that we fail to comprehend and tormented by doubt during periods of challenge. In a universe so much greater than us, the measure of our worth is our treatment of our fellow man. Each human being is of profound moral worth, made in the image of God, with intrinsic dignity. This is true too of our enemy, even those who act in ways we find morally reprehensible.

The question of whether to use torture and cruelty is a test of the faithful -- a test of each of us and our faith in America.