I can see that few people here spent any time in secular ethics classes, but rather they spent their time in religious institutions absorbing some religious leader's concept of ethics.
Americans love to justify, rationalize, and preach holiness.
When they come up against an equal force emotionally, if not stronger emotionally...like a hungry new fighter against a fat and spoiled champion, they don't fare as well as expected.
Until we have absolute code of ethics for every given situation (Islam has strong ethical codes with strong punishments) each situation has its own situational ethics.
Until a person can see his opponent's point of view, his opponent's cause, and understand how his opponent feels the way he does, he will never fully defeat his opponent when it is something like Islamic fundamentalism.
It is intoxicating to feel certain about ethical situations, and the elixir of self righteousness that people are drunk on in this country has created a form of alcoholism/denial that is a genuine problem, often seen in great societies of the past who fell.