Where is the moral leadership?

Many know that I get royally pissed when people say we should abandon Afghanistan.  The ones who don't give a rats ass about the women and girls who have had a taste of freedom because of us.  My country used to stand for good.  We used to place morality ahead of economic success, people ahead of disgusting regimes.

But no longer it seems.  Mr. Obama and his lackeys would rather be known as pragmatists.  Something I used to call myself but threw out when the real pragmatist had the election stolen by the con man. 

James P. Rubin writes about this in Newsweek and he hit the nail on the head.  Why I ask do we, in response to the lows of the Bush years, why do we have to go 100% the opposite way and pull back into our little cocoon on America?  Rubin says it better.

The Principle of the Thing

How America's commitment to democratic values is waning in the age of Obama.
 

Although President Obama's address to the nation served its main purpose—articulating the national-security rationale for the use of force in Afghanistan—there was one unfortunate disconnect. Obama did not link his powerful rhetoric about America as a unique global power that believes "right makes might" to his argument for the surge in troops. The moral imperative for defeating the Taliban and its heinous ideology went unmentioned.

America has both an indispensable role in protecting the world from Al Qaeda and a noble purpose that should be stated aloud: to defeat the Islamist extremists whose barbarism has done such damage to innocent Afghans and Pakistanis alike. Preventing the return to power of a Taliban regime that terrorized its own people and allowed Osama bin Laden to orchestrate the 9/11 attacks on America is a mission of which our troops and our country can be proud.

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....

Unfortunately, in a number of judgment calls this past year, the principle of democratic values has fallen victim to this bitter legacy. Whether it was avoiding an Oval Office visit by the Dalai Lama, not demanding an opportunity to promote human rights during the president's recent visit to China, or not pressing for the release of jailed dissidents there, a practical decision was made that U.S. concerns about the economy, global warming, and nonproliferation took precedence in the relationship with China. In the case of Burma, there was a possibility that dialogue with the repressive junta might succeed where the previous policy of isolation had failed. And since the Bush Middle East democracy initiative was in tatters, why not shore up relations with moderate Arab states like Egypt, regardless of crackdowns on opposition activists? Sudan, of all places, has seen a similar calculation. Since most of the mass murder has already been committed in Darfur, why not be practical and work with Khartoum? The government there does have the ability (but does it have the will?) to improve the situation, never mind that its president has been indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.

Most wrenching of all has been the Obama administration's response to the opposition movement in Iran. There are legitimate reasons to avoid being seen as interfering in the internal affairs of the Islamic Republic. Why risk complicating the already complicated nuclear negotiations, whose outcome is so crucial to security in the Persian Gulf? After having labeled Iran part of an Axis of Evil and pushed for regime change there, it isn't easy for the United States to pursue diplomacy while simultaneously standing on the side of democracy activists massing in the streets. But simply saying that the world is bearing witness to the tragedy there—even while reformers and opposition supporters risk their lives in the streets and the prisons of Iran's capital—is not enough.

The point is not that the new administration has made a practical calculation in some of these tough calls. The problem is that it's done so in all of them. There was a time when presidents gained political strength from upholding democratic values. But it's now seen as smart politics to be a "realist." And that is the real tragedy. In this way, some Democrats are allowing the failures of George W. Bush to tarnish what used to be one of the party's foreign-policy strengths.

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There is every reason to consider the war in Afghanistan a larger calling, beyond the narrow mission of preventing Al Qaeda from having access to training bases. Indeed, the moral component could be dramatized to secure needed support from key NATO allies, like Germany, which are particularly susceptible to such appeals. Such an appeal to principle does not mean a longer, more difficult war. On the contrary, many soldiers on the ground know they are agents of progress, fending off a return to Taliban terror. And, yes, some are proud to escort young girls to school. That isn't unlimited nation building. It is a way to share freedom's blessings, and part of a mission of which Americans can be proud.