Obama: Power Trumps Morality

Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe focused on one question and answer during the debate last night. Brokaw asked of both candidates, what would be your “doctrine” in regards to intervening in the actions of other countries when genocide is occurring and when the U.S. otherwise does not have a particular national interest? Brokaw gave the examples of Rwanda and Somalia in which millions have died in genocidal attacks and in ethnic cleansing.

Jaboby writes in his article on-line:

In such cases, answered Obama, ‘we have moral issues at stake.’ Of course the United States must act to stop genocide, he said. ‘When genocide is happening, when ethnic cleansing is happening . . . and we stand idly by, that diminishes us.’
But that wasn't how Obama sounded last year, when he was competing for the Democratic nomination and was unbending in his demand for an American retreat from Iraq. Back then, he dismissed fears that a US withdrawal would unleash a massive Iraqi bloodbath. ‘Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Thursday the United States cannot use its military to solve humanitarian problems and that preventing a potential genocide in Iraq isn't a good enough reason to keep US forces there,’ the AP reported on July 20, 2007 (my italics).
What kind of candidate is it whose moral response to genocide - genocide - can reverse itself 180 degrees in a matter of months? Is that the kind of candidate who ought to be the leader of the free world?

This is more than a minor slip. Obama answers Brokaw the way most Americans would expect their president to answer, recognising the moral responsibility we have in the world. But when it comes to Iraq Obama clearly betrays a bias that cannot be explained except that he has made a calculated decision to abandon Iraq regardless the price that might be paid in human blood and misery. This can only be a political expediency dictated by the Democrat base represented by MoveOn.org and other Soros-backed organizations. This tells us more about the man Barrack Hussein Obama than all his speeches and promises and even his two memoirs. In essence, political power comes first, humanitarian considerations a distant second, at best.