Ben Smith smartly observed:

Previous presidential addresses on Afghanistan — including President Obama’s in March — have added the human rights cause to the case for war, and have stressed in particular the Taliban’s oppression of Afghan women and girls. . . Tonight’s speech includes a passing, abstract reference to “human rights” — but not a single reference to Afghanistan’s women and girls. That, presumably, falls into the category of “nation building.”

Well, it’s even more jarring, considering the president’s rather hypocritical paean to human rights. It seems as though even in his own speech he could not find room on behalf of Afghan women “to speak out on behalf of their human rights, and tend to the light of freedom, and justice, and opportunity, and respect for the dignity of all peoples.” It is a pity since, as the president explained, our willingness to articulate these principles “is the moral source of America’s authority.”