The Two Faces of Obama’s Heartbreak

The shootings against a member of Congress in Arizona, which left several people injured, has affected America’s socio-political climate in the past few weeks. What is worth mentioning is the interesting trilogy that exists — a trilogy consisting of tea party extremists of America, especially Sarah Palin’s harsh comments as a symbol of this movement; the economic crisis and the fall of America’s hegemony; and the developments and domestic laws regarding carrying weapons throughout the country.

Although this trilogy needs to be analyzed too, what caught my attention was the quote from President Obama published in USA Today about this incident. President Obama said to the people gathered outside the hospital in which the member of Congress was undergoing treatment that this incident broke our hearts, and we are all together in this sorrow, and we want the people to stay calm.

Through two basic principles in America, “checks and balances” and “change and continuity,” the three government branches continuously monitor each other, an American invention that can’t be found anywhere else. The foreign policies and security policies of the country are always in line with its long-term strategies; there is no gap between the generations, politicians and governments like in the Third World countries. But the double standard of human rights in America has an ugly face when revealed.

I have a question: Why is it that President Obama’s heart breaks for the death of a few people, but he is not even sorry when thousands of people are killed in Iraq and Afghanistan because of America’s policies each day?

If America’s security, foreign policy and even principles are global, then the pain and suffering of hundreds of thousands of people on the other side of the world, especially in tragedies that are caused under the direct command of the U.S. president, should be global too.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan up to this date and they easily speak about attacking Iran like they’re going to remove a honeycomb from a tree.

And we can see the freedom that some believe America resembles in Saudi Arabia, in Egypt’s next election and in the Arab dictatorships of the region.

I believe that human rights is for American human beings, freedom is for the comfort of American humans and feeling sorry is for those humans too. History shows that the American human doesn’t even consider Middle Easterners as human beings; therefore, they feel sorry for the death of a few people, and they’re pretty relaxed even when they hear that hundreds of thousands of people have been killed elsewhere.