Obama Administration picks foreign policy over people

Over the past few weeks, there has been a multi-national movement to recognize the 1915 Ottoman Empire's atrocities against the Armenian people a genocide. This is the same genocide that Hitler in 1939 referenced weeks before entering Poland and starting his own genocide. He concluded a meeting with his military officers by stating "Who still talks nowadays of the extermination of the Armenians?"

Well, the answer to that are the Swedes and the House Foriegn Committee, just not the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner, leader of the free world, mister "main street" before "wall street", the first black president of a country with a history of slavery Barack Oabama.

Now Michael Hughes of the Huffington Post does raise a very valid question, based on the United States own history of genocide and human rights issues, what makes us the judge and jury of the Armenian genocide? And in his article he makes very valid points that, if the House Foreign Committee should look at our own history as well. He also states that this is nothing more than a ploy by members of congress desperate to save their own jobs.

However, to answer Mr. Hughes question, we don't have to look any further than World War II Holocaust survivor, and 1986 Nobel Peace Prize winner, author Elie Wiesel. Being interviewed for the CNN special "Scream Bloody Murder" Wiesel said that countries look toward the United States for leadership in human rights. If the United States doesn't do anything, then no one else will, he claimed.

The facts are that, yes the United States has one of the worst Human Rights histories in the world, so does many other super powers throughout the world and history in general. The Romans salted Carthage so that nothing would grow. Religions have been trying to squash one another for thousands of years. The Russians on several occasions practiced scorched earth tactics. Most of Asia and Africa have a very recent history of genocide.

The issue is that if you are going to stand up in front of the entire world and except an award for being considered the leader of peace, then you need to understand all that comes along with it. Throughout the annals of history, Barack Obama will be lumped in with Elie Wiesel, Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., so forth and so on. If you have the audacity to do that, then your administration, your Secretary of State, and the Congress that is controlled by your party need to follow your lead and push for peace and basic human rights.

To paraphrase a very famous Holocaust quote: "When they killed in Darfur, I did nothing, because I wasn't the president of Darfur. When they massacred in Niger, I did nothing because I wasn't president of Niger. When my country tortured Muslims, I voted in favor of the war, because I was American. When China was moving Muslims out, and punishing those who dared worship God, I did nothing, because they were our allies. When I was given the Nobel Peace Prize, I accepted it, because I felt I deserved it. But when the world came to me for help, I squashed legislation because it was not good foreign policy."