Let Them Eat Hamburgers

Originally published on August 14, 2014

“Why don’t they eat meat?”

– Quote attributed to Chinese Emperor Hui of Jin, in the Third Century, upon hearing that the people were starving and had no rice to eat

Nightly we are, once again, privy to the images of the most ghastly inhumanity of one group of supposed humans inflicted upon another group, simply for their beliefs.

The images of thousands of people displaced to a desolate, inhospitable desert mountain landscape, Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq, where they have fled to save what is left of their lives, confront us on our television screens. There are the images of a mad scramble to grab hold of packets of food or bottles of water, or of the frantic efforts of a fortunate few to scramble aboard a helicopter before it struggles to lift off to imagined safety. And most haunting of all, there are the soul-piercing images that look into the faces and the eyes of the children, the always beautiful children, trying as best they can to survive and to make some sort of sense of the madness that has encompassed their young lives.

The scale and the depth of the depravity that has been wreaked upon these people, the Yazidis, simply because they are deemed expendable by their persecutors, the barbarians of the group known as ISIS – Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, among other self-appointed names and acronyms – is almost incomprehensible. Nearly – or perhaps more – incomprehensible is the miniscule, if heroic, response of the crews of just three Iraqi MI-17 helicopters – a fourth having crashed, its pilot killed, when it was overwhelmed by too many desperate people trying to effect their escape aboard it – to provide emergency provisions and to carry a couple dozen of the thousands of stranded and dying people from that desolate place.

It is hard to imagine a situation more worthy of both the humanitarian and the military response of the most powerful nation on earth, the nation known for its response to other human disasters, whether the natural disasters of earthquakes and typhoons and hurricanes and tsunamis, and such human-caused disasters as Bosnia (late as it was) and Kosovo. Instead, we have a Presidential decision to act, while earnestly stated, that is more noteworthy in the serious delay in which it came, and its almost crippling limitations based in political considerations. And this followed up within days by statements from Defense Secretary Chuck Hegel that the situation wasn’t so bad, so no U.S. evacuation effort would be needed, and from Deputy National Security Adviser (and Obama foreign policy speech writer) Ben Rhodes, who said that no decision had been made on any rescue operation “because we want to get the readout” on the situation.

Meanwhile, our President flies off without delay to his summer vacation, and a double round of golf, on Martha’s Vineyard, taking up residence with his own family, safe and sound, in a $12 million, 8,100 square-foot mansion, complete with its infinity pool, in this quiet bastion of peace and privilege, far from the killing heat and desolation of Mount Sinjar.

This is more than a question of mere optics, as some might cite, and which would be bad enough as it were. But more, it is reflective of a detached and aloof Barack Obama, showing not a smidgen (a word the President apparently is fond of in dismissing the scandals of his administration) of conscience or concern, much less the optics and demands of leadership, as might be expected of an American President in such times of global crisis.

It is as if the President, like a modern-day version of Emperor Hui, and echoed by his advisers, is saying, “Let them eat hamburgers,” a meal the President is fond of for his photo ops.

Whether it is the human-created disasters of Syria, or Ukraine, or Gaza, a night of terror and death in Benghazi, the death and desolation of the Yazidis, or even the human disaster under way on our own southern border, the so-called Leader of the Free World prefers to dither, utter a few carefully crafted and politically couched platitudes, draw imaginary and soon abandoned red lines, and then quickly head off to a fundraiser, a vacation, a round of golf, a cup of Hawaiian shave ice, or the ever-ready standby of hamburgers and handshaking.

There apparently is no issue, no problem, no disaster, no catastrophic chain of events, no level of human suffering, worthy of this President’s attention or interest. For a President who can’t even bother to get his hands dirty wrestling or negotiating with a resistant and recalcitrant Congress – as if this were the first time in U.S. history a President has been faced with an oppositional Congress – there apparently is no crisis, close or far, he deems worthy of his attention, much less a change in his recreational or partisan fundraising schedule.

Looking through the doors of those few valiant helicopters, peering into the faces of those starving refugees, staring into the eyes of those frightened and imperiled children, the near-total lack of response of our President is more than irresponsible or a failure in optics. It is disgraceful, it is revolting, and it is, if anything is, immoral.

Once more, I feel the shame and sorrow of being a citizen of a country – a country founded on such lofty ideals, a country that so many times in its history has risen to act on those ideals, at whatever cost – that would elect such an individual as its head of state.

Indeed, it is we, too, who are left to eat hamburgers, as the world burns around us.

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Frank Yacenda is a former journalist, U.S. diplomat, and intelligence analyst who covered the Middle East, and is an occasional commentator on current affairs. © 2014, all rights reserved.