Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Trump's Obama-esque Folly

Dear Donald--there are some "yuge" problems than not even you, with all your much-vaunted deal-making abilities, can "solve."

Update: This, on the other hand, is good news (even if it isn't written that way):
In the letter, which is addressed to UN advocates and human rights group, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says that the US is sceptical about its membership given the fact that other countries with a poor record of human rights are also members, including China, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. 
Nine groups advocating the US’ continued membership have said that if the US does withdraw it will diminish the country’s ability to shield Israel from unfair attacks. 
In 2006 then US President George W. Bush refused to join the council over concerns at how it treated Israel but Obama overturned this decision in 2009. 
The US will participate in the ongoing session of the Human Rights Council, wrote Tillerson, “to reiterate our strong principled objection to the Human Rights Council’s biased agenda against Israel.”
It's unclear which "nine groups" are objecting, but from the article linked to one can glean than one of 'em is Human Rights Watch, an outfit with its own highly problematic history vis-à-vis Israel. And an HRW racketeer gives one of the lamest excuses ever for wanting to preserve this exclusive country club for Israel-loathing, human rights-trashing despots:
The UN director at Human Rights Watch HRW, Lou Charbonneau, described the potential withdrawal as “a misguided and short-sighted” step while noting the council’s “ground-breaking measures, often with strong US support,” including appointing investigating commissions that detected serious human rights violations in North Korea and Syria.
Yes, because but for the UNHRC's "investigating commissions," these serious human rights violations would have gone completely undetected. 😏

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