UN "Human Rights" Council expert says Trump makes his "blood run cold"

While the Trump administration has currently decided to remain on the UN "Human Rights" Council in the hope of "reforming" it, Council participants have a different idea. The Council is currently in session in Geneva and heard on March 3, 2017 from the expert "rapporteur" it appointed to deal with the subject of protecting human rights while countering terrorism. Ben Emmerson told the Council that "irresponsible" President Trump made his "blood run cold," and was motivated by "jingoistic populism."

Here is just part of what the Human Rights Council's appointee had to say:

"To hear President Trump in the first days after his inauguration, grimly extolling the virtues of torture as a weapon in the fight against terrorism and confirming his personal willingness to authorize the use of torture if asked to do so was enough to make the blood run cold. It shows a staggering level of ill-preparedness to govern. To think that the current president of the United States would be prepared for reasons of jingoistic populism to reintroduce what is arguably the single greatest act of lawlessness perpetrated by the Bush administration, to fuel the resentment that stokes the risk of terrorism, and to add hypocrisy to the charges which ISIS levels at the West in its relentless recruitment drives – all this leaves one wondering whether lasting progress in this field is ever going to be possible. If one of the world's most powerful nations, a permanent member of the Security Council, is once again prepared to abandon our collective values on the pretext of defending them, then one is left to wonder whether anything at all has been achieved in the last 15 years. The constant refrain from the Security Council – that terrorism must be fought in ways that are compatible with international law and in particular international human rights law – rings hollow when the head of state of one of its 5 permanent members makes irresponsible statements of his willingness to authorize international crimes."