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The United Nations has reached peak absurdity. Ben Saul, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism, stood before the Human Rights Council and accused the Trump administration of “naked aggression” and “renewed imperialism” against Iran — then turned around and praised Somalia as a model of human rights commitment. You can’t make this up.
“Countering terrorism has excused naked aggression and renewed imperialism against Iran and Venezuela, raining death and making us all less safe,” Saul declared with the moral certainty only a UN bureaucrat could muster. But then came the real kicker: “My report on visiting Somalia last year shows how a country facing an existential terrorist threat is strengthening, not sacrificing, human rights.” Somalia. A model for human rights.
This is the same Somalia where Al-Shabaab terrorists continue to massacre civilians. The same Somalia that saw 854 civilian casualties in just the first nine months of 2024, with the terrorist group responsible for 65% of those deaths. The same Somalia where state security forces, clan militias, and international forces contributed to the rest of the carnage. The same Somalia where nearly 200,000 people were forcibly evicted in a single year, where women and children face systematic gender-based violence and sexual exploitation, and where human rights defenders operate in what their own coalition describes as an “increasingly hostile and high-risk environment marked by systematic intimidation, violence, and repression.”
But sure, Ben Saul. Tell us more about how Somalia is “strengthening human rights.”
The hypocrisy would be laughable if it weren’t so dangerous. Last week, Saul asserted that the United States had no lawful right to attack Iran because nations must wait until “the nuclear bomb was ready to be sent before acting.” According to his interpretation, a country can’t defend itself until an enemy has already armed the weapon and is moments away from launch. By that standard, no preemptive defense is ever justified — a convenient position for rogue states and terror sponsors, less so for their potential victims.
And here’s where it gets interesting: Saul’s office received $150,000 from China in 2025. The same China that operates re-education camps for Uyghurs, crushes dissent in Hong Kong, and threatens democratic Taiwan daily. That China. Funny how that works — attack America, praise failed states, and take money from actual authoritarian regimes. The UN human rights apparatus in action.
Let’s be clear about what’s really happening here. The UN isn’t an impartial arbiter of international law. It’s a political weapon used by America’s enemies to delegitimize our self-defense while turning a blind eye to actual atrocities. When a UN official can call American military action “naked aggression” while calling Somalia a responsible state committed to human rights, the institution has lost all credibility.
The Trump administration’s actions against Iran aren’t imperialism — they’re the legitimate defense of American interests and regional stability against a regime that has spent decades funding terrorism, attacking our allies, and pursuing nuclear weapons. The fact that this even needs to be said shows how twisted the discourse has become.
Americans should ask themselves a simple question: why does the United States continue funding an organization that employs people like Ben Saul? Why do we pour billions into a system that systematically undermines our interests while apologizing for our enemies? The UN was supposed to be a forum for international cooperation, not a platform for anti-American propaganda funded by our own tax dollars.
Somalia isn’t a model for anything except how not to run a country. And the UN isn’t a guardian of human rights — it’s a theater of the absurd where the worst actors on the world stage get to lecture the nations that actually protect freedom. Saul’s performance this week proves it beyond any doubt.
Providence watches over the bold.
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