Chicago Tribune’s editorial “A positive change for Venezuela but a diminishment of US moral authority for years to come” not worthy of publication

Chicago Tribune’s editorial “A positive change for Venezuela but a diminishment of US moral authority for years to come” not worthy of publication

What could possibly compel the Chicago Tribune to begin an editorial on Trump’s illegal, immoral and criminal Venezuelan attack to kidnap its president as “A positive change for Venezuela”? Celebrating one of the most supreme international crimes, one that essentially upends the international order, must be condemned in the strongest terms without an iota of justification.

The Trib, like Trump, failed to offer a single verifiable fact regarding Trump’s primary justification that Madura is a major supplier of narcotics to America for good reason. There are none. Drug trafficking was always Trump’s ‘MacGuffin’, a Hitchcockian plot devise to drive Trump’s narrative justifying criminal regime change.

Nor is there any evidence as the Trib claims, Venezuelans are overall supportive of Trump’s dastardly attack on their leader and sovereignty. And the 40 Venezuelans Trump murdered that Trib brushes off as collateral damage to achieve a good result are now up to 80.

When it comes to who is truly degrading the Venezuelan people for over two decades, the Trib might want to focus on US governments under George W. Bush, Obama, and Trump twice. Draconian US sanctions, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, have caused between 40,000 and 100,000 Venezuelan deaths this century. https://cepr.net/.../reports/venezuela-sanctions-2019-04.pdf.

Especially disturbing in the editorial is the Trib’s false, mean spirited characterization of people of peace pushing back against Trump’s hideous attack on Venezuela and the entire international world order. Could the Trib stoop any lower in its incessant bashing of progressives than “Predictably, America’s left-wing mayors howled in protest at the weekend actions”? Calling protestations of New York’s Democratic Socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Chicago’s Brandan Johnson and the Chicago Teachers Union “performance art” is beneath contempt.

The Trib offers a sop to the enormous damage Trump is doing to international law, the UN Charter, the Constitution by lamenting other countries might mimic Trump’s crimes to take out neighboring leaders they heat. Not good enough, Chicago Tribune. Regarding international law, the UN Charter, the Constitution, and those of us in the peace movement undeterred by slanderous accusations, you can do better.

Walt Zlotow West Sububan Peace Coaliton Glen Ellyn IL