Obama personage rises, presidency fades ten years out

Obama personage rises, presidency fades ten years out

 

The Obama Presidential Center opened Thursday with Super Bowl style hoopla for one of the most beloved American leaders this century.

 

As one Chicagoan reminisced about meeting the candidate in an early failed election for state representative, “You’ll have a hard time getting elected with that name.”  

 

But Obama’s unique combination of charisma, eloquence, messaging allowed the first black American to rise to the presidency in 2008 and prove it wasn’t a fluke by repeating in 2012.

 

Alas, the politics of personal destruction Republicans created to largely destroy the presidency of Bill Clinton went into overdrive to prevent Obama from delivering on most of the wonderful ‘audacity of hope' his presidency promised. Their billionaire class created the Tea Party as a metaphor to brand Obama as a 21st century version of King George taxing the working class into poverty.

 

It took over half his first term just to achieve his signature Affordable Health Care Act. It was a watered-down health insurance improvement for the needy that Republicans pounced upon to demonize Obama as a socialist getting government between Joe Sixpack and his doctor. It worked. While Obama got reelected, he never achieved another landmark domestic breakthrough. 

In foreign policy, Obama was largely captive to the national security state. He sent tens of thousands of bombs raining down on 7 countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, Libya. He foolishly turned the last into a failed state, along with much of the rest of Africa, by intervening in its 2011 civil war. He later called it the "worst mistake of his presidency." He dropped over 26,000 bombs in 2016 alone, killing thousands of innocents posing not the slightest threat to US national security interests. He gifted Israel with $38 billion over 10 years to continue its grotesque imprisonment of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank to further the creation of Greater Isreal. Any largess to Isreal should have been conditioned on creation of a Palestinian state and peace with its neighbors guaranteed by the UN and led by the US, not endless war financed by Obama and all his predecessors and successors. 

He did achieve 2 signature accomplishments: The re-establishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba and the July 14, 2015 Iran Nuclear Agreement (JCPOA). However, both were largely overturned by successor Trump in his first term and not reestablished by Obama's former VP Biden when he succeeded Trump in 2021.

Why wasn't Obama out front and center attacking Trump's monstrous polices in his first term, then demanding Biden adhere to policies Biden championed as Obama's Vice President when he succeeded Trump? Instead, Obama basked in the glow of the revered former president offering lofty platitudes about the promise of American democracy if only we worked together as one people....something that will never happen. Progress results from grinding against and defeating the forces of evil. Obama appeared to have no stomach for that. 

The gigantic $850 Million Obama Presidential Center will surely be a wonderful economic boom to the disadvantaged Chicago South Side. But if it were sized to the accomplishments of Obama's 8 presidential years rather than his lofty status as a beloved presidential figure, it might be a tad difficult to locate. 

Walt Zlotow  West Suburban Peace Coalition  Glen Ellyn IL 

Untrustworthy? Thy name is America

 Untrustworthy? Thy name is America

 

How did JoAnn Lee Frank miss the eleven years of US untrustworthiness and duplicity that has marked US relations with Iran (Trib letter ‘Iranian regime untrustworthy’, June 16)?

 

She throws out ludicrous charges with nary a fact of substantiation. “The Iranian regime is not reliable. What it says and what it does are two different things. It has been consistent in lying, cheating and stalling for time. It will shake your hand and stabs you in the back at the same time.”

 

That applies to the US is spades. After the Obama administration achieved the Iran nuclear deal, (JCPOA), on July 14, 2015, Iran remained in full compliance with it till Trump withdraw from it on May 8, 2018. He viciously called The Iran nuclear deal “one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into.” He spent the remaining two years, eight months of his first term demonizing Iran as the great Satan, imposing crippling economic sanctions while doing nothing to renew the best diplomatic breakthrough in recent US history.

 

Back in office in January 2021, Trump conspired with Israel, not to negotiate a new nuclear treaty, but to overthrow the Iranian regime. In June 2025, Trump set another negotiating meeting with Iran three days out. Confident Trump was sincere, Iran let their guard down and got sucker punched with a massive US, Israeli bombing campaign. Iran punched back with a beefed-up missile defense. Trump caved, calling a ceasefire after 12 days.

 

But just 8 months later Trump tried again, launching an even more massive attack during negotiations beginning with assassinating Iranian leader Ali Khamenei. This one failed more spectacularly than the first as Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, spiraling the world into possible economic catastrophe. Trump bailed again after 39 days and is now on the cusp of an agreement giving Iran virtual complete victory.

 

As one Iranian source put it:  “Once again the US attacked while Iran was pursuing diplomacy. Once again diplomacy does not work with the terrorist state of the US.”

 

JoAnn Lee Frank needs to get her Iran war facts strait. And the Chicago Tribune needs to present them to its readership.

 

Walt Zlotow  West Suburban Peace Coalition  Glen Ellyn IL  

NATO collapsing in 2026? Can’t come soon enough

 NATO collapsing in 2026? Can’t come soon enough

A case can be made for creating the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) when it was founded April 4, 1949. Originally just 10 Western European countries plus the US and Canada, NATO ensured no further Soviet expansion beyond the block of Soviet satellite nations Stalin established following WWII.

Of course, one can debate whether NATO was necessary at all. A was ravaged Russia, had neither the will not the means to expand anywhere beyond the buffer it had created to protect itself from a third invasion from the West in the 20th century. NATO may had more to do with expanding US imperial power in Europe and enriching the Military Industrial Complex than protecting Western Europe from unlikely Russian invasion.

Regardless, when the Berlin Wall came tumbling down on November 9, 1989 and the Soviet Union followed along December 26, 1991, NATO should have joined both in the dustbin of history. Indeed, the US, under President George H.W. Bush, spent much of 1990 negotiating the reunification of Soviet Eastern Germany into Western Germany, something Soviet Russia would have thought unthinkable. The pro in the quid pro quo was that NATO would never expand one inch eastward toward Mother Russia from its then western membership of 16 nations. Russia could even imagine that NATO, like The Warsaw Pact, would go away.

Big Russian mistake. With the US now the world’s sole superpower, the US abrogated any détente with Russia regarding NATO expansion, much less existence. Russia was to be permanently consigned to second class European status. Beginning under President Clinton in 1999, the NATO added 14 former Soviet aligned nations cementing NATO hegemony in Europe and ensuring an ever weakened Russia.

By betraying the former Soviet Union after its collapse, NATO morphed from a theoretically defensive to an overtly offensive organization. Russia was just one of NATO’s offensive moves. In 1999, NATO bombed Russian ally Serbia for 78 days to kick Serbia out of Kosovo, turning Kosovo into a failed province of the West. In 2011 NATO intervened in the Libyan civil war, bombing the Gaddafi regime and Gaddafi himself into oblivion. Libya remains a failed state 15 years on with much of Africa destabilized in its wake. Even the revered Barack Obama laments NATO intervention in Libya as his biggest presidential mistake.

But nothing compares to NATO perfidy in Ukraine. NATO proposed membership to Ukraine in 2008 to further isolate Russia from Europe. When six years of advancing NATO membership failed due to Ukrainian President Yanukovych partnering with Russia, NATO, led by Obama, simply overthrew him in 2014. Even worse, Ukraine began murdering Russian leaning Ukrainians in Donbas on Russia’s border by the thousands with NATO’s help. Worse Yet, NATO suckered Russia into agreeing to the Minsk I and II agreements that Donbas could achieve autonomy under Ukraine sovereignty to bring peace to Donbas Ukrainians. That was a subterfuge to build up the Ukraine military to finish off the Ukraine separatists in the Donbas. After 8 years of this duplicity Russia had enough, invading in February 2022 to end NATO, Ukraine aggression.

Four and a half years on, Ukraine is on life support, not from the US, which has largely bowed out, but from European NATO, which is still throwing billions of Euros on Ukraine’s lost cause. EU leaders, Especially UK’s Starmer, Frances’s Macron and Germany’s Merz claim Ukraine can win, reclaim all lost territory and save Western Europe from a likely Russian attack as early as 2030.

Long before 2030, Starmer, Macron and Merz will be gone, as well as the Ukraine that existed before the NATO offensive blew it up. NATO may be gone as well and good riddance if it is. Russia has no designs on Western Europe or all of Ukraine. They simply want their sensible security concerns met that have been foolishly rejected by NATO since the Soviet Union went poof in 1991 and NATO, led by the US, used it crush Russian integration in the European political economy.

Had the US and NATO exercised an iota of sensible diplomacy there would have been no war destroying Ukraine. Europe would be enjoying cheap energy and other trade with Russia fostering mutual economic growth. Current NATO leadership would have favorable approval ratings instead of ones worse than President Trump. Right wing European opposition parties would remain on the fringe instead of poised to assume power. European treasure could be spent uplifting the commons instead of destroying Ukraine.

Pivoting away from supporting NATO and the senseless Ukraine war is the one sensible Trump foreign policy. He’s too busy blowing up the world’s economy over Iran to care about NATO. Starmer, Macron, Merz, along with NATO secretary general Mark Rutte, remain in denial that the hopeless war they're supporting is not only wrecking their careers and their countries; it may spell the end of NATO. It cannot come soon enough.

Walt Zlotow   West Suburban Peace Coalition    Glen Ellyn IL

Tortured US history with Iran goes back 73 years, not 47

 

 

Tortured US history with Iran goes back 73 years, not 47

US neocons reveling in the current US war to destroy Iran tell the monstrous lie Iran has been at war with America 47 years. In their deranged world view it began with the 1979 Iranian revolution that disposed the hated US puppet ruler Mohammed Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran and took 66 US embassy hostages. Their lie claims that during that 47 years Iran killed thousands of Americans and no president defended America till Trump attacked Iran February 28.

These war lovers omit the current truth that Trump’s war is a total failure for 100 days now. Fourteen US service persons are dead. Hundreds injured. All US Gulf States bases damaged or destroyed. Israel suffered the worst destruction in its 78 years. US offensive, defensive missiles so depleted they will take years to replenish. America’s defeat is irreversible. Worst of all? The US forced closure of the Strait of Hormuz choking off a fifth of the world’s oil and vital economic supplies, likely risking worldwide recession, if not depression. Today’s neocon war was stupidity on steroids.

Their stupidity omits the historical truth that the US is the warmonger here, not Iran, going all the way back to 1953 when the US collaborated with the UK to depose the democratically elected Iranian leader Mohammad Mosaddegh. Patriot Mosaddegh sought to nationalize the British controlled Iranian oil industry being exploited by the UK for decades. To prevent this the Brits cooked up Operation Ajax and brought the US on board to overthrow Mosaddegh on the pretext he was a commie. 

The US enlisted Kermit Roosevelt Jr., grandson of premier US warmonger President Teddy. As a top CIA official, Kermit was tasked with exploiting fake anticommunist sentiment to oust Mosaddegh in a violent coup. Kermit used his contacts among Egyptian Anglophiles and pro Shah forces to get Mosaddegh’s removal started. But advance knowledge of the coup allowed Mosaddegh to prevail, so much so, Roosevelt's CIA bosses demanded he leave Iran immediately. Instead, he conjured up the ghost of TR, inspiring him to instigate a second coup on his own that succeeded.

It became the model for CIA backed coups, both successes and failures, throughout the Cold War. A year later Ike secretly gave Kermit a National Security Medal for keeping Iranian oil safe for the West. Apparently, Ike didn't want to go public with an illegal, immoral and criminal overthrow of a sovereign government.

Seventy-Three years on the neocons of today ditched coup for all out war to reclaim Iran for a new American sock puppet, one candidate of whom is Reza Pahlavi, son of the Shah deposed in 1979. Unlike Kermit’s successful coup in ’53, Trump’s war is a colossal failure that signals the end of US hegemony in the Middle East and possibly the entire world. The Gulf States, looking at their shattered US bases and degraded oil infrastructure, will likely turn toward Russia, China, even Iran for security. Europe has largely given up on America. The Far East, seeing the US claw back its missiles for its Iran misadventure is also rethinking its defensive strategy. 

Unlike the clever Kermit Roosevelt Jr., today’s coup plotters and warmongers, including Trump, Hegseth and Rubio, are blithering idiots.

Walt Zlotow   West Suburban Peace Coalition   Glen Ellyn IL 

The high and low of Obama’s foreign policy

 

The high and low of Obama’s foreign policy

 

As a member of the peace community seeking end to perpetual US warfare, I looked forward to Obama’s presidency. He had an opportunity to pivot away from US forever wars under George W. Bush. Expectations Obama would promote peace were high.

 

His eight years, 2009-2017, largely disappointed but accomplished one of the most important diplomatic achievements in modern US history, the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)

 

The JCPOA was the seminal agreement reached between the US, Russia, China Germany, UK and France with Iran to limit Iran’s nuclear program to prevent their building nuclear weapons. In return the 6 nations and the EU would provide sanctions relief and eventually resume normal diplomatic relations.

 

Alas, the opponents of any détente with Iran, led by Israel, politically motivated Republicans seeking to undermine the Obama presidency and US war hawks, conspired to destroy the JCPOA. Sadly, they captured the narrative and the White House. Trump withdrew from the JCPOA in May, 2018 less than 3 years from its inception. Obama’s greatest foreign policy diplomatic achievement was destroyed and replaced not by diplomacy, but by war raging into its fourth month threatening worldwide economic collapse.

 

Obama’s foreign policy low point was his regime change operation against Libyan strongman ruler Muammar Gaddafi. Obama intervened in the Libyan civil war, greenlighting military strikes on the Gaddafi regime in March, 2011.  After insurgents captured and killed Gaddafi, Obama’s Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gloated “We came, we say, he died”, possibly the most grotesque public statement ever by a top American diplomat.

 

Today Libya is not only a failed state, but its failure has bled into warfare and political, economic destabilization thruout Africa. Even President Obama realized the damage his misguided intervention caused now going on 15 years. He stated that his decision to intervene in Libya was the “worst mistake” of his presidency.  

 

When the Obama Presidential Center opens June 19, there will be little to celebrate or revere regarding his foreign policy. His low point will haunt Libya and much of Africa for years to come. His high point will be long forgotten, disastrously undone by his successor to plunge the world into recession, if not depression. 

 

Walt Zlotow  West Suburban Peace Coalition  Glen Ellyn IL  

 

 

Bully Trump pivots from strong Iran to weak Oman

 Bully Trump pivots from strong Iran to weak Oman

Donald Trump is the classic schoolyard bully. Alas, instead of hurting, indeed terrorizing weaker school mates, he’s terrorizing the weaker on a global scale, both at home and abroad.

On the domestic front he’s demonizing the ‘other’ by abusing, sometimes killing decent, hardworking undocumented. He uses the Bully Pulpit, not in the rhetorical sense to uplift society promoting wise polices, but to dismantle most sensible domestic policies and institutions, and demonize anyone who crosses him. Nearly every critic of Trump within the Republican Party has been bullied from public office. Every Democrat is slimed as a terrible, horrible person. Classic bullying.

But it’s on the world stage where his bullying is relentlessly murderous. Over 60 bombings of imagined bad guys in Somalia without a hint of justification, much less even a mention. Swooping down into pitifully powerless Venezuela to snatch its president on trumped up charges, slaughtering hundreds in the process. Blowing up small, unarmed boats in the Caribbean then bragging his sick, murderous rampage saved a million US lives.

But on February 28th bully Trump met match. He attacked large, powerful Iran believing the lies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and own war cabinet that Iran would collapse within days once Netanyahu assassinated Iran's ruler. A few days turned into 39 days of bombing before Trump realized that Iran was not only surviving but winning. How? By unleashing a massive missile barrage on every US Gulf States base, Gulf States oil infrastructure, Israel, and closing the Strait of Hormuz to a fifth of the world’s oil supply.

What to do? After 91 days of humiliating defeat, bully Trump turned his bullying on tiny Oman which shares the Strait of Hormuz with Iran. Oman will be Iran’s partner in controlling traffic thru the Strait which consists of Iran and Oman territorial waters.

When asked if he’d accept a short-term deal that involved Iran and Oman jointly controlling the Strait of Hormuz, bully Trump unloaded on Oman. “No, the Strait’s got to be opened to everybody. It’s international waters. Nobody’s going to control it. We’ll watch over it, but nobody’s going to control it. Oman will behave just like everybody else, or we’ll have to blow them up. They understand that they’ll be fine,

Sorry bully Trump. Knowing Trump can no longer ‘blow up’ anybody in the region after squandering much US firepower on his lost Iran war, Oman will stand up to bully Trump just like Strait partner Iran.

Now that bully Trump has been exposed as the powerless bully he is, it’s all over for him to strut the world stage like he owns it. He’s alienated friend and foe alike with his murderous bullying, duplicitous negotiating and utter lack of credibility.

Trump’s bullying served him well in both his business career and his takeover of the r Republican Party for two presidential terms. But Karma eventually comes to bullies who believe they can bully their way thru life. It’s going to take months, years, possibly a decade to undo the damage of Trump’s bullying at home and abroad. But as Bob Dylan sang long ago…”Even the President of the United States must sometimes have to stand naked.”

Walt Zlotow West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL

Trump has only 968 more days to proclaim…’Iran to settle soon on all US terms’

 Trump has only 968 more days to proclaim…’Iran to settle soon on all US terms’

Trump’s expected 100 hour war begun February 28 has turned into an 89 day catastrophe, likely the worst military defeat in America’s 250 years.


After squandering much US firepower bombing Iran for 39 days, Trump cried ‘Uncle’ and called a fake ceasefire to stop the bleeding. Thirteen US soldiers dead for nothing. All US Gulf States bases damaged or destroyed. Gulf States oil infrastructure damaged or destroyed. Israel suffered the worst war damage in its 78 years. Worst of all, Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz, choking off a fifth of the world’s oil supply, spiraling down the world economy.


Trump’s ceasefire is fake because he embargoed all Iranian shipments leaving the Strait and just bombed Southern Iran. Iran’s response is clear. The Strait remains closed to all but friendly traffic till the US ends its war, renounces further violence, lifts economic sanctions on Iran, pays reparations and leaves all Middle East bases.


And there is nothing Trump can do to avoid his inevitable defeat on Iran’s terms. Trapped in his ballroom desecrated White House, Trump day after day for 50 days now proclaims Iran is defeated and will quickly cave into Trump’s deal sealing US victory including no nuclear enrichment program and no offensive, defensive missile program.


The truth is neither US nor Iranian diplomats are negotiating with each other much less approaching a deal on Trump’s terms. All negotiations are going thru third parties including Pakistan. Trump simply emits delusional statements on his Truth Social and press interviews that conjure up another disintegrating warmonger issuing delusional statements about impending victory as his country crumbled under the US, Russian onslaught 81 years ago.



While the US Homeland remains safe as Trump’s war and the world economy descends into chaos, we’re left with Trump’s daily fantasy the US has won and awaits Iran’s imminent surrender.


But the end is in sight….only 968 days of Trump’s madness to endure.


Walt Zlotow West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL

Time for US to deescalate confrontation with China over Taiwan

 Time for US to deescalate confrontation with China over Taiwan

China’s relationship with Taiwan is essentially none of our business. Yet we continue to risk war 8,000 miles from the Homeland on China’s doorstep by provoking confrontation with China with massive arming of Taiwan’s military.

Current US government and media narrative erases the last 6,000 years of China, Taiwan history to create a new cause célèbre for US military adventurism, America’s No 1 business industry. Without historical context, the US electorate remains clueless of reckless US policy deemed necessary to US national security interests: defending freedom over authoritarianism on the other side of the world.

A review of the long, tortured China, Taiwan history refutes that narrative. Chinese from Southwest China settled Taiwan over 6000 years ago. Beginning in 1624, the Dutch and Spanish moved in to exploit Taiwan’s resources, as Europeans were want to do worldwide. But the Chinese kicked them out by 1683, ruling Taiwan for 212 years till Japan gobbled up Taiwan after in the Sino-Japanese War in 1895.

For the next 50 years Japan used Taiwan (Formosa at the time) as a land based aircraft carrier for their pan Asian adventurism. But at the Cairo Conference in 1943, the Allies declared a major war aim was full return of Formosa to China. This occurred by a UN mandate upon Japan’s surrender in 1945.

With Japan defeated in China, Mao’s communists resumed their civil war to overturn the corrupt, unpopular nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek. In 1949, Mao prevailed. Chiang fled with about 2 million of his die hard supporters to Formosa, setting up their own version of the Republic of China renamed Taiwan.

The US looked at the 538 million Chinese living under communism on the mainland, the 2 million on Taiwan living under Chiang’s authoritarianism, and said ‘Nope, we’ll recognize Chiang on tiny Taiwan as the legitimate Chinese government till he can kick out the dreaded commies.’ They even gave Chiang the military assistance to prevent any unification with China which was inevitable without that support. Is it any wonder the people and government of China would embark on eventual reunification, whether taking years, decades, even a century?

On October 25, 1971, the UN ended the 2 China policy, voting to expel Taiwan, claiming to be the Republic of China, and replacing it with the mainland Peoples Republic of China. Just a year later Nixon’s thaw with mainland China cemented US recognition of the mainland One China policy and de-emphasized supporting the Chiang government on Taiwan.

Without abandoning Taiwan completely, the US embarked on 5 decades of ‘strategic ambiguity’ which kept tensions with China over Taiwan’s status on the back burner of US China diplomacy. That changed when President Obama’s ‘Pivot to Asia’ in his second term moved pro Taiwan policy to the front burner. His successors Trump, Biden and Trump again have so turned up the heat, that war with China over its long term plan for eventual absorption of Taiwan into Chinese sovereignty, remains a possibility.

From Strategic Ambiguity we’ve degenerated into reckless trips to Taiwan by US officials and congresspersons and proposed legislation giving the President a blank check to intervene militarily with China should they embark on any, albeit unlikely, military move at reunification. The US keeps advancing multibillion dollar weapons tranches that do nothing for Taiwan’s defense; indeed, provoke Chinese military maneuvers near Taiwan, raising the possibility of US China confrontation.

At his recent summit with Chinese President Xi, Trump got schooled by Xi who told Trump that if Trump doesn’t pull back from arming Taiwan it could lead to “clashes and conflicts” between the two superpowers. Trump might be getting the message. He had his Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao tell Congress that the US was “doing a pause” on a $14 billion Taiwan weapons package to ensure the US has enough weapons to finish off the Iranian regime in so far failed Operation Epic Fury. Facing the biggest military failure in US history, Trump would be wise to put belligerence with China over Taiwan back on the back burner.

Ignoring the 6,000 year long interwoven China, Taiwan history prevents sensible, peace promoting US diplomacy. America made the wrong decision on the Chinese Civil War in 1949 and has chosen to govern in ignorance for the past 77 years. On this issue, ignorance is not bliss. It may mean war.

Walt Zlotow West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL

Republicans should be worrying about millions of fools voting for treason and criminal war destroying the economy

 Republicans should be worrying about millions of fools voting for treason and criminal war destroying the economy

It’s understandable the Chicago Tribune is concerned about the future of the Republican Party (Editorial: Republicans are preparing for the midterms. They should be worrying about the party’s future). Soon after its founding in 1847, the Trib championed creation of an anti-slavery party and its most eloquent spokesman, native son Abe Lincoln. Seven years later that led to founding of the Republican Party and eventual election of Trib favorite Lincoln in 1860.

One hundred seventy-two years on the Trib’s still favorite party is fundamentally opposed to every vestige of its historical legacy. The Trib urges Republicans to reflect on their party "whose historical brand is inextricably linked with patriotism” How did the Trib miss the Republican Party, under Donald Trump, destroyed every vestige of patriotism when it inspired an insurrection at the Capitol in 2021 to overturn the election. The tiny handful of Republican patriots like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger who dared call out Trump’s treason were systematically purged from Republican Party. Trump, cheered on by nearly every Republican congressperson, then pardoned his 1,500 coup brigade who injured over 150 patriotic cops, five of whom died shortly afterwards from injury or suicide, trying to save American democracy from Trump’s treason.

Besides now being the party of treason, Trump’s Republican Party is now the party of senseless criminal war in Iran that, besides being lost with no exit strategy, is systematically degrading the world economy including America’s.

The Trib is anxious to find something of value in the Republican wrecking ball controlling the entire government with no check whatsoever. Alas, it’s not in the claim “There are plenty of rational folks who voted for Trump; 44% of Illinoisans are not fools. “Plenty of rational folks” are not words that befit the 56% to 44 % Illinois blowout against Trump. Every one of Trump’s 2,449,079 Illinois voters in 2024 were fools to vote for the only presidential candidate in US history who sought to destroy American democracy. And when each now forks over an extra 20 or 30 bucks to fill their gas guzzler due to Trump’s criminal war on Iran with no end in sight, they’ll likely ponder the wise words of a 1958 Elvis hit…”Now and then there’s a fool such as I.”

The Chicago Tribune, by spending 1,500 words seeking to salvage the Republican Party without mentioning the Trump GOP treason and criminal war on Iran , may be the biggest fool of all.

Walt Zlotow West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL

128 years of US exploitation, degradation of Cuba continues on steroids

 128 years of US exploitation, degradation of Cuba continues on steroids

One must go back to 1898 for the last time the US was not exploiting Cuba and its people to benefit rapacious US capitalism and organized crime. That year the US cooked up fairy tale about Spain blowing up the US Maine, sent to Havana Harbor to intimidate Cuba’s Spanish ruler. The Maine did blow up but from an accidental internal explosion, not a Spanish mine. Those 261 sailors could not to die in vain so President McKinley and his war party blamed Spain in order to declare war, kick Spain out of the Americas and take over Cuba for US exploitation.

But nothing in the previous 126 years compares to the diabolical cruelty, including death, the US has inflicted upon Cuba by President Trump and his bloodthirsty Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

This is not exaggeration. Need a lifesaving operation in Cuba under the Trump, Rubio oil blockade? Faggedaboudit. Much medical care is unavailable in oil starved Cuba when the lights go dark. Food and life sustaining supplies are becoming scares as farmers and merchants cannot get their wares to the people with a transport system largely shut down. Nearly a fifth of Cubans have fled the Trump, Rubio regime change operation.

Trump glories in their death and destruction he’s unleased. “THERE WILL BE NO MORE OIL OR MONEY GOING TO CUBA – ZERO! I strongly suggest they make a deal, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.” Trump is simply expanding in more grotesque terms US policy to degrade Cuba into submission going back to 1960. A secret State Department memo back then under Eisenhower promoted overthrowing Castro thru “a line of action, while adroit and inconspicuous as possible, denies money and supplies to Cuba to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of the Castro government.” Trump simply dropped the “adroit and inconspicuous” fig leaf.

Ironically, the first US embargo in Cuba was good for the Cuban people. In April, 1958, Eisenhower imposed an arms embargo on the Batista regime. The US had been supporting Batista’s murderous rule for 25 years to insure his support of US economic control, both legal and criminal that enriched US capitalists and Mafia enterprises to the detriment of the Cuban people. Eisenhower didn’t have an epiphany to help the Cuban people. He simply saw the inevitable triumph of Castro’s revolution and sought to curry favor with its eventual rulers.

Twenty months later Castro prevailed, Batista fled and Cuba finally ended 62 years of US cruelty and exploitation. Not quite. Within year the US imposed Cuban embargo 2.0 designed not to facilitate the inevitable revolution but to destroy it. Sixty-six years on, with the entire world community except Israel voting year after year in the UN for the US to stop, America’s endless lust to crush the Cuban revolution continues apace. And under the depraved Trump, Rubio oil embargo, it has become a monumental war crime against the 11 million sorrowful Cuban souls.

Walt Zlotow West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL

Trump overseeing decline of US world dominance…and that’s good

Trump overseeing decline of US world dominance…and that’s good

The global economic consequences of Trump’s failed war on Iran have yet to be fully realized. But even if Trump surrenders to Iran’s sensible demands today, they will degrade the world economy for months to come.

Trump is utterly trapped because he cannot win with either his current blockade or renewed bombing campaign. All US bases in the Gulf States are damaged or destroyed. Gulf States oil infrastructure is degraded. Should Trump renew bombing, Iran will completely destroy them, finish off US bases, and resume degrading Israeli infrastructure as well.

The Gulf States will never again put their full security in US military might. It has proven a complete failure in winning a war against their imagined enemy Iran. America’s Asian allies Japan the Philippians, Taiwan and others now realize the limits of US power and credibility. European NATO countries are coming to the same conclusion as Trump has largely left them on their own to continue their futile effort to push Russia out of Ukraine.

As horrendous as the Iran war’s consequences are, the decline of US world dominance is an outcome we should welcome. China has passed up the US both economically and politically, in part because they have used investment, not intimidation, economic sanctions and yes, bombings to exert their power on the world stage. Outside of Israel, most countries are moving toward multi power polarity as evidenced by BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization rather than rely on, even prostrate themselves before US military might.

There is a long way to go before America fully realizes the folly of its quest to rule the world using violence. We’re still bombing countries posting no threat to the US whatsoever. Trump has bombed Somalia over 60 times this year tho most Americans couldn’t find it on a map, much less fear its non existent threat. We killed over a hundred to depose and kidnap Venezuelan President Maduro. We’ve killing Cubans with our grotesque economic sanctions, including cutting off most their oil imports. We’re still providing intelligence and military aid for Ukraine to continue its war with Russia. Of course, worst of all we have not given up on destroying Iran and may resume the futile bombing at any moment.

But US world dominance is inexorably eroding due to its refusal to pivot from war to peace to resolve international disputes. If somehow, some way America accepts this reality of a new world order without US dominance, we can thank, in part, President Trump for making that shift with his launching a war too far against Iran.

Walt Zlotow West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL

On Iran war he opposed hen supported, Secretary of State Rubio channeled wrong predecessor

On Iran war he opposed hen supported, Secretary of State Rubio channeled wrong predecessor

Marco Rubio is America’s 72nd Secretary of State going back to John Jay in 1789. While serving as the President’s top foreign affairs advisor, overseeing diplomatic missions, managing international relations, promoting human rights, Job One for every Secretary of State is to champion peace, not war.

Predecessors in this prestigious post include Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster and William Jennings Bryan.

What an as astonishing cast of noble Secretaries that Rubio could have chosen from to respond to Trump’s decision to blow up Iran and now possibly the world economy beginning 75 days ago. Reports indicate Rubio argued against the invasion, not on moral grounds it was a criminal war, but on practical grounds it would fail. When Trump brushed asides Rubio’s concerns and pulled the trigger, dutiful Rubio hopped off the Peace Train and grabbed a First Class seat on Trump’s War Train.

Once started, Rubio offered one of the most disingenuous, disgusting rationales for war in American history. Rubio said the US had to attack Iran first. Why? Because we knew Israel was going to attack Iran and if they did, Iran would attack their best buddy America. By attacking first, the US would suffer less casualties. Of course, Rubio omitted that all along the US and Israel planned a one, two sucker punch on Iran while in peace negotiations with them.

Rubio sadly followed up on what till then had been the worst precedent in US history of a Secretary of State abdicating his job responsibility promoting peace to support his President’s rush to criminal war. On February 5, 2003, George W. Bush’ Secretary of State Colin Powell shamelessly told the UN a blizzard of lies Iraq had WMD, intended to use them, and time was running out for the world to stop them. Forty-four days later Bush launched his war that Powell, with his enormous but fake credibility, made possible. The belief was, ‘If Colin Powell says war is necessary, then war it is.’

Alas, Rubio should have gone back 88 years earlier than Powell’s disgrace to channel instead predecessor William Jennings Bryan. On June 9, 1915, President Woodrow Wilson’s Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan resigned. After the British liner Lusitania was sunk May 7, Bryan sent Germany a conciliatory note requesting restraint and high level diplomacy to keep the European war from drawing in the US. Bryan was mindful Germany neither attacked nor threatened America far across its Atlantic mote. Wilson was furious and penned a much stronger note that Bryan refused to sign out of conscience, resigning instead.

Bryan’s principled plea for peace did not prevent Wilson’s disastrous declaration of war on Germany 22 months later. But had Rubio bluntly told Trump he would resign and go public with his opposition to a clearly unwinnable war, Trump might have pulled back from the catastrophe he’s unleashed.

It took two and a half years for Colin Powell to admit his perfidy in enabling America’s horrific Iran war that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and over 5,000 US and allied troops. "I, of course, regret the U.N. speech that I gave, which became the prominent presentation of our case. I never saw evidence to suggest a connection between the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in the United States and the Saddam regime. I'm the one who presented it on behalf of the United States to the world, and (it) will always be a blot on my record. It was painful. It's painful now."

Don’t expect Marco Rubio to ever apologize for helping bring on what will likely become the most disastrous war in America’s 250 years. Rubio has been a fervent, lifelong promoter of senseless, endless US wars and US exceptionalism. He has always demonstrated the exact opposite of what a decent, peace promoting Secretary of State should be.

Until Rubio signed off the Iran war and championed its necessity to “save American lives”, Colin Powel ranked dead last of Secretaries of State. With Rubio’s capitulation to criminal war on Iran, Powell moves up one spot to make way for the worst…Marco Rubio.

Walt Zlotow West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL