Is Chicago Tribune Channeling ‘Baghdad Bob’ on Ukraine War?

by Walt Zlotow 

Posted onNovember 24, 2022

Reading the Chicago Tribune’s November 21st editorial ‘Memo to the new Congress: Ukraine needs your help, not your grandstanding’, one might surmise Ukraine is winning the Russo-Ukraine war. As proof the Trib offers “Ukraine just carried out one of the most significant battlefield victories in the nearly nine-month war, with its triumph in the southern city of Kherson. Russia’s defeat in Kherson added strong evidence to the notion that Ukraine has the upper hand against Putin’s illegal, ruinous invasion.”

The reverse is true. Ukraine is being systematically annihilated by the Russian military. Russia’s withdrawal from Kherson is primarily tactical. Kherson will be reversed as Ukraine collapses. It is being grasped by the Trib, and all promoters of current US weapons support, as proof of eventual Ukraine victory.

The Trib does allude to the destruction of Ukraine’s infrastructure which has plunged much of the country into cold and darkness on the cusp of winter. But then the Trib reverts to its feelgood delusion that “What will assist Ukraine through this perilous period is an unwavering commitment from the U.S. and Europe to provide military and economic aid.” Let’s see, upwards of $100 billion in weapons aid with the upcoming $37 billion from the Lame Duck Congress, has done nothing but extend Ukraine’s death and destruction for 9 months now. Much of the destruction of Ukraine’s infrastructure did not occur till US weapons needlessly prolonged the war. Had the US signed on to fellow NATO member Turkey’s brokered 15-point peace agreement in March, the war would have ended by April. US torpedoing that peace agreement was a dastardly betrayal of Ukraine’s people. With the exception of the Iraq-Iran war of 1980-88, the US has always worked to end foreign conflict thru diplomacy, not prolonging it with endless weapons.

Instead of castigating conservative Republicans, some of whom plan to end the US weapons transfers in the 118th Congress in January, the Trib should be supporting their efforts to curtail more weapons which will set the stage for sensible negotiations.

The Trib should also cease telling its readership Ukraine is winning this war. Doing so congers up the ghost of Baghdad Bob, the infamous Iraqi Minister of Information, who popped up daily on TV to tell the world that Iraq was vanquishing Great Satan America in its criminal 2003 US war there.

https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2022/11/24/is-chicago-tribune-channeling-baghdad-bob-on-ukraine-war/