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Letter: Who will the crackpot Father of Chaos threaten next?

(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Protesters rally outside the Wallace F. Bennett Federal Building in Salt Lake City on Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026, after the U.S. captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife in a military operation.

I don’t imagine Trump has ever read or seen any Shakespeare, but he has taken Henry IV’s advice to his son to “busy giddy minds with foreign wars.” Apparently, as prices continue to climb and anxiety grips the country, Trump thinks to distract the American people with offshore escapades.

So … who is running Venezuela? Trump? Rubio? Hegseth? Delcy Rodriguez? Certainly not the popular choice of the Venezuelan people, Maria Corina Machado.

When the current occupant of the Oval office blithely said Venezuela’s oil would pay for whatever is coming next, I thought I had just time-warped 20-plus years into the past to the Iraq War, another Republican folly. Then-president George W. Bush also said the oil would cover the cost. How’d that work out? Trump’s short-term memory (if nothing else) is clearly shot.

Venezuela! Columbia! Mexico! Greenland! Who will the crackpot Father of Chaos threaten next? It’s beginning to sound like a deadly board game. But the United States is guaranteed the loser.

Michele Margetts, Salt Lake City

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