CBS News Declares War Crimes 'News Operations'
CBS giddily described the audacious U.S. operation to kidnap a sitting foreign leader, Nicolás Maduro. With breathless detail, they cited General Dan Caine on the deployment of “more than 150 aircraft launched from 20 different military bases” and a “small team of CIA personnel on the ground in Venezuela since August, tracking Maduro's movements.” One might think this is the plot of a bad action
movie, not a 'news operation' against a sovereign nation. The lack of any critical framing regarding international law or national sovereignty is, as ever, spectacular. This isn't 'news,' it's propaganda for an attempted coup. The U.S. has a rich history of meddling in Latin American democracies – from Chile's Salvador Allende in '73 to Honduras in '09, and countless others – invariably branding
leaders unamenable to Washington's dictates as 'dictators' and their overthrow as 'democracy promotion.' CBS's framing of this as an 'unfolding' event, rather than a blatant act of aggression, suggests a certain journalistic amnesia, or perhaps, complicity.