Sean Penn’s interview with Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman wasn’t the first time the left-leaning actor has cozied up to an America-hating thug with blood on his hands.
During the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the two-time Oscar winner infamously traveled to Baghdad to — in his words — “pursue a deeper understanding of the conflict” and “find my own voice on matters of conscience.”
During the three-day trip, Penn toured a children’s hospital and water treatment plant damaged during the Gulf War — and privately met with one of Saddam Hussein’s top aides, then-Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz.
Afterward, Aziz hailed Penn for his “opposition to all wars and all forms of aggression.”
Following the collapse of the Iraqi regime, Aziz surrendered to US forces and was found guilty of “deliberate murder and crimes against humanity” during a 1980s political crackdown.
Penn’s opposition to the Iraq war led him to bond with the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, an ardent socialist who once suggested that the actor would make a great ambassador to his country.
Although Human Rights Watch blasted Chavez for censoring the news, stacking the courts and otherwise abusing his power, Penn called him “a great hero to the majority of his people” and flew to Caracas for his 2013 funeral.
Penn’s other forays into political activism include his foul-mouthed call for the impeachment of President George W. Bush when he won the first Christopher Reeve First Amendment Award in 2006.
Penn has also been criticized for urging thousands of Haitian refugees to relocate to a tent city where many shelters collapsed.