The former United States Security Advisor, John Bolton, continues to generate controversy after a statement offered to the American media Newsmax, in which he specifies that the planned coups against several countries, including Venezuela, in which he was a key factor, they were “justified to defend the interests of the United States.”
Bolton, who held the aforementioned position during the Donald Trump administration, specified on the subject that “this is something that surprised some on the left. But when you’re looking out for America’s best interests, you do whatever it takes to protect those interests.”
Bolton, a recognized far-right Republican Party, admitted last Tuesday in an interview on the network CNNwho helped organize coups in other countries, and in his statement referred to the failed attempt to oust Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in 2019 as a “good example” of a coup he was linked to.
In the midst of these destabilizing operations, the United States ignored the legitimacy of the Venezuelan president and in turn recognized and financed former deputy Juan Guaidó, then president of the National Assembly, as “interim president.”
During the interview, the former official defended this type of action, highly rejected due to its interfering nature, as part of a “strong US foreign policy” that would show adversaries that they would not take advantage of any indication of weakness in their country, justifying the use of force in favor of the nation’s interests.
USA: more than 150 coups between 1982 and 2019
After the arrival to the Presidency of the Republic of Hugo Chávez Frías in 1999, and with it the beginning of the Bolivarian Revolution, the Government of the United States began a planned series of attacks of different kinds against Venezuela with the aim of neutralizing the policy of Latin American and Caribbean integration proposed by Chávez.
This interventionist policy not only included Venezuela, but also extended to nations on several continents.
A study by the Cline Center at the University of Illinois, reported in a column by Washington Postfollowing recent statements by John Bolton, highlights that from 1982 to 2019, the US participated in 350 attempted coups, and 150 of them were successful.
Among these operations, the so-called Gulf War stands out, developed in Iraq, which left a balance of around 900,000 dead. John Bolton assured last week that “this was not a coup, although it did have the effect of regime change.”
