The Colonels Corner_ Corporate Coup (Venezuela) A. Parampil Part 1

auto-scroll word highlight ▶ Rumble @ here

Transcript

0:00 Good afternoon, everyone. We are waiting for Bridget and hopefully SR is going to join us. I'm going to get us live over here. Oh, and Illini is here. We have missed Illini. I can, oh, there's Bridget. Let me get her up here. Okay, I can guarantee you guys you're not going to want to miss one of these shows because this show.

0:33 The series of shows is going to tell you the other side of the Venezuela story that you've never heard. You can take this information and do with it whatever you want. But my job is to bring you the information for you to make an informed decision on what's going on. And I can.

1:00 Almost guarantee you, you've never heard anything that we're going to discuss in this book. So first of all, this book, as it says in the prompt, is called Corporate Coup by Anna Parampil. I'm not sure if I pronounced her last. She works at Grayzone. For those of you who are unfamiliar with her work, she's done a lot.

1:30 of work. And she is a very good investigative journalist. She doesn't write articles from the United States. She goes to the places she writes about and lives there. She spends time both with the people and the government in order, and she has access, unbelievable access.

1:56 to she covers the UN, she covers the UN human rights over in Geneva. She is very well traveled. So she definitely provides a different perspective. So what we're going to do, I don't know that we're going to get into the meat of the book today, because as with so many of the books that we read, the foreword

2:23 And the preface is packed with information. So I don't want to skip over that and just start in chapter one. So let's get started. This foreword is written by Jorge Ariza, who was the Venezuelan foreign minister from 2017 to 2021.

2:57 Four decades before the Monroe Doctrine defined Latin America and the Caribbean as Washington's backyard, U.S. President Thomas Jefferson expressed concern that Spain would soon lose its Southern American colonies. He said, quote, my fear is that they are too feeble to hold them till our population can sufficiently advance to gain it from them.

3:32 So the eyes of the U.S. government was firmly fixed on South America well before the Monroe Doctrine ever came into effect. It also foreshadows the centuries of attempted U.S. domination of Latin America, one of the countries of which was Venezuela.

4:03 The Bolivarian revolution initiated by President Hugo Chavez in 1998 and continued under President Nicolas Maduro represented a deliberate political action to reassert Venezuela's self-determination, overcome neocolonial dependency, and construct a democratic and participatory system of government.

4:33 Of course, we are told it's a dictatorship, so people's eyebrows is going to be raised by that. But we're going to go through the alternative view, which this book provides. And again, at the end, we will make a determination based on facts, not propaganda. Because throughout this book, there may be pieces of it that you disagree with. And that's fine. We'll talk about it at the end of each show.

5:03 The antagonism between two possible projects on the American continent emerged early in the post-colonial history. One brought out of a dominant elite in Washington with its exceptionalism and manifest destiny to dominate Latin America, and another presented by Bolivar's efforts to free the region's

5:32 and the nations by consolidating the right to self-determination and political independence. The historic tension between the North and the liberty of the South is what this book is all about. Washington, this is again, the foreign minister saying this, Washington attacked my country's revolution from the very beginning, culminating with a brief military coup.

6:04 in 2002. Since then, our people have overcome Washington's effort to sabotage our industry and economy, as well as open campaigns to finance violent opposition groups and so-called NGOs. Oh, sorry. Bridget's telling me there's no volume over here. There we go. We got it. All right.

6:35 Basically, he's saying that there was a coup in 2002 in Venezuela orchestrated by Washington and their NGOs tasked with destabilizing Venezuela and forcing regime change. And again, I'm speaking for the foreign minister. I was named foreign minister just days before U.S. President Donald Trump issued a threat to militarily attack Venezuela in 2017.

7:07 And a few weeks after his administration unveiled its first round of so-called sanctions against our economy, oil industry, and in consequence, our people. What I experienced while living in Venezuela's foreign ministry was a true war carried out with hybrid attacks designed to pressure Venezuela politically, financially, militarily, diplomatically.

7:35 and otherwise into accepting the Washington Consensus. And again, I have to point this out. What's interesting about this man's words is it's exactly what we saw and we've been through repeatedly in detail in Brazil, Chile, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua.

8:04 It's easy to see how the actions of the people in that country interprets what Washington is doing. This war, however, became clouded by a policy that claimed a little-known Venezuelan lawmaker with the backing of the Trump administration had the authority to appoint himself president of Venezuela. This decision represented a new style of coup.

8:33 where Washington was not simply behind the action, but in front of it and using all means possible to achieve it. It was Trump's national security advisor, John Bolton himself, who confessed that the U.S. oil companies were ready to come into Venezuela once Maduro left power. An open confession of a corporate interest that drove the White House's misguided strategy.

9:03 As part of its regime change campaign, Washington organized coalitions of subordinate countries, such as the Lima Group. The Lima Group was established for the sole purpose of isolating and attacking Venezuela. Washington's obsession with Venezuela has taken hold of elites in some of our neighboring countries, producing an outrageous circus of U.S. subjects in the region.

9:33 This is exactly what happened with Nicaragua. The U.S. surrounded Nicaragua with Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Costa Rica and attacked from that ground into Nicaragua. So again, this is not something that's new. These subservient governments have granted renewed legitimacy to Monroeism despite the people's desire for independence and self-determination.

10:04 The U.S. turned the Organization of American States into a main tool of its diplomatic aggression against Venezuela. Following the initiation of Washington's coup, the OAS took the extreme act of invoking the Rio Treaty, an outdated military agreement to justify future aggression against my country. The posturing combined with the decision

10:33 To accept a representative of a coup government in contravention of its own charter has rendered the OAS useless within the modern international system. Washington's Venezuela coup policy has not only damaged the credibility of groups like OAS, it legitimized its regime change attempt. The U.S. government has reduced itself.

11:02 to an act of issuing official statements describing the government of President Maduro as only effective government that has existed in Caracas since 2013 as Venezuela's former government. When I was personally sanctioned in April of 2019 while on an official visit to New York City, the Treasury Department described me as the foreign former.

11:32 foreign minister of the Maduro regime. The sanctions issued against me, part of a new toolkit the U.S. formed to overthrow a government that opted to write its own history rather than follow Washington's script. Never in 200 years did tensions between our two countries rise as high as they did during the month of January 2019 when the U.S. recognized Guido led

12:00 us to break all diplomatic ties with Washington. In the immediate aftermath, I participated in several meetings with U.S. officials in New York, during which Elliot Abram, and we're going to go over him in a minute. Elliot Abram's name keeps coming up in these coup operations, by the way. A veteran of the Iran-Contra fiasco, who is also tied to El

12:30 Mosati massacre in El Salvador spoke on behalf of the Trump administration. So you guys may remember in the book we just did by Gary Webb, he mentioned Elliott Abrams several times because Elliott Abrams and John Bolton, who was also mentioned, does this for a living. We've seen John Bolton on television admitting.

13:00 that he orchestrates coups. These are the people that were advising President Trump at the time. John Bolton was leading the National Security Council. And Gina Haskell was producing the quote unquote intelligence. And Mike Pompeo was the Secretary of State. So you kind of see all of that aligning.

13:31 With a surreal Cold War mentality, he first approached my team, talking about Elliott Abrams, to ask that we turn against our government and facilitate President Maduro's exit. So Elliott Abrams is in New York trying to convince this guy to be an agent for the CIA to overthrow their government. A month later,

14:01 when his miscalculations were more apparent and the U.S. was attempting to force an incursion into my country's territory under the cover of humanitarian aid shipment, which we're going to get to in one of the chapters. It's very interesting on how they did that. And you're going to see a lot of similarities to other coup attempts that we've gone over. Abrams took a more aggressive attitude.

14:27 During a meeting in February, Abrams warned us that life in Venezuela would become unbearable, predicting that our electricity, fuel, and food would soon run out. And I'm sure Illini recognizes that rhetoric because that's exactly what they did to Chile. Make the economy scream, is what they said. The premonition came true.

14:54 In ensuing months, Venezuela endured every possible obstacle, including gasoline shortages and power outages induced by the US. Years later, we found that despite having enough money in our foreign bank accounts to cover the cost of vaccinating our entire population, our access to those funds was illegally blocked because the US and the UK government

15:23 still recognized Guido's authority. And he's talking about during COVID. They wouldn't release their own funds to vaccinate their population. Now, I know many of you are thinking that was a godsend in hindsight, but that's the level of depravity that they have in mind when they target a country. This dilemma nearly made it impossible for our governments to appropriately respond to COVID-19.

15:53 Were it not for early preventative measures taken by President Maduro and the solidarity of other countries like China, Russia, Turkey, and Iran, along with Cuba, we may have faced a crisis on par with the dismal tragedies of our neighbors in Brazil and Colombia. And again, I have to reemphasize, this is the blowback of isolating a

16:23 foreign country with sanctions and this type of non-diplomacy is you force them into the camp of the only people who are categorized as enemies by the U.S. government, like China and Russia at the time, to do business because they're the only ones militarily that will stand up and help another country. The same thing happened in Syria.

16:52 The same thing happened in all of the countries that we've talked about, Indonesia, Chile, and they just wait for that phone call to be made. And then they accuse the targeted government of being communist because they're dealing with communist China. Hopefully you guys can see the parallels here. These actions created what he described as the perfect storm.

17:23 Washington's policy of maximum pressure was and still is destined for failure because it lacks one key element. It never truly considered what the people of Venezuela wanted. The Abrams, Boltons, and Pompeos of the world could never grasp that. Beyond a small group of their extremist collaborators, Venezuela, across all ideological lines, deeply reject threats of violence and interference.

17:51 in their sovereign affairs. We Venezuelans will not be coerced into changing our social policy that has defined our country for the last 20 years. And I'm going to get a little bit more into why that type of policy is so important because it goes back like over 100 years.

18:15 diplomacy of peace, a doctrine which respects international law while promoting the consolidation of a multipolar and diverse world is their doctrine. And we can already see the problems with that.

18:33 Over two thirds of the world's nation have respected the will of the Venezuelan people and continue to recognize Maduro as the country's legitimate leader. These friends stood by our side at the U.N. and particularly were instrumental in blocking a U.S. plot to remove the government's representative from the body. And that will be further explained in a later chapter. It turns out that diplomacy based on solidarity, mutual respect and defense of principles enshrined in the U.N. count charter.

19:02 is the best guarantee of peace. Today, as my country strengthens its relationship with nations worldwide, regardless of ideological boundaries, Washington and his friends remain in an increasingly isolated labor. Today, the U.S. is stuck with its feudal Venezuelan coup project, a policy that it reluctantly embraces to please the whims of Southern Florida. And he particularly calls out Southern Florida.

19:33 For lots of different reasons, because there's a significant, large expat community in southern Florida, just like there was from Cuba. And they are basically dictating the, they're recognized as the quote unquote scholars and knowledgeable people about Venezuela. But just like in the case with Cuba, these people were the elite in Venezuela.

20:03 that had a class system in Venezuela that Chavez was aiming to get rid of. So you have a lot of the elites that migrated to South Florida, just like we did with the Cubans. And it is these expats, as you're going to see throughout this book, that were responsible for the coup and Guido's rise to power.

20:32 And again, we'll name names and get into that throughout this book. But I want to point out, you guys noticed that I did a little bit of research on Smartmatic. And as it turns out, the three guys that we're told that's Venezuela, that it's ran by Venezuela, that it was a Venezuelan product, and it absolutely was not. Smartmatic was created by three Venezuelan expats in Miami.

21:02 I don't even know why Venezuela began using it. But it was 100% created, and you're going to see that in a later chapter, by these same expats and deployed all over the world for people to use to include here in the United States. And these people are very, what's the word? They should be viewed with a jaded eye. I'll just say that.

21:35 As you're going to find out in Washington, there was Washington's actions left many wounds on the population of Venezuela. As confessed in the writings of Richard Nephew, former advisor to Barack Obama on Iran sanctions and current Biden State Department official, unilateral U.S. financial restrictions are intentionally designed to extract suffering.

22:08 upon the population which they are imposed upon. In his book, The Art of Sanctions, A View from the Field, Nephew specifically described a massive retraction in Iran's economy as a tremendous success resulting from the policies that he himself crafted. In the pages you're about to read, Anya goes into outrageous details of the corporate coup against Venezuela.

22:39 a regime change operation that was not only aimed at deposing President Maduro, but sought to punish all Venezuelans. It is a policy that seeks to exact irreversible damage to Venezuela's economy and make the possibility of an independent Venezuela a distant dream. There's some other words in here, but I'm going to move on to the preface. This preface is written by the author, Anya.

23:08 Why Venezuela? Why are you so interested in Venezuela? Anya's answer to this question varied according to different stages in her life. When she was younger and idealistic, her interest in Venezuela was driven by a romantic fascination with a country that underwent a profound political transformation at the turn of the century, nationalized its raw materials and invested its vast natural wealth.

23:39 into a domestic crusade against poverty with stunning success, which kind of sounds a lot like Libya and Omar Gaddafi. And we know what happened to him. As an opponent of U.S. military misadventures in the Middle East, the fact that Venezuela's renewal occurred under the stewardship of a dynamic leader who once stood before an international community and declared that U.S. President George W. Bush

24:08 reeked of sulfur because he was the devil added significant appeal to her looking into Venezuela. My fascination peaked in January 2019 when an unprecedented regime change effort saw Washington appoint a virtual anonymous, objectively amateurish opposition politician as Venezuela's fake president.

24:37 despite the fact that there was no physical transfer of government that actually occurred. A realization that studying this country enabled me to fully comprehend the limitations of my own government's foreign policy in the 21st century. While getting to know Venezuela, I witnessed the miraculous conception of a multipolar world that without question represents the future of international relations on the planet.

25:08 And I, for one, think that that's exactly what Trump ultimately wants to get to, where everybody is free to do business with everybody else within tools in their tools chest. We know for a fact that Trump was surrounded for many reasons, and we'll get into some of them in this book, by people that didn't share that same belief during his first administration.

25:36 and that there were people buried in all of the different branches of the government that worked against that agenda. The current international campaign to ditch the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency break away from the petrodollar system and establish a global order free from U.S. and European interference was foretold by tea leaves documented in the chapters ahead. At the launch of Juan Guaido,

26:06 U.S.-backed coup in January 2019, I was stuck in the right place at the perfect time to pursue a front-row seat to the high-stakes drama. The previous month, Russia's state-backed media outlet in Washington, D.C., RT America, terminated my contract after six years of employment containing melodrama that was worthy of a separate book. She went on.

26:37 from a network TV host job to join Max Blumenthal and decided to write a book about Venezuela. She visited Caracas. The trip represented my first official trip as a member of Grayzone, a new site that Max Blumenthal

27:07 had founded in 2019. Throughout the last four years, she's developed and maintained friendships with a diverse assemblage informing all sides of U.S.-Venezuela standoff, U.S. politicians, Venezuelan government officials, Venezuelan opposition sources, meaning those opposed in-country to Maduro, Western banking and oil insiders, fellow journalists, and international dignitaries representing several different governments.

27:40 Combined with what at the time appears to be sheer acts of fate, there was an investigation being done into the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which is a think tank that will be featured in a future chapter. These connections enabled me to produce a series of original investigative reports, which formed the basis of this book.

28:14 I must note that when digested within the context of U.S. politics, partisan labels historically used to discuss Venezuela and Latin America in general do not provide a full picture of reality. This next part is very important to understand the rest of the book. Venezuelan is often called a socialism failure, even though, as you will see, the private sector still operates.

28:45 as a democratic economy when it can, providing the sanctions that's been placed on it. Despite over two decades of what the U.S. calls socialist revolution, supermarkets, restaurants, hotels, shopping malls, and other privately ran entities provide the backdrop of daily Venezuelan life. This fact does not undermine Venezuela's claim

29:15 to the quote-unquote socialist banner, which it carries with pride, but should help U.S. readers understand that the word socialism carries very different meanings in other countries. It should not conjure up Cold War visions of an economy that is ran entirely by the government. Caracas's vision of socialism is primarily based

29:44 in that the state's ownership of natural resources, which include the oil and gold, so that they can use that to provide for the people. Not unlike that they're talking about doing here with all of the natural resources being mined in order to provide for the American wealth.

30:14 Caracas's vision of socialism is primarily based on the state ownership of those natural resources, which include oil. So their three primary things is iron ore, oil and gold. Venezuela easily ranks among the wealthiest countries on the planet. As noted in the pages ahead, the allies fight in World War Two.

30:45 would have been impossible without Washington and London monopolizing Venezuelan oil for the war, with Caracas sourced crude, accounting for over 80% of the UK's oil imports by 1942. Venezuela's 1998 revolution and subsequent campaign to assert sovereign control over their natural resources

31:13 placed Caracas in direct confrontation with foreign corporations that practically owned the country throughout the previous decades. As a result, ever since George W. Bush's heir, Washington's sole interest in Caracas has been regime change. This book outlines the efforts to smear Venezuela as a quote-unquote communist hellhole are not only inaccurate,

31:43 but designed to let the domestic oligarchy, I love that she used that word because that's one of my favorite words, off the hook for enabling a devastating U.S.-led siege of the country in pursuit of their goal. Regardless of the technical...

32:06 discrepancies in terminology. Throughout this book, the author is going to use the word a socialist country, but we will periodically remind you that it is not the typical definition of socialism. It's free market with the exception of the natural resources, which is basically, like I said, again, what Omar Gaddafi was doing with their oil.

32:36 and what ultimately led to his death as well, and the regime change that was orchestrated by the international syndicate against Libya. Additional terms like right-wing and left-wing, while increasingly insufficient to accurately mark our own domestic divides, which I wholeheartedly agree with, represent specific characteristics in Latin America that don't correspond

33:07 to the assumptions in the United States. And that's one of the big problems when you read these books. And the reason why I tend not to ever use those labels, because what is labeled as left isn't necessarily left, and what is labeled as right isn't necessarily right, because they purposely manipulate those terms.

33:34 The right and left camps in Latin America are divided according to their relationship with imperial forces in the region. The right serves the imperial forces, while the left is labeled as such because they oppose imperialism. They oppose the military.

34:04 that have been installed by the CIA regime change. And they also resist neoliberal bureaucrats, some of which will be discussed in this book. And therefore, they get labeled the left. The left made up the social movements and governments that opposed U.S. and European interference on the Latin South American countries.

34:36 though this tension resulted in competing visions for economic policy. And she even mentions the right's neoliberal Chicago Boys program versus the left's socialist model that prioritizes sovereign control of resources. And yes, we are going to see in a future chapter the derivatives of the same Chicago Boys that we first met in Chile.

35:08 orchestrating a lot of what's gone on in Venezuela with the imperialism that followed. U.S. readers should be aware that partisan divides in Venezuela do not carry the same social implications as they do here. For example, Venezuela's revolutionary leader, Hugo Chavez, was deeply religious and even described his political vision as Christian.

35:37 Furthermore, some may be surprised to learn that Venezuelan's government has allowed for the formation of armed civilian militia known as colectivas. These colectivas are local militia, kind of like back in the, you know, 1700s, that type of local militia. And they're armed by the government.

36:10 They operate beyond the authority of the state as part of a grassroots defense strategy against foreign interference. So it's almost like they have co-opted the stay behind unit concept and armed local militia that don't necessarily report to the government, but are there to rise up and defend independent towns around Venezuela.

36:41 They don't like suppress people. They don't repress people. They actually, as you're going to see, have risen to the defense of their neighbors in these towns when the U.S. tried to skirt their border along Colombia. And also with a more recent coup attempt where they captured a boat bringing in former Green Berets into Venezuela.

37:11 So they very much act as a defense force, which is interesting for a government, we're told, that represses all of the people. Why would you arm the people? It kind of flies in the face of reality. Okay, finally, there is the big E word that everyone in this, that appears in this book's subtitle. That term empire and imperialism have taken on a variety,

37:48 of understandings in the U.S. lexicon. The author operates according to the old school version. My definition, she says, of empire is based on a simple litmus test. Do the interests of the capital, the financial and industrial sectors within a nation, dictate the policy of the state or does the state dictate the policy of capital? If it's...

38:18 that the financial and industrial sectors within a nation state dictate the policy of the state, you have, let's see how that works. Anyway, she makes the differentiation between the two as to who's really running the show. The only empire that exists in our world today

38:58 is that which operates out of the power centers of the U.S. and Western Europe. That, some regard as the term historical West and the regional satellites around the globe of countries that they've overthrown. The modern imperial network, through this transnational group of corporations and banking institutions that are based in the U.S. and Western Europe, exercise...

39:27 unrivaled control of the global financial system and natural resource market, which again is something that we've hit home every single time we talk. It has reigned supreme since the end of World War II. It is maintained via a world order constructed through the process of wars, both overt and covert, embodied by the NATO.

39:58 Military Alliance and remnants of the Bretton Woods International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and their subsidiaries and regional equivalents. These, along with things like the World Economic Forum, the Bilderberg Conference, the Trilateral Commission, are all involved. Collectively, she uses the term neoliberalism to label that.

40:29 entire group, which we call the International Syndicate. The liberal model of global development established via Bretton Woods is enforced through NATO, and it has enabled Western powers to maintain their imperial status to this day, despite the end of the conventional form of colonialism. Though Venezuela gained independence from Spain over a century prior to the outbreak of World War II, the book reveals

40:59 The U.S. and European interests commanded authority in the country's natural wealth and domestic policies until the dawn of the 21st century. Venezuela's post-war neoliberal government eventually enacted a series of IMF prescribed reforms that produced staggering rates of inequality and turmoil, as it has done in every country. These conditions fueled Chavez's democratic ascent,

41:29 in 1998 based on the promise of a political and economic revolution that broke the Washington Consensus. The officials who filled the ranks of Venezuelans' U.S.-backed coup regime in 2019 were leftovers from Caracas' neoliberal heir, local imperial collaborators who sought to submit their country under the reign of foreign capital once again.

41:57 As a patriot within the army who understood that his country was not free as long as the U.S. and Europe owned its land and government, Chavez organized a clandestine group dedicated to reviving the vision of Venezuela's neocolonial hero, Simon Bolivar. Within military ranks, after leading a failed coup in 1992,

42:26 Chavez realized Venezuela's route to revolution ran not through the military, but through the hearts and minds of the people. Upon his release from prison for that attempted coup in 1994, Chavez spent four years traveling the entire country and convening town halls with average Venezuelans to discover what they actually wanted. This deliberate conference with the public formed the campaign platform that

42:56 carried Chavez to election in 1998 and on to the revolution that awaited Venezuela. As he broke the chains binding Venezuela to neoliberalism, Chavez did not seek war with his neighbors. He simply asked to recall our own destiny as an imperfect nation.

43:25 by the belief in the duty of man to throw off other governments' control of their sovereign nation. His campaign was to resurrect the American revolutionary spirit inside of Venezuela, because he viewed what we did to England the same thing as what he was going to do to Western Europe and the United States.

43:59 That's probably a good place to stop because the introduction is very long, and it deserves its own show, which we'll do tomorrow, because it outlines the thing called the Project for the New American Century, and it's critical as a basis to this story. So we're going to stop there, and that'll give you a taste of what this book is going to be like.

44:28 kind of shatter some illusions for a lot of people. And you need to stick with us because there's a lot of details in this book. It's not an easy book to digest because it breaks a lot of paradigms that people still have. And I don't want anybody to think that this is a Trump bashing book because it's not. She's very careful of delineating between

44:57 the people that were operating below Trump and hiding information from him. And we just saw it illustrated yesterday and today by the release of the documents that was talking about everything that the DNI had been fed about the peace deal that was just worked out with Gaza from the CIA.

45:26 was 100% lies. They kept saying, the CIA kept telling Donald Trump today that Hamas was never going to go along with it. They were doing all of this bad stuff and Trump was unaware of it. And everybody that Trump had in his immediate circle, like Tulsi Gabbard, John Ratcliffe, was presenting what the CIA was saying.

45:56 But telling Trump that's a lie because our intelligence, not filtered through the CIA, is saying the exact opposite. And the dealings that Trump had with the foreign ministers because of his Abraham Accords, all of the people in the Middle East was saying, no, no, we've talked to Hamas. They're on board. So still today.

46:21 The underlings at the CIA is feeding fake intelligence. So we have to take all of this with a grain of salt so that we can see the entire spectrum and not just what we're force fed by the controlled media and the controlled leaks from the intelligence apparatus. Go ahead, Alana. I know you want to say something. Hey, Colonel. Fascinating book.

46:54 It's a little bit more fascinating when you were an oil investor 20, 25 years ago. I mean, I think she raises some interesting points about running the internals of a country. I do think that if you were a shareholder in BP Amoco or Chevron or Exxon back in 2003,

47:23 Your stuff got taken from you. Now, of course, if you talk to anybody reasonable in this space, including Anas Al-Hajji, who's a brilliant oil investor himself, including anybody who's tracked the Dulles brothers, the Rockefellers and the different standard oils and the Seven Sisters had some shady dealings in Venezuela in the 1930s and 40s.

47:52 Especially dealing with unions and especially negotiating with some of these countries too. You know, Venezuela was, you know, really the impetus behind OPEC, if I recall correctly. They were trying to go out to, you know, the different Arab countries in the 1940s and the 1950s and basically trying to get them to form a coalition to negotiate.

48:22 with the oil companies on royalties overall. Although, I guess, to be fair, you know, if you're a U.S. investor and you own U.S. mineral rights and you can get, you know, 12 and a half, if you can get 25% of, you know, top line royalties out of the oil company, that's a pretty good deal. But, you know, it is kind of funny tracking the whole thing through the system.

48:51 It's worth saying that 20 years ago, if you were an oil investor, you probably didn't support the coup against Chavez, but you were kind of annoyed about losing your oil rights. And you also didn't necessarily know the history from the 30s, 40s, and 50s when you bought stock in BP Amoco in 2000. But it is what it is. Yes.

49:19 All very well said. And that goes for the other, you know, disappropriation, whatever you want to call it, reappropriation of the farmlands like in Guatemala, where they offered to pay a fair price, i.e. the tax price they've been paying taxes on for decades.

49:45 The United Fruit turned around and said, no, no, it's worth 10 times that. Well, if it's worth 10 times that, why weren't you paying taxes on 10 times worth that? And this is a dilemma. There is a risk when you invest in other countries, especially when, like in Iran, when it changes leadership and the leadership wants a more fair.

50:15 distribution of the royalties and you decide instead you're just going to kill the guy or overthrow him and put him on house arrest for the rest of his life um there is risk in foreign investments and that definitely needs to be understood one other point and i think there's this is probably where

50:37 You know, I'm going to disagree with the author on some of her interpretation of this. She said that it is worth noting that, you know, she was saying that the West was threatening Venezuela with power outages. It's worth noting that Venezuela, you know, has produced, you know, 20 years ago was producing three or four million barrels of oil a day. They were a substantial energy producer. They had their own refineries.

51:07 They had a lot of resources. For us to be in a situation where Venezuela, despite its robust natural resources and having resources in terms of lots of human resources, lots of workers and people with experience and everything, the fact that they can't keep the lights on.

51:32 I'm not sure that goes to the United States. I think that if they have their own oil resources, but they don't have the skills to keep everything running, I'm not sure that's on the West. I would agree with you if there weren't mitigating circumstances. And as we go through the book, you're going to find out there's a lot of mitigating circumstances that play into that. But on the surface, I agree with you completely. How long? Go ahead.

52:04 Yeah, Colonel, I just wanted to raise the crucial example of Brazil here in the sense that, A, it might be impacting Venezuelan options in a way that perhaps is not often heard about, but at the level of energy cartels and mining cartels.

52:32 may be a factor you know at some level that's that we're not going to hear about um and you know your discussion of you know along with the other discussion of you know different means of socialism and like you know are we perhaps to some extent looking at the wrong variable in this question of solely focusing on what is nationalized and what isn't and you know as you've suggested

53:01 and other times um you know take for example kubachek in if that's how you say his name god god help me uh in brazil okay um he's like he's not really a leftist right because he's not like nationalizing the shit out of stuff and by any means by any means he is simply an economic nationalist right and he is you know doing a lot of stuff that

53:33 irked the the coastal brazilian elite with their ties to european cartels and and hence cia cartels right um and he was not seen as fate looked on very favorably by nelson rockefeller and company and his successor you know was seen even less favorably and it's like the question i'm raising is it

54:01 You know, is it so much that whether the products are nationalized or not, or is it perhaps just as much your intention to gain independence from internationally cartelized markets? Again, with Gaddafi, we definitely see Libya attempting to do that well before Gaddafi and like with the Maathai Italian.

54:29 um murder of that italian dude matai in 1962 or three where he was trying to make an independent deal between russian oil refineries libyan oil and and the italian christian democrat although that's considered like a center-right party he was like some sort of because he ran the oil industry uh the oil ministry in italy he had some degree of independence there he became a threat to you know

54:59 Nate, to some extent, the Christian Democrats and and perhaps possibly NATO as well. He definitely became a threat to the people that run NATO because their entire operation at that time was basically stealing.

55:22 From Iran, they had reinstalled the Shah and Iran was still giving like 80 some percent of the royalties to foreign. Now, since the coup, Standard Oil and BP, Anglo, whatever at the time. And Mattai wanted Mattai, whatever his name is, wanted to work out a deal that.

55:52 upped the amount Libya got to keep because he wanted to go 50-50 with them, which was the Aramco deal in Saudi. And that would have made what they were doing to Iran look even worse.

56:10 And so, yeah, you can't be fair with these people and keep your life. And for those of you who don't know, he's talking about the, as he said, the energy guy that ran the petroleum for. That was ENI, right? That was it eventually turned into ENI, which is the Italian oil major. Yes. So he.

56:40 Which, by the way, was nationalized. He was flying back from the meeting and they had a bomb on his plane and killed him. They blew him up. And originally it was go, oh, you know, it was just an air accident and basically wrote it off that the aircraft just had a problem. Well, a lot later on, when they discovered Operation Gladio,

57:11 They dug the guy's body back up and embedded in his ring, his gold ring on his hand was fragments from the bomb. So they proved unequivocally that he was murdered. Ron, go ahead. I just want to say it sounds to me like this is a like Venezuela was essentially used almost like a.

57:39 A Petri dish or a test case of a lot of the things that they wanted to implement in the United States and, you know, things with the IMF and things with all of the systems that were created post-World War Two that they were trying out on the weaker states. And it seems like Venezuela was one that got almost the full brunt of almost every little thing that they were trying to see. Am I wrong in thinking that?

58:12 Do you understand? Am I asking my question correctly? Yeah, I don't think they got any more of a brunt. They got the same brunt. This is so what's going on as all along. Sorry, I don't have any water here. And I was like choking. What was going on throughout Latin America is.

58:40 The Rockefellers, along with the mining interests and everybody, the whole international oligarch was going throughout Latin America and Operation Condor. They're overthrowing governments and installing military dictators. You can view that as a test on.

59:04 How to orchestrate the control of resources and much of the mechanisms like the Operation Condor built off of the Phoenix program as far as tracking people. Every subsequent operation developed a new aspect of it that is now being implemented in.

59:28 Western Europe and America, the whole mass migration, the rounding up of dissidents, all of that stuff, all of those things you see as patterns that build upon each other to be turned on all of us. Venezuela, if going back to all along point with Nelson Rockefeller, when I read the book, I will be done. I had no idea how.

59:59 intricately involved in normal everyday things the Rockefellers were throughout all of Latin America. In Venezuela, Nelson Rockefeller basically owned every freaking grocery store in the country. There was so much of everyday life in these countries that they did not run. And all of it was done

1:00:28 after the U.S. using either Operation Gladio or whatever, Operation Condor type techniques, and the very few of them that struggled out of that control, like Guatemala or Nicaragua or Chile, and implemented independent reforms that best matched all democratically elected, that best matched their

1:00:58 country's desires to break that colonial mold was either murdered or overthrown. And so if you fast forward using that model, it's almost impossible to not see Venezuela in that light. And that's why I kept struggling with what are we doing to Venezuela? There has to be another angle here because.

1:01:28 If in fact he was a communist, it would break the model that we have built. We only attack countries that want to reclaim their resources for themselves, regardless of what model of government they want. Because again, I'm of the mind, we don't get to decide what other people's models of governments are. Those people get to decide. And if they don't like the model of government,

1:01:58 then they need to overthrow their own government. That is not a job for us. And that's why it was nagging at the back of my mind. And I have read extensively about Venezuela. I came across this book during that research because I've read a couple different books about Venezuela. None of them really kind of captured all aspects of it.

1:02:26 And again, just like a line I said, we're not going to agree with every point the author makes, but it is one of the most well done books that shows the other side. And that other side makes fits a pattern that we've established a lot and makes a lot more sense than the story we're being told. What are some of the what are some of the books that you're.

1:02:53 that you're talking about besides the Thy Will Be Done? I don't know. They're out in my... I don't know the names of them off the top of my head. Ron, a good one might be the Anderson Papers by Jack Anderson and his coverage of the IT&T affair. That at least covers what we did in Chile, how the CIA was involved, and how it was basically this corporate-backed coup against Allende.

1:03:22 At least that was what they were pursuing in 1970. And you actually have the internal IT&T memos and D. The Beard's own testimony on that. Okay. Excellent. Thank you. Okay. There's details about everything that I was just talking about in William Bloom's book called, oh, shoot. What's his book? Killing Hope.

1:03:56 Because he covers so many, he only dedicates like three or four pages to the bigger overthrows. But he goes through a litany of, you know, a ton of them in that book. Can I just say one thing? You know, I don't know how well you know Mel Kay, but I remember I was talking to Mel Kay one time and she made the point, you know, she used to live in New York.

1:04:26 And right near where the United Nations was. And she actually ran across some. I mean, this is a story she tells. It's completely anecdotal. But she ran across some people that were from the United Nations. And they were at a restaurant. And she struck up a conversation with them and found out who they were. And she said, oh, you're the people who were trying to turn the United States into Venezuela.

1:04:50 And their response was a chuckle and said, oh, honey, it's going to be a lot worse than Venezuela. Well, without knowing who she's talking to. And as far as I'm concerned, that's very short sighted on her part, because she obviously doesn't know a lot about.

1:05:14 what Venezuela actually is. And what's interesting about all of this, I don't know if I, I know I've shared it before, but it's probably been a long time. I actually went to Venezuela. And I actually went to Venezuela around 2015. We spent 10 days there. It was my, one of my best friends' 50th birthday.

1:05:40 So, yeah, that would have been around 2015. So Venezuela was nothing like what I thought it was going to be like because everybody had told me how horrible it was. It wasn't horrible at all. We flew into I don't think it was Caracas proper, but we actually went to a resort on Margarita Island.

1:06:10 And we spent a couple of days in the Caracas area. And there was just normal people going to we went to the mall there. We went to restaurants and it didn't look like the war zone that everybody was describing on television. Alina, go ahead. I have.

1:06:36 If we're staying on Venezuela, let's stay on it. I had another update, though, once we're done. That's all. I'll keep my hand up. No, go ahead. All right. Colonel, you referred to Paul Benach. You referred to about last weekend, I think, they were digging up the White House, and they discovered this 82-year-old underground bunker that had to be constructed in secret underneath the East Wing.

1:07:07 And you kind of tweeted out some questions about the Franklin case, because in that case, some of the kids from Omaha, Nebraska, actually got brought on a midnight tour of the White House. And Paul Bonacci, I think, had comments of him getting to see rooms that nobody else in the general public got to see. He was 16 years old at the time.

1:07:34 And he was, you know, enveloped in this scandal, you know, of adults having, including a number of congresspeople and senators having sex with people under the age of 18. But he got brought on a tour of the White House at midnight back in the mid to early 80s, you know, as part of that.

1:08:00 So you were kind of curious about whether that room was on the tour. I haven't been able to track down an exact comment from Paul Bonacci on exactly what those rooms looked like. But he basically made a bunch of other comments, including him being in L.A. in the early 80s and them working with people from Customs and Border Patrol along with Larry King.

1:08:29 to smuggle drugs into the country and them kind of being able to do it, you know, under the color of the government's authorities. In the case, they were able to bypass customs and he was able to get numerous different passports in California and, you know, working in Los Angeles. There's a number of different interesting Gladio tie-ins there, including, I think, Larry King.

1:08:59 was, I'm not sure it's a direct Phoenix connection, but he certainly was part of the intelligence apparatus in Vietnam in the early 70s. Isn't that interesting? And that dovetails right in with Gary Webb's book in all of the drug activity, weapons trafficking, Ron Lister, all of those guys.

1:09:20 Yeah. All going on during that time. At some point, I'm going to have to turn the transcript. So he got interviewed by Ted Gunderson in 1993, as well as there's the original Gary Caridori interview in either 1989 or 1990. So there's a number of different depositions that were taken of Paul Bonacci over the years. At some point, I will have to turn them into transcripts, feed them all into an LLM.

1:09:50 And so I tried to do all the link analysis and all that. And that will be very interesting to see if there's any overlaps. There does seem to be some overlaps in terms of, you know, years and, you know, cities with other aspects of Operation Gladio. And, you know, cocaine, early 1980s, Los Angeles, Customs and Border Patrol cooperation.

1:10:19 Yeah. Interesting head scratcher there. So I mentioned to you guys when we were going through the preface there about Elliot Abrams. Now, Elliot Abrams is going to be featured several times in this book. So I want to read to you guys who Elliot Abrams is so that you can keep.

1:10:49 that in the back of your mind every time his name comes up. He is a cohort of John Bolton. Elliott Abrams, born in 1948, an attorney, a diplomat, and quote-unquote foreign policy expert, known for his neocon views and long career in national security roles.

1:11:17 He's the son of an immigration lawyer. He grew up in a Jewish family and attended the progressive Little Red Schoolhouse in Manhattan. He earned his bachelor's degree from Harvard. He studied at the London School of Economics and came back and got a law degree from Harvard in 1973.

1:11:42 What's most interesting about that, obviously, is the London School of Economics because of the connection with people who come out of there being intricately involved in CIA activity as well as overall Operation Gladio activity. He clerked for federal judges and worked as a staffer for Democratic Senators Henry Scoop Jackson and Daniel

1:12:12 Moynihan. Abrams entered Republican, so he staffs for the Democrats and works for Republicans as well. That's why we say it's two wings of the same bird. He goes to work for President Reagan in the 80s as the Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs. And that, by the way,

1:12:43 was the office that was overseeing USAID-type things for the State Department. Assistant Secretary for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs. That is going to make you laugh in just a minute. He was also the Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs from 86 to 89, which means he was smack dab in the middle of Iran-Contra.

1:13:14 And he focused on Latin America policy in that job. After leaving government, he joined the Ethics and Public Policy Center and became a senior director at the, or a senior fellow at the CFR, where he remains today. And now he's involved in Middle Eastern studies.

1:13:40 He advised multiple Republican campaigns, served in think tanks supporting Republicans. Under George W. Bush, Abrams returned to the National Security Council, where Operation Gladio is ran out of, as the senior director for, quote unquote, democracy, quote unquote, human rights and international operations. Again, USAID stuff and CIA stuff. That time.

1:14:09 He was involved, that was from 2001 to 2005, you know, when we're running the, we're going to overthrow seven governments in five years, according to General Welch. There he was focused on Middle East policy, including the Iraq War and the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah conflict. In the Trump administration,

1:14:38 He served as the special representative for Venezuela and then went on to serve as the special representative for Iran. Both things effed up. Overseeing maximum pressure sanction campaigns on both of them. Okay, here's the nefarious things he's been involved in.

1:15:03 As Assistant Secretary for Human Rights, Abrams defended the Reagan administration's support for El Salvador's military junta during their civil war, where they had death squads roaming around killing thousands of people. In 81, he downplayed the El Mozote.

1:15:28 massacre where Salvadorian troops killed over 800 civilians, including children, in a U.S.-backed operation. Abrams claims the reports were quote-unquote not credible, except they found all the dead bodies. He then turned around and said anybody reporting on those deaths was a leptist.

1:15:56 even though later declassified U.S. embassy cables confirmed all of it. However, his stance helped secured U.S. aid totaling $6 billion overall going to El Salvador as they murdered their own citizens. Ultimately, it is estimated that over 75,000 people in El Salvador was murdered.

1:16:29 And all of those trained killers end up being MS-13's initial cadre that came into the United States. Abrams, from 82 to 83, Abrams lobbied against sanctions for the Guatemalan dictator Mont, M-O-N-T-T, who oversaw the genocide of over 200,000 indigenous Maya people through a scorched earth campaign.

1:17:00 In a 1982 memo, Abrams urged the State Department to ignore reports of mass killing, calling them all quote-unquote exaggerated, and praising Mont as a reformer. This paved the way for $300 million of our taxpayer money in U.S. military aid. Mont was later convicted of genocide in 2013, which...

1:17:29 later on was overturned due to technicalities of his trial. Abram was a central figure in Iran-Contra where Reagan officials illegally sold arms to Iran and diverted funds to the Nicaraguan Contras fighting the Sandinista government in defiance of the congressional ban. In other words, he broke the law.

1:17:52 As Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs, Abrams facilitated $10 million in Swiss bank transfers to the Contras and misled Congress about U.S. involvement. In 1991, under investigation, he pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of withholding information from Congress, even though he was guilty of much more heinous crimes. He was then later pardoned.

1:18:20 by George H.W. Bush, Mr. CIA himself, in 1992, never expressing remorse for anything he did. He later called his prosecutors miserable, filthy bastards, even though all of his, the weapons, the money laundering, all of that stuff ended up causing civilian bombings and assassinations

1:18:50 Nicaragua and the surrounding area, for that matter. In the Bush National Security Council, Abrams pushed for the 2003 Iraq invasion, co-authoring a memo that exaggerated the weapons of mass destruction and ignored intelligence to the contrary. He also orchestrated the 2006 firing of Arab-American Mark Garlasco.

1:19:21 for criticizing Israel's actions in Gaza amid accusations of suppressing dissent on Israeli policy. Abrams supported the 2007 surge but faced backlash for supporting the black site torture. Imagine that. From 2017 to 21, Trump's special representative

1:19:52 for Iran, Abrams helped dismantle the 2015 JCPOA, proposing maximum pressure sanctions that devastated Iran's economy and civilian population, leading to an estimated 500,000 deaths, according to UN reports. He also backed covert operations, including a 2020

1:20:23 assassination of Soleimani. And then we're going to get into his role in the Venezuelan coup in upcoming chapters. But I thought it necessary that I kind of give you a background of who Elliott Abrams is. And he's in the first Trump administration at the suggestion of John Bolton.

1:20:53 How anybody with his background ever got in the first Trump administration is beyond me. Bridget, go ahead. They lied to us about everything. That's the major, you know, I mean, it's like every time you go through these, but, you know, I shouldn't be surprised. I shouldn't be shocked. But they lied to us about everything. Not one thing. Not just this. Not just a little bit of that.

1:21:25 Because they did, and because one of the things you highlighted in the opening was how the differences in words, how they've redefined the vocabulary such as socialism, such as right-wing, left-wing, and communism and anti-communism. I mean, they've bastardized it so bad that really I'm convinced there is no such thing.

1:21:54 Now, there is no such thing, but the fluidity of the definition of these terms to fit whatever narrative they want to push at that moment. For the record, for this, for the intro of this, and some people that, you know, because we're getting followers all the time, go into what specifically...

1:22:24 Because we were always told Venezuela was socialist. What is what they call socialism versus what is Venezuela? Well, again, Venezuela wanted the government to control their natural resources so they could use the natural resource profit to implement what.

1:22:53 national programs to take care of the people, for example, health care, education. So they weren't taxing their people all the time. And that's very similar to what Qaddafi did. He wanted the government to own the natural resources. And then, you know, they had free electric. And what's the most ironic part of all of this is the entire Democrat Party.

1:23:23 wants free medical. They want free college. They want free daycare through 12th grade. They want everything free. And that is the very definition of socialism. And they pretend that they want to tax the rich, but it isn't the rich that ever ponies up a single dollar for any of this because they hire CPAs. And they don't even want to use our natural resources to do it. They want to do that.

1:23:52 to devastate the middle class, making us bear the brunt of the entire thing. So by the very book definition, the Democrat Party in America are borderline communist, but definitely socialist. So, and obviously the difference between communism is the state owns and runs everything.

1:24:19 They own the grocery stores. They own the businesses. They own the natural resources and they make you work. There's no welfare. If your ass doesn't show up at work, they come get you and you either go to jail or you go to work. So the and there are different I mean, the whole Democrat socialist parties in.

1:24:49 They have free enterprise with all of the safety nets, but they all pay a high tax rate over there to provide that because most of them don't even have natural resources like England. So it's kind of like this large scale of gray over on different variations of totalitarian government.

1:25:20 where they get to decide everything. And when you get to the part where you're talking about fascism and totalitarians like Mussolini, that hybrid model had the government running everything and keeping people in line, like carrying the big stick.

1:25:46 But you still had the elite class of oligarchs that basically decided who was going to be in charge. So that was a hybrid model, which I would argue has been the way the United States has been ran since they co-opted our elections, where you have this oligarch party. And once the Senate in the early 1900s became a direct election and they messed up,

1:26:15 the election processes all together as far as interference and all that other stuff, is this group of oligarchs through political contributions decides who the president and the senators are going to be. You may be lucky and get to elect a representative, but it isn't going to matter in the long run. And so we are so far from a republic at this point, it's not even funny. And so

1:26:40 That's what I find the most ironic about all of this. If you look at if you believe that our politicians are selected and not elected and you believe that you have this oligarchical class that is calling all of the shots and we're kind of just the debt slaves paying our taxes down here. How is that any different than a totalitarian government, which is the excuse they use?

1:27:10 To go overthrow other governments who, in many cases, are less totalitarian than that model. Only because they propagandize Americans into believing we're free. Because we have sham elections that pretend that we are electing people. And the media creates this hologram.

1:27:40 of a republic or democracy, as they like to call it, none of that's real. We're not electing people. They're selecting people to rule over us. And somehow, as we've all acknowledged, in 2016, Donald Trump was able to break through that selection process. And then, of course, they tried to coup him four times, which, again, is part of the model.

1:28:11 How you can't look at that model here and not see other governments that they attack with such vigor as most likely being something different than what they're telling us when we're living through it is beyond me. Why are you go ahead? I just want to say you hit the nail on the head with that description of America. The idea that it's just an illusion of choice.

1:28:43 We've never been able to select any representative. We're not a constitutional republic. We have not been one for, I don't even know how long. At least. Yes, yeah, absolutely. And these committees that they sit there and they form and do things, you know, that's absolutely unconstitutional.

1:29:10 And Rand Paulson, they're saying he wants to go into a back room with Tim Kaine to sit there and hash out Medicare. And that's just a blatant example of what they do anyway. And it's just like, I don't know. I just don't get how people don't see it.

1:29:32 I mean, it boggles my mind when people sit there and go, oh, what infuriates me is when they sit there and go, oh, we're a democracy. Just like Bridget said, the bastardization of these words and what they supposedly mean to people, it's just, it's...

1:29:53 It'll drive you absolutely mad. I try not to pay attention to all, but thank you for describing America as it truly is. Thank you, Colonel. You're welcome. But I do want to go on record. I think however he did it in 2016 and again in 2024, Trump broke them. And that's the reason why he's here, because I don't view him that way.

1:30:21 I just want to make that very clear. I absolutely want to make that clear, too. No, Trump is the mob cocktail to the system. That's what I think he is. He absolutely is. I agree with that. And the reason that the people don't see it is because it's been done incrementally. You know, I'm working on a project where I'm going back to basically the reconstruction period.

1:30:43 going through and looking at all the little, just tiny little things that, you know, on their own, you wouldn't really think anything about them. But taken as a whole, it forms this huge monstrosity. But I would say if you wanted to go back to a period of time,

1:31:01 Where we really went off the rails, it was the progressive era, and that would have been right around the time of Woodrow Wilson coming into office with what Colonel talked about with the 17th Amendment, the 16th Amendment, the Federal Reserve Act. The Federal Reserve Act essentially reversing the flow of money from the states into the federal government to the federal government out to the states.

1:31:21 And then the 1929 crash really is what was one of the main things that did us in because it put us on a socialist footing with FDR. And that's where you get all the, you know, we get Social Security and welfare and all this other stuff. And then it just accelerated when you got LBJ with his Great Society programs.

1:31:43 And, you know, I mean, and then Gladio and everything that everything the colonel talks about. I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but I mean, it's just been done so slowly and so incrementally that people just they haven't noticed it. And really what it really comes down to is it's false flags. They they create it's problem reaction solution over and over and over and over. Yeah, I agree. Let's see.

1:32:19 We have a requested speaker, Aspartame. Boy, what a name. Yes. So I've been following you recently. I think, have you heard of this theory that he was, Mr. T was picked by the military by 200 generals? Is that a fact or is that simply a subterfuge? I've heard they.

1:32:47 people say that. I have no way to confirm that. Okay. One more question. I saw some ads for warfighters in underground tunnels, fighting in tunnels. Do you know what that's about? There's a lot of information that is put out there that there's no way to verify.

1:33:19 And just from a information warfare perspective, when you want to flood the zone with information that may or may not be true, you are going to put information, some of which is true and some of which is not.

1:33:43 So that when people pick this up and run with it, they can be easily discredited as conspiracy theorists because either the information is, parts of the information is not true, which is what they will highlight, or that all of the information is not true. And that's why I'm very careful to stay away from anything that I cannot independently verify.

1:34:12 I know lots of people that are still in the military. I've never heard of anyone in my network talk about anything like that. And I've specifically asked them about it when I first came across those things. So if you have a whole bunch of Trump supporters that are looking for any bits of information to grab onto.

1:34:44 to kind of make this fight worthwhile. The bad guys are going to insert information that's not true. And I'm not saying this isn't true, but they will insert information that isn't true. So when Trump supporters picks it up, like the whole JFK Jr. is still alive narrative.

1:35:09 So when they talk about stuff and then they're asked specifically about that one thing and they go, yeah, I think he's still alive. Well, then everything else that they may have researched is discredited immediately. And that's why I don't talk about things that I can't independently verify. I have found no independent verification of any of the.

1:35:33 underground tunnels and the military going in there and fighting all of that stuff, that does not mean it's not true. I can't verify it, so I won't speak on it. Okay. Well, I had a friend who was involved in some underground stuff with people who were not from this planet, put it that way. So that's not firsthand, but my best friend was involved in this.

1:36:04 He was, I don't want to say his name or anything. I'm done talking. I just want to tell you one more thing. I believe that the devil runs the governments right now. I believe in Daniel 2.44, he's going to be deposed, and all these governments are going to be grabbed up in the dust and blown away. This is Winter's Act. As for Tim, that one, there's a little bit of backing on. First off, there's also 2 Corinthians 4.4.

1:36:34 But if you take a look at the Franklin scandal in Omaha, Nebraska back in 1989, you've got kids who are getting put on their private jets out to Washington, D.C. for parties at a famous Republican lobbyist, Craig Spence's mansion, and then getting used at the after parties by adult senators and congresspeople.

1:37:04 to later be extorted. The kids didn't reveal it in the first interview or two, but when they got pressed on some of the circumstances as to whether a crime actually occurred here, they started to mention some of the details of the ceremony because they had to for some of the context. And they said that some of the crimes against them

1:37:33 took place during satanic ceremonies. So if you dig deep, you certainly get a whiff of it. And you get that in some of the courtroom testimony and some of the other sworn testimony in that case. And it's really a shame, the retaliation that occurred against some of them. Thank you, Illini. Ron, go ahead. I just wanted to say that, you know,

1:37:59 If you go back and you look at the Venona papers, the Venona decrypts that were released, you have high levels of people within the military that are looking out for.

1:38:12 For things within the country, but they operate at such a high level and it's such a secretive thing that you're never going to really get it. And it's all going to be conjecture. And I also, you know, to the colonel's point when, you know, that you've got bad people putting out bad information, you've got good people that are also putting out bad information to deflect from.

1:38:30 from them ever being revealed. And are we ever going to know? No, I don't think we're ever going to know. I think everything that we get is all going to be conjecture. You can put together a case and make a case that Trump was recruited, you know, long ago. I mean, who was one of his closest friends was JFK Jr. And what was JFK doing? You know, I literally was just doing some work on.

1:38:56 on the whole Cuba thing and how CIA basically tried to get Kennedy and how he kind of put a wrench in their plans and then take care of him. There's a lot of history that goes along with this, and nobody's ever really going to know except for the people that are involved. And to Colonel's point, I think it's going to be such a small number, we're just not going to know.

1:39:25 I think it's fair to say that we can all agree that Trump is like, I don't know who said it, but it was the Molotov cocktail that was thrown in. Otherwise, they wouldn't be going after him so viciously. Well said. All right, guys, it's storming here and the rumble thing's already blacked out once on me. So definitely need a few more Starlinks, Elon. A few more satellites up there.

1:39:56 OK, so tomorrow we will rejoin to go into the first chapter of this book. Thank you all for being here. I appreciate it. And take care until tomorrow. See you then.

Entities here

Elliot Abrams28 United States25 Venezuela25 Donald Trump18 Operation Gladio10 Iran8 Hugo Chavez8 Nicolás Maduro8 Enrico Mattei7 John Bolton6 Chile6 Libya6 Guatemala5 Brazil5 El Salvador5 Rockefeller5 Nicaragua5 Muammar Gaddafi4 George H.W. Bush4 Paul Bonacci4 Juan Guaidó4 IMF3 Italy3 Soviet Union3 John F. Kennedy3 North Atlantic Treaty Organization3 Efraín Ríos Montt3 Anya3 Ronald Reagan3 Cuba3 Washington, D.C.3 Iran-Contra affair3 Spain2 The Grayzone2 Phoenix Program2 USAID2 U.S. State Department2 United Kingdom2 Standard Oil2 Contras2

Claims made here

Anya member_of The Grayzone host_asserted ▶ 1:00

“Almost guarantee you, you've never heard anything that we're going to discuss in this book. So first of all, this book, as it says in the prompt, is called Corporate Coup by Anna Parampil. I'm not sur…”

Jorge Arreaza headed Venezuela host_asserted ▶ 2:23

“And the preface is packed with information. So I don't want to skip over that and just start in chapter one. So let's get started. This foreword is written by Jorge Ariza, who was the Venezuelan forei…”

United States targeted_for_regime_change Venezuela book_quoted ▶ 3:32

“So the eyes of the U.S. government was firmly fixed on South America well before the Monroe Doctrine ever came into effect. It also foreshadows the centuries of attempted U.S. domination of Latin Amer…”

Nicolás Maduro succeeded Hugo Chavez book_quoted ▶ 4:03

“The Bolivarian revolution initiated by President Hugo Chavez in 1998 and continued under President Nicolas Maduro represented a deliberate political action to reassert Venezuela's self-determination, …”

United States carried_out_attack 2002 Venezuelan coup attempt book_quoted ▶ 5:32

“and the nations by consolidating the right to self-determination and political independence. The historic tension between the North and the liberty of the South is what this book is all about. Washing…”

United States financed_via Venezuela book_quoted ▶ 6:04

“in 2002. Since then, our people have overcome Washington's effort to sabotage our industry and economy, as well as open campaigns to finance violent opposition groups and so-called NGOs. Oh, sorry. Br…”

Donald Trump ordered_assassination_of Venezuela book_quoted ▶ 6:35

“Basically, he's saying that there was a coup in 2002 in Venezuela orchestrated by Washington and their NGOs tasked with destabilizing Venezuela and forcing regime change. And again, I'm speaking for t…”

United States targeted_for_regime_change Venezuela book_quoted ▶ 7:07

“And a few weeks after his administration unveiled its first round of so-called sanctions against our economy, oil industry, and in consequence, our people. What I experienced while living in Venezuela…”

United States founded Lima Group book_quoted ▶ 9:03

“As part of its regime change campaign, Washington organized coalitions of subordinate countries, such as the Lima Group. The Lima Group was established for the sole purpose of isolating and attacking …”

Lima Group targeted_for_regime_change Venezuela book_quoted ▶ 9:03

United States targeted_for_regime_change Nicaragua book_quoted ▶ 9:33

“This is exactly what happened with Nicaragua. The U.S. surrounded Nicaragua with Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Costa Rica and attacked from that ground into Nicaragua. So again, this is not so…”

Organization of American States carried_out_attack Venezuela book_quoted ▶ 10:04

“The U.S. turned the Organization of American States into a main tool of its diplomatic aggression against Venezuela. Following the initiation of Washington's coup, the OAS took the extreme act of invo…”

United States funded Organization of American States book_quoted ▶ 10:04

United States sanctioned Jorge Arreaza book_quoted ▶ 11:02

“to an act of issuing official statements describing the government of President Maduro as only effective government that has existed in Caracas since 2013 as Venezuela's former government. When I was …”

Elliot Abrams involved_in Iran-Contra affair book_quoted ▶ 12:00

“us to break all diplomatic ties with Washington. In the immediate aftermath, I participated in several meetings with U.S. officials in New York, during which Elliot Abram, and we're going to go over h…”

United States installed Juan Guaidó book_quoted ▶ 12:00

Elliot Abrams member_of United States book_quoted ▶ 12:30

“Mosati massacre in El Salvador spoke on behalf of the Trump administration. So you guys may remember in the book we just did by Gary Webb, he mentioned Elliott Abrams several times because Elliott Abr…”

Mike Pompeo member_of United States book_quoted ▶ 13:00

“that he orchestrates coups. These are the people that were advising President Trump at the time. John Bolton was leading the National Security Council. And Gina Haskell was producing the quote unquote…”

John Bolton member_of United States book_quoted ▶ 13:00

Gina Haspel member_of United States book_quoted ▶ 13:00

Elliot Abrams recruited Jorge Arreaza book_quoted ▶ 13:31

“With a surreal Cold War mentality, he first approached my team, talking about Elliott Abrams, to ask that we turn against our government and facilitate President Maduro's exit. So Elliott Abrams is in…”

United States targeted_for_regime_change Venezuela book_quoted ▶ 14:27

“During a meeting in February, Abrams warned us that life in Venezuela would become unbearable, predicting that our electricity, fuel, and food would soon run out. And I'm sure Illini recognizes that r…”

United States sanctioned Venezuela book_quoted ▶ 14:54

“In ensuing months, Venezuela endured every possible obstacle, including gasoline shortages and power outages induced by the US. Years later, we found that despite having enough money in our foreign ba…”

United Kingdom sanctioned Venezuela book_quoted ▶ 14:54

Soviet Union funded Venezuela book_quoted ▶ 15:53

“Were it not for early preventative measures taken by President Maduro and the solidarity of other countries like China, Russia, Turkey, and Iran, along with Cuba, we may have faced a crisis on par wit…”

China funded Venezuela book_quoted ▶ 15:53

Turkey funded Venezuela book_quoted ▶ 15:53

Iran funded Venezuela book_quoted ▶ 15:53

Cuba funded Venezuela book_quoted ▶ 15:53

Anya member_of RT book_quoted ▶ 26:06

“U.S.-backed coup in January 2019, I was stuck in the right place at the perfect time to pursue a front-row seat to the high-stakes drama. The previous month, Russia's state-backed media outlet in Wash…”

Anya member_of The Grayzone book_quoted ▶ 26:37

“from a network TV host job to join Max Blumenthal and decided to write a book about Venezuela. She visited Caracas. The trip represented my first official trip as a member of Grayzone, a new site that…”

Max Blumenthal founded The Grayzone book_quoted ▶ 26:37

United States monopolized Venezuela book_quoted ▶ 30:45

“would have been impossible without Washington and London monopolizing Venezuelan oil for the war, with Caracas sourced crude, accounting for over 80% of the UK's oil imports by 1942. Venezuela's 1998 …”

United Kingdom monopolized Venezuela book_quoted ▶ 30:45

United States targeted_for_regime_change Venezuela book_quoted ▶ 31:13

“placed Caracas in direct confrontation with foreign corporations that practically owned the country throughout the previous decades. As a result, ever since George W. Bush's heir, Washington's sole in…”

United States targeted_for_regime_change Libya book_quoted ▶ 32:36

“and what ultimately led to his death as well, and the regime change that was orchestrated by the international syndicate against Libya. Additional terms like right-wing and left-wing, while increasing…”

Chicago Boys carried_out_attack Venezuela book_quoted ▶ 35:08

“orchestrating a lot of what's gone on in Venezuela with the imperialism that followed. U.S. readers should be aware that partisan divides in Venezuela do not carry the same social implications as they…”

Venezuela funded Colectivos book_quoted ▶ 35:37

“Furthermore, some may be surprised to learn that Venezuelan's government has allowed for the formation of armed civilian militia known as colectivas. These colectivas are local militia, kind of like b…”

Colectivos carried_out_attack United States book_quoted ▶ 36:41

“They don't like suppress people. They don't repress people. They actually, as you're going to see, have risen to the defense of their neighbors in these towns when the U.S. tried to skirt their border…”

United States overthrew Venezuela book_quoted ▶ 41:29

“in 1998 based on the promise of a political and economic revolution that broke the Washington Consensus. The officials who filled the ranks of Venezuelans' U.S.-backed coup regime in 2019 were leftove…”

Hugo Chavez recruited Colectivos book_quoted ▶ 41:57

“As a patriot within the army who understood that his country was not free as long as the U.S. and Europe owned its land and government, Chavez organized a clandestine group dedicated to reviving the v…”

Hugo Chavez attempted_coup_against Venezuela book_quoted ▶ 41:57

Operation Gladio assassinated Enrico Mattei host_asserted ▶ 57:11

“They dug the guy's body back up and embedded in his ring, his gold ring on his hand was fragments from the bomb. So they proved unequivocally that he was murdered. Ron, go ahead. I just want to say it…”

Operation Gladio overthrew Venezuela host_asserted ▶ 58:40

“The Rockefellers, along with the mining interests and everybody, the whole international oligarch was going throughout Latin America and Operation Condor. They're overthrowing governments and installi…”

Rockefeller secretly_owned Venezuela host_asserted ▶ 59:59

“intricately involved in normal everyday things the Rockefellers were throughout all of Latin America. In Venezuela, Nelson Rockefeller basically owned every freaking grocery store in the country. Ther…”

Operation Gladio overthrew Chile book_quoted ▶ 1:02:53

“that you're talking about besides the Thy Will Be Done? I don't know. They're out in my... I don't know the names of them off the top of my head. Ron, a good one might be the Anderson Papers by Jack A…”

Paul Bonacci trafficked United States host_asserted ▶ 1:08:00

“So you were kind of curious about whether that room was on the tour. I haven't been able to track down an exact comment from Paul Bonacci on exactly what those rooms looked like. But he basically made…”

Elliot Abrams worked_for Henry Jackson documented ▶ 1:11:42

“What's most interesting about that, obviously, is the London School of Economics because of the connection with people who come out of there being intricately involved in CIA activity as well as overa…”

Elliot Abrams worked_for Daniel Patrick Moynihan documented ▶ 1:11:42

Elliot Abrams appointed Ronald Reagan documented ▶ 1:12:12

“Moynihan. Abrams entered Republican, so he staffs for the Democrats and works for Republicans as well. That's why we say it's two wings of the same bird. He goes to work for President Reagan in the 80…”

Elliot Abrams member_of Ethics and Public Policy Center documented ▶ 1:13:14

“And he focused on Latin America policy in that job. After leaving government, he joined the Ethics and Public Policy Center and became a senior director at the, or a senior fellow at the CFR, where he…”

Operation Gladio ran_out_of National Security Council host_asserted ▶ 1:13:40

“He advised multiple Republican campaigns, served in think tanks supporting Republicans. Under George W. Bush, Abrams returned to the National Security Council, where Operation Gladio is ran out of, as…”

Elliot Abrams member_of National Security Council host_asserted ▶ 1:13:40

Elliot Abrams involved_in Iran-Contra affair documented ▶ 1:17:29

“later on was overturned due to technicalities of his trial. Abram was a central figure in Iran-Contra where Reagan officials illegally sold arms to Iran and diverted funds to the Nicaraguan Contras fi…”

Elliot Abrams financed_via Contras documented ▶ 1:17:52

“As Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs, Abrams facilitated $10 million in Swiss bank transfers to the Contras and misled Congress about U.S. involvement. In 1991, under investigation, he pl…”

George H.W. Bush pardoned Elliot Abrams documented ▶ 1:18:20

“by George H.W. Bush, Mr. CIA himself, in 1992, never expressing remorse for anything he did. He later called his prosecutors miserable, filthy bastards, even though all of his, the weapons, the money …”

Elliot Abrams removed_from_power Mark Garlasco documented ▶ 1:18:50

“Nicaragua and the surrounding area, for that matter. In the Bush National Security Council, Abrams pushed for the 2003 Iraq invasion, co-authoring a memo that exaggerated the weapons of mass destructi…”

Elliot Abrams involved_in JCPOA documented ▶ 1:19:52

“for Iran, Abrams helped dismantle the 2015 JCPOA, proposing maximum pressure sanctions that devastated Iran's economy and civilian population, leading to an estimated 500,000 deaths, according to UN r…”

Elliot Abrams involved_in Qasem Soleimani documented ▶ 1:19:52