The Colonels Corner-Corporate Coup-Venezuela Part 2

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Transcript

0:00 Good afternoon, Colonel. Hey, how are you? Good, good. I saw the co-host. Let me try it again. Yeah, it's weird. I'm seeing a lot of people popping in and disappearing. Right. What was it? There it goes. It shows he got it. Okay. What were you going to say, Bridget? Oh, just seeing a lot of people popping in and then popping out. So I wasn't sure if the space was glitching.

0:45 It's been a while since we've had that. It wouldn't surprise me at all. Right. So, somebody sent me in the DMs a post about supposedly, not supposedly, a video clip of Jack Posebeck interviewing Mike Benz.

1:18 where he says that Antifa is Gladio. And my immediate reaction, which I did not follow through on, although I still feel like I should have, but I'm going to take the high road, was I guess it's only true if a guy says it. Because that literally was my first thought. Right. It's like, well, it's, well, same as guns. That's only true if a guy says it. I'm just saying.

1:53 Yeah, right. You know, as I sit here and twirl my hair. Yeah. And just as a reminder, as I posted, you guys, please go find that post and repost it. Jack Posebeck is the guy after the very first time I talked about Gladio on X was on Trump Frog's show, which was heavily sabotaged. They kept dropping it like every.

2:25 Five to ten minutes. And. He immediately. The next day goes on his show. And says. Yeah Gladio is not really a thing. It happened a long time ago. It ended in 1990. Blah blah blah. And then the following day goes on Alex Jones. And says the exact same thing. Discrediting it. In his mind. And.

2:53 Everyone knows that that was in direct response to us talking about it for the first time on X Spaces. And that was years ago. And so now they're just finally getting around to saying what we've been saying for years. So nothing like being ahead of the curve. It can't be denied anymore, Colonel. They know this. That's the problem. Yeah, I agree with you. All right.

3:25 Haters gotta hate, just saying. I said haters gotta hate, just saying. All right. Let me get over here and get my Rumble channel going. All right. So we're going to start with the introduction of Corporate Coup, which is addressing Venezuela. The introduction is Project for the New American Century.

3:56 And Anna starts out the introduction by saying that she visited the Venezuelan foreign ministry in Caracas and was greeted by a particular art installation, which at first glance appears to be a large fractured black trimmed window with a tail stretching behind it.

4:24 As you look past the structure to see what is labeled Sala de Salavor Allende or Salvador Allende Room. Located in the lobby, the towering structure of the full image becomes clear. It is an artistic rendering of former Chilean President Salvador Allende's glasses.

4:56 Left shattered on the floor of his office on September 11, 1973, after the U.S.-backed military forces stormed the presidential palace in Santiago and overthrew his government. Allende died from gunshot wounds that, of course, Pinochet goes on to label a suicide, which it was not. She encountered the sculpture.

5:26 in February of 2019 during what became the first of three extended reporting trips to Venezuela over a two-year period of time. Days before her arrival, a little-known opposition lawmaker named Juan Guaido had stood in the center of John Paul II Square and declared himself president of Venezuela.

5:56 announcing a direct challenge to the authority of President Nicolas Maduro and sparking an international political crisis that lingers to this day. Up until that point, the entirety of Guaido's career had been defined by his ascent within foreign-funded civic groups in Venezuela.

6:23 And by foreign, she means U.S., primarily USAID, Office of Transition Initiatives, and all of those that we've talked about before. After studying at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., which is known for a hotbed of CIA recruitment, he joined the ranks of the Validad Popular, a U.S.-backed opposition party.

6:52 born from foreign-sponsored student protests that rocked Venezuela throughout 2007. By 2016, Guaido was representing his native Estado La Guerra in the country's national legislature at a tender age of 32. When he announced his self-declared presidency less than three years later,

7:22 Caracas-based pollster Hitterless found that a whopping 81% of Venezuelans had no idea who he even was. Even so, the novice politician managed to woo officials in Washington. According to a Wall Street Journal article, his confidence was inspired by a conversation with none other than Vice President Mike Pence.

7:50 who placed a call to Caracas on the eve of Guaido's makeshift swearing-in ceremony to set in motion a plan that had been developed in secret over the preceding several weeks, accompanied by talks between U.S. officials, allies, lawmakers, and key Venezuelan opposition figures, according to the article. The scheme marked an unprecedented twist in U.S. foreign policy.

8:17 Washington had declared its regime change mission in Caracas accomplished before a physical transition of government had actually taken place, and it would never take place. Today, Guaido's name is primarily evoked as a punchline, synonymous with the infamous U.S.-backed coup that never happened. To Ana and her colleagues, the Venezuelan

8:48 presented a fascinating reporting opportunity, a chance to cover one of Trump's administration's most consequential foreign policy blunders while getting a firsthand look at Chavismo, a political movement that permanently altered the course of history on our shared American continent. Each time she went to Venezuela,

9:16 it was evident that the country was experiencing extraordinary times. The facility of the airport was cavernous, but usually after this scenario became less and less busy. Since 2016, major airlines such as Aeromexico, Lufthansa, and Delta has halted all flights to Venezuela.

9:51 citing an increasing strained economic condition and hurdles to transferring foreign currency out of the country. On her first ride into Caracas, she observed a bustling Latin American landscape pulsing with all the normal signs of daily life. According to Western media, Venezuela that I had just entered was a hellscape. Headlines such as pets on the menu.

10:21 as Venezuelans starve and how Venezuelan became a war zone, created the impression that travelers should expect to encounter a virtual zombie apocalypse. The Obama administration in March of 2015's decision to issue an executive order classifying the country as an unusual and extraordinary threat to national security of the U.S. underscored the message that Venezuela was a place to fear.

10:50 Venezuelans and their government have been thrust into a war, not just one portrayed in the Western global media apparatus. Quote, today we proudly proclaim for all to hear the Monroe Doctrine is alive and well, unquote. That was said by none other than National Security Advisor John Bolton, as he triumphantly declared before a group of Cuban.

11:18 Bay of Pigs veterans on April 2019, roughly three months after the U.S.'s recognition of Guaido. Days later, Ambassador Samuel Mankata, Venezuela's representative before the UN in New York, expressed to me his conviction that Bolton's Monroeist views were based on a 200-year-old ideology.

11:45 Unfortunately for the U.S. and Venezuelan populations alike, Bolton's words represented not only the view of the Trump administration, but an unelected bureaucracy that dominated Washington across decades of superficial changes in leadership. Indeed, one could draw a direct line between the early 1900s and Venezuelan policy and the CIA backed.

12:16 that ousted Chile's Allende, Latin America's first democratically elected socialist president in 1973, an act of terror that colored the continent-wide campaign of U.S.-sponsored counterinsurgencies and lethal political repression. Allende's splintered

12:44 Glasses on the floor of the foreign ministry today are a reminder of the threat that all independent governments in the region face as Monroe's ghost wanders the halls of Washington, haunting its permanent guard with visions of colonial conquest conjured up in the cradle of the U.S. empire. This reality weighs heavily on the shoulders of Venezuela's current officials.

13:11 of whom bear the legacy of underground movements that once resisted their own country's U.S.-backed military junta. In the decades preceding the 1998 revolution, Venezuela was ravaged by the same dark forces that reigned across Chile and the rest of the South American continent throughout the 20th century. Military dictatorships, dirty wars against freedom fighters,

13:39 and a pro-market shock therapy prescribed to benefit a tiny domestic ruling class that placed the boundless wealth beneath its soil, like oil reserves and gold deposits, under the command of foreign interest. It's no surprise that when a charismatic Venezuelan paratrooper stormed the country's political scene and declared war,

14:08 On the domestic oligarchy, controlled by those Western interests, the public was ripe for more than your average nationalist revival. Following decades of colonial and neoliberal subjugation, Venezuela's sole path to sovereignty was a political revolution. At around midnight on February 4, 1992, gunfire erupted near Venezuela's presidential palace in Caracas.

14:38 Forces loyal to Carlos Andres Perez were beating back an uprising within the military ranks in the capital, while simultaneous revolts flared around many cities. Using a tank to breach the palace door, rebels managed to kill three of the president's bodyguards and eventually forced Perez, who had just returned from an economic conference in Switzerland, to seek refuge in the studios of

15:07 Venavision, a private television station. After hours of battle, which saw Perez's troop resort to using F-16 fighter jets to squash the mutiny, the insurgents surrendered. At least 101 people, including 42 civilians, were killed in the fighting. By midday on February 5th, authorities had arrested 133 military officers and 953 enlisted soldiers.

15:38 for supporting the failed coup. Among those detained was Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Rafael Chavez, a paratrooper from humble beginnings in Venezuelans' rural plains, who had been organizing rebel patriots within the army ranks since 1982. He founded the revolutionary Bolvarian Movement 200.

16:05 which was nicknamed MBR 200, described by Venezuela's current government as an organization led by young military men that was born to fight against the neoliberal system. MBR 200 saw themselves as continuing the Latin American liberator, Simone Boulevard. Such a vision is reflected in the group's founding pledge, quote, not to rest an arm or relax the soul.

16:36 until the chains binding their people were shattered. Bolivar famously uttered the same words to his mentor and tutor, Samuel Robinson, in 1805, just five years before the start of the Venezuelan War of Independence. To understand Chavez's political development, it is necessary to grasp Venezuela's historic evolution.

17:04 For readers in the United States, the story of revolutionaries on the American continent declaring sovereignty over European kings is a familiar story. Where we had the British, Venezuelans had the Spanish. In fact, the current government officials in Caracas want to recall decades before Venezuelans military leader Francisco de Miranda.

17:31 Fought alongside Bolivar to lead South American patriots to victory against the Spanish crown, he laid siege to King George's troops in Pensacola, Florida during the American Revolution in the north. Venezuela's own fight for independence officially began in 1810, two years after a tiny French emperor set his sights on Madrid and shattered Spain's grip on the Americas. Bolivar, a...

18:01 Venezuelan-born military leader inspired by Enlightenment principles and North American revolutionaries, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, eventually led the local charge against Spain and its royal forces in the South American region. In 1819, he established Gran Colombia, a state that spanned territories throughout modern-day Guyana,

18:27 Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Panama. The United States government, then led by James Monroe, recognized Gran Colombia's independence on June 19, 1822. Monroe's acceptance of Gran Colombia was not informed by brotherly sentiments for a nation which, like his own, had successfully bucked the bondage of European colonialism and gained independence.

18:58 Instead, Monroe saw an opportunity to grow the U.S. imperial reach of his own country. In 1823, the U.S. president first articulated his infamous Monroe Doctrine, a policy on its surface merely rejecting European interference in the American continent. Today, it is widely understood that Monroe Doctrine is not a repudiation of imperialism on principle.

19:27 but a blueprint for a policy that historically defined South and Central America as well as the Caribbean as Washington's backyard. In Monroe's view, it was the United States, not the newly formed independent republics of Central and South America, that was destined to inherit Spain's control of the region. And it's funny that today you see posts on X all day long of Monroe Doctrine 2.0.

19:58 which flies in the face of the non-imperialistic viewpoint. It's weird. Grand Columbia would never live up to its potential as a regional powerhouse. Almost as soon as it won its independence from Spain, Bolivar's government became entangled in regional separatists seeking autonomy from his federal state.

20:26 Tensions reached a head in 1828 when diplomatic disputes between Gran Colombia and its neighbor Peru sparked a war. That conflict, combined with intensifying separatist revolts throughout Gran Colombia, eventually led to the disintegration of the project. In April 1830, Latin America's liberator resigned as president of Gran Colombia and embarked on a journey to exile.

20:55 that he never completed. Bolivar died on December 17, 1830, as he awaited a ship to carry him from the modern-day Colombia to Europe. Though history books officially attributed his sudden demise at 47 to tuberculosis, others, including Chavez, have claimed he was poisoned. In 2010, an infectious disease expert at Johns Hopkins University

21:25 conducted a review of Bolivar's medical records and concluded that he likely died after ingesting arsenic, insisting his poisoning was accidental because of medical treatments. But it was definitely poisoning. At the time of Bolivar's death, Venezuela and Ecuador had already declared independence from Gran Colombia, which officially dissolved.

21:56 in 1831. In decades following Grand Columbia's disintegration, Venezuela fell under a military dictatorship and was generally governed by strongmen who maintained friendly relations with the U.S. It was not until 1922 when geologists working for the Royal Dutch Shell Company uncovered the depths of Venezuelans' crude reserves, just like they did in Indonesia.

22:27 There was a mad dash for control of the country that continues to this day. By 1929, Venezuela was the world's second largest oil producer, rivaled only by the U.S. Average Venezuelans were not the primary beneficiaries of this newfound wealth. However, due to the fact that three foreign companies, Shell, U.S. Standard Oil, and U.S. Gulf Oil, owned

22:57 98% of their domestic oil market. Venezuela's strategic importance to the U.S. and Europe was underscored as Washington prepared to enter World War II. At the time, Washington's primary ally, London, was entirely reliant on oil imports for its military, with Caracas providing roughly 40% of its supply as of 1939.

23:26 Faced with the prospect that domestic U.S. oil reserves were insufficient to sustain Washington's own war effort, the Allies looked to Venezuela to fill the gap. By the time U.S. troops touched ground in the British Isles in 1942, Caracas was supplying 80% of London's crude imports from strategic locations just south of the transatlantic conflict.

23:54 Simply put, Venezuelan's oil fueled the Allied victory in World War II. Washington and London plundered the Venezuelan oil, was in jeopardy in 1945 when several years of popular discontent with the ruling military dictatorship in Caracas led to a coup that installed a self-styled Democrat and founder of the center-left Acción Democratic Party.

24:28 Romulo Ernesto Benicourt Bello as the president. During his brief time in office, Benicourt enacted a series of political reforms, including universal suffrage, that earned his legacy as the father of Venezuelan democracy. Benicourt's agenda, which focused on nationalizing Venezuela's oil reserves and initiating Caracas membership in the OPEC,

25:04 organization, upended British and U.S. control of the country. In 1948, less than one year after Venezuela held its first ever participatory election, the country's military carried out a second coup, this time ousting Benicourt's democratically elected successor. After squashing Venezuela's flirtation with democracy,

25:35 The coup of 1948 gave way to the rule of Marcos Perez Jimenez. And what's interesting is that's a year after the CIA was set up. I'm sure that's just a coincidence. He led the country from 1950 to 1958. Unlike his predecessors in the Democrat Party.

26:02 Perez Jimenez welcomed foreign investment in Venezuela's oil sector, particularly that of the U.S., and offshore interests deepened their hold on the country. Perez Jimenez waged a violent campaign of repression of the domestic population, though he is credited with overseeing a dramatic investment in Venezuela's public infrastructure from foreign forces.

26:30 The Perez Jimenez error was ultimately defined by his decision to ban political opposition, including the Democrat Party. He also deployed a secret police to torture and imprison union members and shut down the country's national university as part of the war against independence. Sounds so familiar.

26:57 Upon his death in 2001, the Guardian characterized Perez Jimenez's rule as one of censorship, political persecution, torture, and assassination were blended with authoritarian efficiency and a flourishing public works program, flourishing for foreign companies. Meanwhile, the New York Times asserted that Perez Jimenez was feared and hated inside his country.

27:27 describing the leader as the prototype of the Latin American military despot. His virulent anti-communism, dang, another similarity, and his tolerant attitude towards foreign oil companies, however, gained him the backing of the U.S., the New York Times said, noting that President Dwight D. Eisenhower even awarded Perez Jimenez a Legion of Merit

27:58 In 1954, and we've heard that before too, for killing his own people. Perhaps intoxicated by such recognition, Perez Jimenez ultimately violated his relationship with Washington when he grew the temerity to begin developing a national industrial base rather than simply absorbing U.S. capital at high rates of interest. The Guardian reported that in a 2001 article.

28:28 Perez Jimenez's reign came to an end almost immediately when protests against his rule sparred yet another military mutiny in Caracas that forced his exile to the Dominican Republic. You cannot be independent. The developments of 1958 inaugurated a new age in Venezuela's politics that marked the formal end of military rule and the establishment of a seemingly democratic state.

28:58 representing the final chapter in Venezuela's pre-Chavez history. The years following Perez Jimenez Oster were defined by the Pacto Pontifico, a 1958 agreement between the country's three major political parties to hold democratic elections, mutually respect the outcome. On its face, the PAC

29:24 ended Venezuela's air of foreign-backed dictatorships. In practice, the pact merely consolidated the same foreign and corporate interests that had backed Perez Jimenez behind the guise of a multi-political party democratic state. Dang, that sounds so familiar. Let's weaponize the political parties like we have here in the U.S.

29:52 with the face of a Democrat and a Republican and pretend they're different. Throughout the 40 years following the pact of 1958, Ascension Democratica, referred to as AD, and El Comité d'Organisation Politica Electoral Independence, called COPEI, C-O-P-E-I,

30:22 and Venezuela's Social Christian Party fell into a dynamic that mirrors the modern-day two-party duopoly in the U.S. While AD and COPI differed on small matters, neither party dared to venture from the Washington's consensus program while rotating control of the Venezuelan presidency.

30:48 Beholding to global financial interest in neoliberal institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the PAC parties delivered Venezuela little more than the same tired policies the dictatorship had. Throughout the 60s and 70s, both parties worked to suppress the rise of any freedom fighters in Venezuela, overseeing a dirty war that left an estimated 5,000 dead and 3,000...

31:18 Among those killed was Jorge Antonio Rodriguez, a student whom intelligence service captured in 1976 and tortured to death. His son, Jorge, and daughter, Deli, both currently serve as high-level officials in the administration of Nicolas Maduro. As documented in upcoming chapters A.D. and Copi,

31:48 combined subservient to the neoliberal order, eventually gave way to unprecedented political upheaval, a social crisis that set the stage for Chavez's democratic election in 1998. The average Venezuelan were first introduced to Hugo Chavez at around midday on February 4, 1992, when he appeared on their television sets to take credit for leading a military uprising that failed to dis...

32:18 depose President Carlos Andres Perez as they slept. Quote, comrades, regrettably for now, the objectives that we were not, were not achieved in the Capitol. Unquote, said the young Lieutenant Colonel, calling on his troops to surrender and avoid any more bloodshed. Quote,

32:42 It is time to reflect. New situations will arise. The country must move decisively towards a better destiny, unquote. Chavez's appeal, known as Por Ahura, for now, address, was hardly one minute long, yet it marked on Venezuela's history was eternal. Unlike most military leaders in this position, Chavez was quite deliberately refusing to accept defeat.

33:12 With the phrase, for now, he instead suggested his followers would one day rise again. Though Chavez and his collaborators were jailed for their participation in the coup, the events of February 4, 1992, ultimately spread his revolutionary vision far beyond the ranks of the Venezuelan military. It inspired public campaigns for his freedom and freedom in general.

33:40 In an effort to unify the country, Perez's successor, Rafael Caldera, released Chavez and his cohort from prison in March 1994. As Chavez predicted, a new political situation did eventually rise in Venezuela, which carried him to the presidency. Throughout the four years following his release from prison, Chavez traveled throughout the entire country, talking in town halls.

34:09 He used that experience to shape the platform of a populist presidential campaign, running on the promise to convene a national constitution and rewrite their constitution according to the public's desires. Chavez won a landslide victory on December 6, 1998. The following July, Venezuelans elected representatives to serve the Constituent Assembly, which officially got to work in August.

34:38 Venezuela approved their new constitution on December 15th, 1999, less than one year after his swearing-in ceremony, formally establishing the Bulgarian Republic of Venezuela by an overwhelming 42% margin. In 1999, the constitution and subsequent laws passed under Chavez revolutionized Venezuelan society, setting up social security.

35:08 health care, education, and housing as fundamental rights guaranteed by the state, which ironically is exactly what the Democrat Party is here, yet they hate them. To fund such massive social investment, the Constitution banned private monopolies and most importantly asserted that all natural resources that exist within the territory of the nation, beneath ground, within the exclusive economic zone, and on the continent shelf,

35:38 are the properties of the republic. They are public domain and therefore inalienable and not transferable. In other words, Venezuela nationalized its vast national wealth, including the oil reserves, the largest in the world, and vowed to invest those riches in its people. Venezuela's achievement under Chavez's leadership are extensively documented.

36:03 As a result of its 1999 constitution, Venezuela doubled investment in government programs and raised social spending to 22% of its GDP by 2011. In turn, the country saw a 20% drop in poverty and a 50% reduction in extreme poverty during the same period. When Chavez was elected in 1998, roughly 700,000 students were enrolled in higher education.

36:33 By 2011, that was over 2 million. These are just a few examples of the transformation, a political project that Chavez himself would eventually brand as the 21st century socialism. As Venezuela's thrived, however, the health of its leader deteriorated. On June 10, 2011, Chavez traveled to Havana to undergo emergency surgery on his pelvis.

37:02 At the end of the month, he emerged to speak before the public and revealed he had been diagnosed with cancer. He had been neglecting his health. He died shortly before 4.30 p.m. on March 5, 2013, at the age of 58. Immediately, U.S. and European media fell into the predictable chorus about Venezuela's uncertain future.

37:26 Mr. Chavez's departure from a country he dominated for 14 years cast into doubt the future of his revolution, reported the New York Times. It went on to say his death is sure to bring vast uncertainty as the nation rises to find its way without the central figure. Venezuela's former colonizers in Madrid echoed the New York Times article by saying, quote,

37:55 Pain and uncertainty in Venezuela after the death of Chavez was the headline in the Spanish newspaper. Up until his death, Chavez, I don't even know how they say that, Chavismo, which is what they name, kind of like MAGA is named, Chavismo is their name for their equivalent following under Chavez.

38:26 virtually undefeated at the ballot box. For 14 years, Venezuela's opposition failed to win a presidential election or gain any significant majority in the legislature. Would Venezuela's revolutionary project die alongside Chavez? Many hoped as much. In Washington, Florida Senator Marco Rubio openly fantasized that Venezuela's uncertain future would result in its break with Chavez.

38:58 Asserting Chavez's death presented the country with an opportunity to turn the page on one of the darkest periods in its history. That's a quote. And embark on a new albeit difficult path to restore the rule of law, democratic principles, security and free enterprise system. Unquote. The Obama administration struck a more balanced tone while expressing similar optimism that regime change was on.

39:30 Venezuela's horizon. Quote, as Venezuela begins a new chapter in its history, the U.S. remains committed to policies that promote democratic principles, the rule of law, and the respect of human rights, Obama said, which means none of that is true. The question of whether Venezuela continued down its revolutionary path would be decided rather abruptly. According to Article 233 of the country's 1999 Constitution,

39:58 In the event of the president's death, a new election by universal suffrage and direct ballot shall be held within 30 consecutive days. Within a week of Chavez's March 5th passing, Venezuela's electoral commission scheduled the next presidential election for April 14th. Presented with their first opportunity to overturn Chavismo without Chavez, Venezuela's opposition looked for Henrique.

40:27 Caprales Radonsky of the U.S.-backed Primero Justica Party, the son of a successful businessman responsible for bringing craft foods to Venezuela in the 1950s. Caprales had co-founded the party alongside his fellow Caracas aristocrat, Leopardo

40:58 Lopez. Remember that name, Leopardo Lopez. He is used throughout this entire book. Very critical player. Leopoldo Lopez in the year 2000. Just one year later, the U.S. State Department funded International Republican Institute, the IRI of the National Endowment for Democracy.

41:29 poured almost half a million dollars into that political party as part of initiative to train party members, molding them into a professional class of opponents, representing the Primero Justica on behalf of a coalition of opposition parties known as the Mesa de la Unidad Democratica, or MUD, M-U-D is their acronym.

41:59 Capriles ran against an ailing Chavez in October 2012 and had lost by a million votes. In his chance at electoral redemption, Capriles faced a man who had risen from union leader to National Assembly member to foreign minister to Chavez-trusted vice president, Nicolas Maduro, after announcing his relapse with cancer in December 2012.

42:28 Chavez made a televised address in which he urged the country to support Maduro if his health took a turn for the worse. This is, quote, choose Maduro as president of the republic, he said. I am asking you to do this with all my heart, unquote. The same media apparatus that pushed the narrative of Venezuela's uncertain future following Chavez's death adopted a uniformly imperious refrain.

42:57 in its coverage of Maduro. U.S. and European media reports on Venezuela's 2013 election almost universally reduced Maduro's character to that of Chavez's hand-picked successor, which is not untrue. He was. While sowing doubt that someone who had launched their career as a public transportation worker could ever possibly navigate the ship of a state.

43:27 Maduro's journey was a strange one. He had risen from being a lowly bus driver to a powerful union leader to eventually being Chavez's vice president. That was written about in The Atlantic in 2013. Yes, quote, yes, a former bus driver may be Venezuela's new president, unquote. Meanwhile, a dispatch in the U.S. government backed National Public Radio.

44:00 conspicuously glossed over Maduro's decade-long career as a civil servant, identifying him simply as a bus driver. Maduro's work as a federal lawmaker and as Venezuelan's foreign minister, as well as the fact that any leader's vice president was by definition a close confidant and hand-picked successor, was evidently lost on all the foreign press.

44:32 They would, let's see, if the media had demonstrated any intellectual curiosity about the new leader, they would have discovered that he was a revolutionary in his own right, born to a politically active father, Nicolas Maduro Garcia, who was forced into exile after organizing a failed general strike against Venezuela's military junta in 1952.

45:01 and was also a union leader. Maduro, the dad, was a student activist well before Chavez became a household name. And it goes on to talk a little bit about his background. And then it transitions into Maduro, the current president, that says after his employment as a bus driver for the

45:36 Caracas Metro in 1991, Maduro rapidly rose the ranks of the union leadership to the fact that he was driven, friendly, committed to work interests, and charismatic, according to another book. It was in his capacity as union leader that Maduro first met Hugo Chavez. While imprisoned for his coup attempt, Chavez convened a meeting

46:02 with labor leaders, including Maduro, in December 1993. Following the encounter, Maduro became a top advocate for Chavez's release and eventually elected to the 1999 National Constitution Assembly. In this context, the fact that Chavez entrusted his entire political legacy to Maduro was not surprising, even if foreign media only saw him as a bus driver.

46:31 Venezuela's heeded their revolutionary leader's call and elected Chavez as president on October 14, 2013. Venezuela's National Electoral Council declared Maduro's victory over Capriles by a narrow margin of 234,934 votes. Though Capriles initially refused to accept the results and leveled charges of fraud, he ultimately produced no evidence.

47:00 Even so, Maduro struck a conciliatory tone towards Capriles and other members of the opposition during his April 19th inaugural address, announcing his intentions to extend a hand and build an inclusive nation for everybody. Maduro's rush to win a breakneck election within weeks of the death proved to be the easiest task. As soon as he entered the palace,

47:30 The U.S. and its allies unleashed an unprecedented assault on his ability to govern. It arrived in the form of a hybrid regime change war, stifling economic sanctions, covert destabilization tactics, and violent foreign-backed riots designed to overthrow his elected government. That sounds almost like what they did to Trump in 2016 and 2017. The parallels are striking.

48:01 Eight months following Maduro's April 2013 victory, Chavismo swept regional elections and dealt its opposition yet another blow. Within days of the December vote, Maduro summoned newly elected opposition governors and mayors for a meeting at the palace. The December 19th session, which lasted

48:25 Five Hours was branded as Venezuelans' government and opposition opening the door to dialogue to foster national unity. According to the BBC, the summit became a political debate and even served as a platform for local opposition leaders to accuse, denounce, and make demands of the new government. We are not weak for being here, nor did we come to listen to orders, one of the opposition leaders said.

48:56 Henry Falcon, the opposition leader, words were directed at U.S.-backed elements within Venezuela's opposition that considered engagement with Maduro not only unacceptable but tantamount to treason. Indeed, the fact that such unprecedented gathering had taken place amid Maduro's call for political inclusiveness directly undermined the bloc that wished to overthrow Chavez.

49:27 An internal fight for the future of Venezuela's opposition was underway. The battle formally erupted in the early days of 2014, roughly a month after Maduro's summit with the opposition. So what they're trying to do is anybody that wants to work with Maduro, they're going to brand as a traitor to the opposition in a nutshell. Students return to school following the holiday break and mask.

50:01 activists rushed the University of the Andes campus and set up roadblocks on a nearby thoroughway, paralyzing traffic and obstructing access to main regional hospitals. Again, sounds very familiar.

50:22 One journalist described it as this, quote, the students have no visible demands and they have no mass support. Instead of holding a protest with a point, their actions consist entirely of piling petro-soaked timbers and tires on the main road and setting them on fire. These kids just seem to wander around with rocks or sharp shrapnel in their hands, intimidating pedestrians outside the university, unquote.

50:52 Another journalist noted that the protests kicked off just weeks after the leaked document revealed that Washington, through the USAID, was actively backing a plot to create crisis situations in the street of Venezuela with the aim of facilitating the intervention of U.S. and NATO forces in the country. That was actually in a leaked document. Billed as Strategic Plan for Venezuela, that's the name of the document.

51:21 The document was prepared by a D.C. consulting firm and several Colombian foundations. Columbia. That's weird. Including one led by the country's former president, Alvaro Uribe. Uribe. The guy that was in bed with the narco elite. That Uribe. He hated Chavez.

51:54 Drafted during a June 2013 meeting of Venezuelan opposition figures and USAID, then director for Latin America, Mark Feierstein in Colombia. So he's stationed in Colombia and they're using Alvaro Uribe as the kind of guy to go to. The plan aimed to inspire an uprising in Venezuela's military.

52:23 by sparking anarchy in the streets. Specifically that, quote, whenever possible, violence should cause death or injuries, unquote. That was in the report. The document also stated that the conspirators intent to amplify images of the artificially aroused chaos in foreign media in order to manage international public opinion. In other words, a propaganda campaign. As soon as violence broke out,

52:53 at the university campus. In the early weeks of 2014, the Venezuelan opposition figures charged with directing the U.S.-backed scheme sprang into action. On January 23rd, a right-wing opposition lawmaker by the name of Maria Karina Makedo, you know, the one that just won the Nobel Peace Prize, that chick.

53:22 She reportedly attended the USAID summit in Colombia, according to news articles. Officially launched Salida, S-A-L-I-D-A, meaning exit, protest campaign alongside Leopoldo Lopez, who was co-founder of Caprales' U.S.-funded

53:53 political party. With middle class students acting as their shock troops, Lopez and Makedo aimed to sabotage the dialogue between the opposition, moderate opposition, and Maduro, and to isolate Maduro, ultimately forcing his exit from the political arena. Makedo articulated her strategy for regime change without filtering.

54:25 declaring, quote, we must create chaos in the streets, unquote, until Maduro is ousted. The chaos took the form of riots, and they were called Garimba Riots, Venezuelan slang for the massive street barricades erected by the students that promptly erupted across the country.

54:55 Throughout the early weeks of 2014, Garimbaros vandalized universities, government buildings, residents, ransacked public transportation hubs, barricaded major highways, and assaulted shipping trucks transporting gas and food. As her efforts spread, roving mobs assaulted Maduro supporters in the streets.

55:28 hung effigies of the government officials in public and carried out physical attacks against doctors providing health care in under-deserved communities. Lopez and Makedo's commanding role of La Cita were not mere products of fate. Both figures represented political movements that a foreign power, namely the U.S., had aggressively trained and financed for the sole purpose of overthrowing the Venezuelan state.

55:59 By 2014, Lopez was leading the Validad Popular, a party he founded in 2009, that, as we will see, the U.S. State Department intentionally cultivated a pro-Washington alternative to Maduro. Meanwhile, a U.S. diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks

56:24 revealed that in 2004, Washington had similarly funded Malkato's organization, Sumate, S-U-M-A-T-E, join us via the USAID program. So she's lock, stock, and barrel funded by USAID, which is a CIA front. According to the February 2004 communique on WikiLeaks,

56:53 The U.S. officials invested in Samate because they considered it to be highly effective, well-organized opposition. In 2005, U.S. President George W. Bush even hosted Makedo for a friendly meeting and photo op in the White House Oval Office, which we've seen on X recently. By the time La Cita kicked off in 2014, Lopez and Makedo

57:24 were in direct competition for the gilded throne of Venezuela's most hardline U.S.-backed opposition. Lopez's movement of glory arrived on February 12th when he delivered an impassioned speech directing his followers to march to the office of the Venezuelan Attorney General minutes before the mob was captured on video attempting to burn the building down. The event and the entire Salida campaign

57:53 represented a genuinely violent foreign-backed insurrection that made the January 6th U.S. Capitol riot look like the Macy's Day parade. Venezuelan government quickly issued arrest warrants for Lopez and detained him on February 18th. Salida's rampage continued for roughly three months following Lopez's arrest.

58:19 leaving behind billions of dollars in property damage, at least three dead and hundreds wounded. Though the prolonged terror campaign failed to topple Maduro, it succeeded in polarizing the public, thus sidelining any moderate opposition figures like Falcon in favor of Makedo and Lopez's U.S.-backed extremist factions. Granted de facto martyrdom because of his arrest, Lopez successfully overtook

58:49 in the race to be the new opposition leader. Despite ultimately receiving a 14-year prison sentence over his role in the riots, Lopez continued to command Venezuela's radical opposition from behind bars, adopting a strategy described as preferring options beyond electoral ones to evict Maduro's government.

59:14 Tensions between Lopez's faction and the Venezuelan government reached a fever pitch in December 2015 after the opposition MUD coalition won two-thirds majority in the country's National Assembly. When results in the southern Estado Amazon was called into question, Lopez exploited the opening to plunge Venezuela into deeper political crisis.

59:41 Within days of the December 6, 2015 legislative election, an audio tape surfaced online in which a woman, purportedly a regional election official, boasted about having paid people to vote. Pending an investigation into the recording, Venezuela's Supreme Court temporarily barred all four candidates, including one belonging to a Chavista coalition.

1:00:10 from entering office. Rather than comply with the investigation, however, the opposition-controlled legislature flouted the court and inaugurated the compromised lawmakers on January 6, 2016. The Supreme Court reacted to the flagrant disregard of its authority four days later, ruling that decisions taken by the National Assembly while their citizens are incorporated

1:00:38 will be absolutely null, effectively declaring Venezuela's legislature defunct until it was resolved. Despite the high court's declaration, opposition lawmakers wasted no time in wielding their newfound power to launch a concerted attack on Chavismo. In one of their first acts, they removed all portraits of Bolivar and Chavez from the chambers.

1:01:06 Dang, that sounds so familiar. Next, they hastily passed a slew of laws that would effectively nullify over 15 years of social gains, including bills to privatize Venezuela's public housing projects, overturn agrarian reform, release violent protesters, including Lopez, from prison.

1:01:31 While it's unclear how the lawmakers intended to implement any of these policies without cooperation from the government, the opposition-controlled legislature continued to convene and pass measures without interference, revealing their neoliberal agenda. Conflict between Venezuela's legislature and judiciary reached a breaking point in March of 2017 when the Supreme Court ruled that Maduro could make decisions regarding the management of

1:01:59 Venezuela's state-run entities, particularly its oil company, without any National Assembly stamp of approval. Justices announced that the court itself would temporarily replace the legislature's authority on matters of public industry, reaffirming its position as long as lawmakers failed to comply with an investigation into voter fraud. They were acting in contempt of the law.

1:02:26 The decision received widespread attention in international media, which highlighted the development to paint Maduro as a dictator. Venezuela muzzles legislature was one of the headlines in the New York Times. Meanwhile, outlets like NPR and CNN accused Venezuela of dissolving the National Assembly, while Reuters sent out a wire saying, quote,

1:02:53 Venezuela's Maduro decried as dictator after Congress annulled, unquote. As the independent outlet of Venezuela analysis pointed out at the time, Western coverage willfully ignored the fact that the National Assembly could rectify the situation by removing the lawmakers accused of electoral fraud and continuing to legislate at any moment. What's more,

1:03:22 Though many news outlets characterize Venezuela's Supreme Court as an extension of Maduro, the country's top judges were not directly appointed by Maduro. Instead, Supreme Court justices are selected by a committee of lawmakers and legal experts. The process was designed to avoid that accusation. As foreign media howled about Maduro's dictatorship, opposition lawmakers carried on meetings and legislating

1:03:51 even moving to unilaterally reprivatize Venezuela's oil sector without incident. They weren't arrested. They weren't put in jail. They're ignoring the Supreme Court ruling, but they were not rounded up. While the legislature, acting in open contempt of the judicial branch, to directly overturn the agenda of the country's elected president by spring 2017,

1:04:22 Venezuela faced an extraordinary political impasse. Though Maduro was not constitutionally up for re-election until the following year, Lopez seized upon the turmoil to call for a fresh round of street protests, this time with this expressed intention to demand a new election. Let's organize a huge consultation in which the people can vote and decide if they want

1:04:49 presidential elections in 2017, Lopez proposed in a January prison dispatch, directing his supporters to engage in electoral rebellion. His stormtroopers went back on the streets. Throughout the spring and summer of 2017, rioters paralyzed daily life in Venezuela once again. As with previous years, they blocked major highways, set fire to government buildings, destroyed few...

1:05:21 Food distribution centers, vandalized public infrastructure, physically assaulted opponents in the streets. Though the riots would eventually die down, the events of 2017 marked a turning point in Venezuela's political crisis. From that point on, Lopez's U.S.-backed faction of opposition totally withdrew from the country's sovereign democratic process, launching a boycott of all subsequent elections.

1:05:53 Meanwhile, the nonstop cycle of externally imposed civil unrest inspired Maduro's government to launch formal negotiations with the moderate opposition represented by the MUD coalition in the Dominican Republic. Following months of deliberations brokered by Dominican officials, reports emerged in early 2018 that Venezuela's government and the MUD were prepared to sign a breakthrough framework for

1:06:23 democratic coexistence. Yet when the time came to sign it on February 6th, the Mudd officials suddenly walked out of the talks and accused Maduro's representatives of altering the deal's final text. Mudd claims that were undermined by the Dominican mediators who insisted the document language had been worked on by both parties and agreed to by both parties. Maduro's government promptly charged Washington with sabotaging the negotiations.

1:06:54 Asserting U.S. officials lobbied for Mudd's withdrawal on part of their effort to delegitimize the upcoming presidential vote, which was slated for May 20th. Now, what dictator do you know that actually decides to have an election out of cycle? I could tell you that that happened one other time in Ukraine in 2004, and it didn't work out for the existing president.

1:07:24 Because USAID and the CIA sabotaged the 2004 election and overthrew the democratically elected president. And I'm sure that's what they're hoping for here. Indeed, the U.S.-backed opposition decision to boycott the 2018 election accomplished little more than for Washington to have a talking point to say that it was a one-party dictatorship.

1:07:48 You pay the opposition to boycott the election, and then you accuse the winner of the boycotted election as being a dictator. Perfect. If Maduro was the only candidate on the ballot, optics would demonstrate that he was unwilling to face opponents at the polls, which was absolutely not true. Unfortunately for Washington, however, not all opposition leaders were willing to forfeit their right to participate.

1:08:15 When Henry Falcon, the governor of Estado Lara and de facto leader of the Venezuelan's moderate opposition, tossed his hat in the ring, Washington threatened him with sanctions. So that tells you who was behind it all along. The sheer presence of a prominent opposition figure like Falcon.

1:08:39 a vocal critic of U.S. interference in his country's internal affairs, was so threatening to Washington that it apparently prepared to undermine even those candidates who opposed Maduro. Despite Washington's subversive campaign, including a State Department denunciation of the vote published months before it even took place, the election went ahead on May 20, 2018. Maduro won.

1:09:07 He won with roughly 68% of the votes. Falcon got 21%. A third candidate, who was an evangelical pastor, secured 10% of the votes. With three candidates on the ballot in a Maduro victory, Washington's delegitimization campaign had fallen flat. Today's so-called election, this is a quote.

1:09:34 Today's so-called election in Venezuela is an insult to democracy, said Nikki Haley on Twitter. It's time for Maduro to go, she said. Though the EU and the Organization of American States, OAS, had previously declined invitations from the Caracas government to observe and verify the vote, both groups joined U.S. officials in denouncing the results.

1:10:05 In a May 21st statement titled, quote, the day after the farce, unquote, OAS Secretary General Luis Imago declared his organization would follow Washington's lead and reject Maduro's reelection, vowing to continue struggling for the end of Venezuela's dictatorship, unquote. Which, again, for those of you who are unaware.

1:10:30 These actions for the OAS basically delegitimized their existence in South America and Latin America because they have been now outed as a partisan U.S. mouthpiece. It destroyed their credibility. And that's unfortunate because they had done quite a bit of good over the course of the time that it existed. The same time, U.S. President

1:11:01 Donald Trump signed an executive order imposing a fresh round of sanctions on Caracas, describing Maduro's re-election as a sham. Though a vast majority of the world's governments, including Russia, China, and India, accepted Maduro's win, the U.S. officials refused to admit defeat. In fact, Washington was already actively colluding with members of Venezuela's extremist opposition to overturn his mandate. By refusing to accept his victory, the U.S., Europe,

1:11:31 and Venezuelan opposition they sponsored. And the OAS set the stage for Washington's January 2019 recognition of Juan Guaido, a virtually unknown opposition lawmaker as Venezuela's president. As we will see, the fantasy of Guaido's presidency promptly gave way to an unprecedented campaign of financial diplomatic covert and information warfare directed at Venezuela's state.

1:11:59 Enabled by the U.S. and Europe's outsized command of the global finance system, the characters behind Guaido's coup regime would eventually execute an extraordinary heist of Venezuelans' internationally stored wealth on behalf of their foreign corporate and government backers. Following two decades of failed attempts to overthrow Chavismo, Washington's frustrated regime change efforts culminated in a hybrid corporate coup.

1:12:28 Today, January 23, 2019, this is a quote. Today, January 23, 2019, I swear to formally assume the powers of the national executive as president in charge of Venezuela, Guaido declared. Though the 35-year-old lawmaker exercised no control over Venezuela's military, government, ministries, borders, or any other institution, he was confident.

1:12:59 Quote, we know this is not about just one person, he said. We know this will have consequences, unquote, and consequences it did have. So that is the end of that chapter. And I see we lost Bridget again. So and let me tell you, I know I read this book without any of the previous three years.

1:13:33 I my initial response to this book would have been this is a bunch of poppycock. This is obviously someone that has is parenting Venezuela talking points. The problem is that everything that's in this book has several predecessor things that mirror.

1:14:04 these coup regime attempts to the letter. So you find it increasingly harder to brush away information if it fits perfectly into past scenarios that you have already developed the pattern of.

1:14:31 That's why I think now's the perfect time to cover a book like this, because while controversial, it sets up a complete, it's almost like a test. If you have gone through the past three years with us and covered the patterns developed in these regime change operations, as you go through this book, and we're not even to the good stuff yet.

1:15:02 As you go through this book, it's very difficult to throw off as someone under a spell of Maduro on the facts because those facts look exactly like many of the operations that we've already covered. And that's why I thought now was the perfect time to do this. Not only is Venezuela in the news, but it is also a test among us.

1:15:32 to develop our discernment of being able to decide whether or not these facts match a pattern of previous regime change, or are there facts in here we can discount? Bridget, go ahead. Then we'll go to Alana. In your opinion, is Maduro just another CIA puppet? No, or they wouldn't be trying to overthrow him. Okay.

1:16:06 That's, and, okay, that's all, that was the main thing I was, because the whole thing just seems, and I know the other day on Alpha, he had also proposed that things may not be as they seem from the outside. What is your opinion based on that? As far as why would the Trump? So in Trump's first administration.

1:16:39 There were a lot of people below Trump doing things and providing him with information that was part of the deep state. The CIA was feeding him false information. He even said that out loud during his first administration. You have the Nikki Haley sitting at the UN, which is hardcore oligarch mouthpiece. You have John Bolton sitting at the National Security Council.

1:17:07 who is formulating proposals for President Trump during his first administration, massaging intel and feeding him what it is that he wants him to know. And that's why I wanted to spend a few minutes going over Elliott Abrams. Anybody could look at Elliott Abrams' background and go, what the hell was he doing in the first Trump administration? But he was there. He is Mr.

1:17:37 Deep State himself. And so there's a lot of people that think that those people were brought into the Trump administration so that they could monitor their communications. And there's a legitimate reason to think that to map out their networks and who was actually plotting with who. There is legitimate support for that theory. We will never know that. But.

1:18:06 But unfortunately, if that's the case, it had real world implications for a whole lot of countries, one of which is Venezuela, as we're going to see. Go ahead, Elanai. Hey, Colonel. Two things. First off, I did a little bit of background research on Elliott Abrams, and his name does come up in the early 1980s under the Reagan administration with the Orlando Letelier assassination. Yes.

1:18:36 He did – so at least according to – so this is Peter Kornbluh's book and sort of a review of the FOIA documents involved with Pinochet. But he did come out against the Pinochet regime. I think it's probably – it's probably because of the – there's just so many embarrassing facts there with Letelier that I think he had to concede it.

1:19:04 But there was sort of that circumstance. If I recall correctly, he was working with Kissinger on it as well. Now, one other thing that I did while I was looking at this, looking at all these different connections, was you mentioned the Perez Jimenez regime, where they have the military coup in Venezuela in 1948, and then he eventually gets ousted in 1958.

1:19:34 replaced by, you know, democratic election. And, you know, I'm trying to, I don't remember the prime minister's name off the top of my head, but it's, it's a, you know, democratic action, kind of a left, more of a liberal figure who comes to power. But the energy minister of Venezuela, and he's kind of the father of OPEC, his name was Juan Pablo Perez Alfonso. He gets forced into exile.

1:20:03 After the 1948 military coup and, you know, Perez Jimenez is forcing him to stay out of the country. He's able to come back in 1958. And then by 1960, he's working with the Saudis and some of the other Arab countries. And in 62, of course, they come together and they form OPEC. It's kind of an extra context here.

1:20:31 in the face of, you know, the Rockefeller brothers and the Dulles brothers and their intervention, you know, on behalf of Standard Oil, you know, internationally. Correct. It kind of tells you, you know, who might be pulling some of the strings here. Yes, it might. SR, go ahead. Thank you, Colonel.

1:21:05 You mentioned Leopoldo Lopez. This guy actually received honors. He got the U.S. Florida Medal of Freedom in 2017. And in 2018, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Or in 2018, he got a Nobel Peace Prize nomination. But that said.

1:21:36 I'm looking at what's happening with Maduro and thinking along the same lines of exactly what's happened with Trump and the way Trump has managed to come back and be able to do some of the things that, well, not some of the things, he's done a lot of the things he said he was going to do. I also took to note the idea that if we can't

1:22:05 In Venezuela, well, if we can't get them through the Constitution, this, that, and the other, we just change the law and treat people like they did with January 6th. It just blows my mind.

1:22:37 that Maduro and Trump has some backdoor agreement that they will accuse Maduro of this drug trafficking while, in fact, they know that it's not Venezuela per se, that a lot of this has to do with the CIA as they slowly expose where the drug trafficking is actually occurring.

1:23:06 Now, I won't go so far as to say that, but he definitely does. And I respect his opinion. He is probably the only person that does as much in-depth research as I do in these international regime change kind of behind the scenes goings on. And we've had some very interesting conversations offline. So that's just another data point for you. Why are you go ahead?

1:23:39 Here we go again. Another leader that wants a sovereign country that's not run by the CIA and by the deep state and the cabal. And look at what happens. Immediately they get accused. I mean, it is getting so old, the playbook. I mean, Gaddafi, Saddam, I still hear that they're pushing that.

1:24:06 Assad gassed his own people when we know that's not true. And it's coming down to the wire. I think that you're right when it comes to having a backdoor to eventually expose all this. Though I'm sitting there hearing one person sit there and say the CIA are good guys.

1:24:29 I'm going to say this. I don't generalize anybody. When people sit there and say, oh, all cops are bad, that's absolutely not true. I do believe that there are some good in the agencies. I don't think that they are the majority. Maybe they are now, but I don't think that they were.

1:24:56 Yeah, everybody plays their parts and you definitely keep your enemies a lot closer than your family. I'll leave it at that when it comes to that. So the CIA as an institution is bad. That does not mean that everybody inside of the CIA is bad, but the institution itself is bad. Oh, absolutely. The creation of it and why it was created was absolutely for nefarious reasons. But I mean, go away because of that.

1:25:26 Absolutely. Just like the Homeland Security. The Department of Homeland Security. Not everybody in there is a bad person either. The reason why it was created was absolutely not to sit there and protect the homeland. It was created literally to spy on people in its own country.

1:25:56 So obviously it was not created to protect the homeland or you wouldn't have had 20 million illegal aliens flooding in in four years. Perfect, perfect point. Perfect point. Thank you. Yeah, sure. Alina, go ahead. Hey, Colonel. You know, obviously I've been doing some more research, you know, around Henry Kissinger lately. And I stumbled on Lyndon LaRouche of the Executive Intelligence Report.

1:26:25 And, I mean, he's been basically putting out this, I mean, the LaRoucheites have been putting out this report since 1974. But it actually contains a lot of the different, you know, link analysis that, you know, Paul Williams and, you know, Peter Dale Scott have been doing. Yes.

1:26:51 And, I mean, the work that they've done on Kissinger is just stunning. They found a 1980 prosecutor's brief filed in an Italian court that alleged that Kissinger had prior knowledge of the Aldo Moro assassination and that he was involved with the Roberto Calvi assassination, too. Just for background, everybody, Colonel Towner's main emphasis.

1:27:21 was always kind of Operation Gladio in Italy, and all these false terror attacks that involved the P2 Masonic Lodge. They found a 1980 prosecutorial filing in Italy showing allegations that Kissinger was a member of all of this, which I just found fascinating. Lyndon LaRouche's argument back in the early 80s was that Kissinger,

1:27:51 had ties, you know, number one to London, but then number two also, you know, beyond just the Rockefellers, of course, but then number two, that there was this Italian family, too, that he was kind of connected to and that they were kind of pulling some of the strings. It's kind of fascinating. But I think that, you know, EIR could be a really good contemporaneous source of reporting.

1:28:18 outside of the mainstream media from the 70s, 80s, and 90s. I absolutely agree with that. I've used them extensively in research, in reading the articles that they posted about different events, because it's kind of like, which I have done, there's a pattern here.

1:28:46 The whatever the mainstream media in the past talked about, first of all, a lot of times they're completely silent, as we learned in Dark Alliance. They won't even run a story. And as soon as something does break, they will run a counter op story to it. And LaRouche has.

1:29:12 broken at the time many stories that generated um responses in the large papers as a result of information they found and so it's always interesting to go back and kind of look at the timeline we ever covered in the washington post or new york times or whatever and then you find out generally no um and then you'll find a triggering event which he did a lot

1:29:41 because he was very good at investigative work. And you'll see something posted there. And then you go and look at when finally the New York Times or Washington Post actually did print something and they're in close correlation to it. Then that allows you to read both pieces at the same time and realize.

1:30:06 All the New York Times or Washington Post article is, is the CIA trying to refute his reporting, which I found fascinating during this last three years. Very, very good information there. He was one of the first people that embraced Philip McGee and gave him a platform to...

1:30:32 tell his story before Philip McGee set up his own website and reporting place to tell the story of the misdeeds of the CIA, specifically about the overthrow of President Allende. I have a 22-minute video from 1984 on CNN, where basically it's Pat Buchanan and this guy from the left.

1:31:01 who basically just completely go after him for all of his quote-unquote conspiracy theories. And then he basically just keeps backing them up by citing facts and really frustrating Pat Buchanan. Yeah, I don't necessarily hold it against Pat. You know, he's kind of an interesting character who's sometimes been independent. But it's interesting that that happened on CNN. I'll see if I can post it for everybody. I have the link. I'm just trying to figure out a way to put it up to the nest.

1:31:30 Yeah, that'd be awesome because he's sometimes independent. Yeah. All right. So that's all we got for today. Thanks for joining us. And I don't see any other hands. So we're going to call it a day. Now, tomorrow I will be traveling. If I can squeeze it in tomorrow evening, I'm going to take the book with me.

1:32:01 I will be doing a show at, again, I have no idea what my time frame is. I will try to give you guys an hour or two heads up. I don't know if my plane will be delayed, so I don't want to set a time yet. But if I can get it in before the Alpha Warrior show, I will definitely do that. And on Thursday, it will definitely be in the evening, probably around 8 o'clock.

1:32:27 because the meeting is from 10 to 2. So that'll give me a chance to get something to eat and get back to the room. And then I'll be traveling Friday morning. If we can have it at a normal time on Friday, great. If not, we'll do another evening session. So just to give you guys a heads up of what's going on. But I do plan on doing Alpha Warrior.

1:32:50 on 9 30 tomorrow night um to try to finish up although there's so much to finish up um on our series that we're doing so thanks everybody for being here take care

Entities here

Hugo Chavez28 Nicolás Maduro27 Venezuela27 United States25 Leopoldo Lopez16 2014 Venezuelan protests16 2018 Venezuelan presidential election12 Nikolai Maduro11 National Assembly (Venezuela)11 Marcos Pérez Jiménez11 Supreme Tribunal of Justice (Venezuela)8 Juan Guaidó8 Colombia8 Death of Hugo Chavez7 Maria Corina Machado7 USAID6 Democratic Popular Action6 Donald Trump5 Simón Bolívar5 Henry Kissinger5 Henry Falcon5 Lyndon LaRouche4 United Kingdom4 Mesa de la Unidad Democratica4 Operation Gladio4 Salvador Allende4 Strategic Plan for Venezuela4 Spain4 Henrique Capriles4 Organization of American States4 Carlos Andrés Pérez3 Elliot Abrams3 Monroe Doctrine3 OPEC3 COPEI3 Primero Justicia3 2019 Venezuelan crisis3 Rómulo Betancourt3 2002 Venezuelan coup attempt3 James Monroe3

Claims made here

Mike Pence exposed Antifa host_asserted ▶ 0:45

“It's been a while since we've had that. It wouldn't surprise me at all. Right. So, somebody sent me in the DMs a post about supposedly, not supposedly, a video clip of Jack Posebeck interviewing Mike …”

Jack Posobiec exposed Operation Gladio host_asserted ▶ 1:53

“Yeah, right. You know, as I sit here and twirl my hair. Yeah. And just as a reminder, as I posted, you guys, please go find that post and repost it. Jack Posebeck is the guy after the very first time …”

Augusto Pinochet covered_up Salvador Allende book_quoted ▶ 4:56

“Left shattered on the floor of his office on September 11, 1973, after the U.S.-backed military forces stormed the presidential palace in Santiago and overthrew his government. Allende died from gunsh…”

Juan Guaidó attempted_coup_against Nicolás Maduro book_quoted ▶ 5:26

“in February of 2019 during what became the first of three extended reporting trips to Venezuela over a two-year period of time. Days before her arrival, a little-known opposition lawmaker named Juan G…”

USAID funded Juan Guaidó book_quoted ▶ 5:56

“announcing a direct challenge to the authority of President Nicolas Maduro and sparking an international political crisis that lingers to this day. Up until that point, the entirety of Guaido's career…”

Juan Guaidó member_of Voluntad Popular book_quoted ▶ 6:23

“And by foreign, she means U.S., primarily USAID, Office of Transition Initiatives, and all of those that we've talked about before. After studying at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., …”

Office of Transition Initiatives funded Juan Guaidó book_quoted ▶ 6:23

Mike Pence funded Juan Guaidó book_quoted ▶ 7:22

“Caracas-based pollster Hitterless found that a whopping 81% of Venezuelans had no idea who he even was. Even so, the novice politician managed to woo officials in Washington. According to a Wall Stree…”

John Bolton exposed Monroe Doctrine book_quoted ▶ 10:50

“Venezuelans and their government have been thrust into a war, not just one portrayed in the Western global media apparatus. Quote, today we proudly proclaim for all to hear the Monroe Doctrine is aliv…”

Hugo Chavez founded M-200 book_quoted ▶ 15:38

“for supporting the failed coup. Among those detained was Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Rafael Chavez, a paratrooper from humble beginnings in Venezuelans' rural plains, who had been organizing rebel patriot…”

Hugo Chavez member_of M-200 book_quoted ▶ 16:05

“which was nicknamed MBR 200, described by Venezuela's current government as an organization led by young military men that was born to fight against the neoliberal system. MBR 200 saw themselves as co…”

Simón Bolívar founded Colombia book_quoted ▶ 18:01

“Venezuelan-born military leader inspired by Enlightenment principles and North American revolutionaries, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, eventually led the local charge against Spain…”

James Monroe exposed Monroe Doctrine book_quoted ▶ 18:58

“Instead, Monroe saw an opportunity to grow the U.S. imperial reach of his own country. In 1823, the U.S. president first articulated his infamous Monroe Doctrine, a policy on its surface merely reject…”

Royal Dutch Shell funded Venezuela book_quoted ▶ 21:56

“in 1831. In decades following Grand Columbia's disintegration, Venezuela fell under a military dictatorship and was generally governed by strongmen who maintained friendly relations with the U.S. It w…”

Gulf Oil secretly_owned Venezuela book_quoted ▶ 22:27

“There was a mad dash for control of the country that continues to this day. By 1929, Venezuela was the world's second largest oil producer, rivaled only by the U.S. Average Venezuelans were not the pr…”

Standard Oil secretly_owned Venezuela book_quoted ▶ 22:27

Venezuela supplied_arms_to United Kingdom book_quoted ▶ 23:26

“Faced with the prospect that domestic U.S. oil reserves were insufficient to sustain Washington's own war effort, the Allies looked to Venezuela to fill the gap. By the time U.S. troops touched ground…”

Rómulo Betancourt founded Democratic Popular Action book_quoted ▶ 23:54

“Simply put, Venezuelan's oil fueled the Allied victory in World War II. Washington and London plundered the Venezuelan oil, was in jeopardy in 1945 when several years of popular discontent with the ru…”

Marcos Pérez Jiménez overthrew Rómulo Betancourt book_quoted ▶ 25:04

“organization, upended British and U.S. control of the country. In 1948, less than one year after Venezuela held its first ever participatory election, the country's military carried out a second coup,…”

Dwight D. Eisenhower paid Marcos Pérez Jiménez book_quoted ▶ 27:27

“describing the leader as the prototype of the Latin American military despot. His virulent anti-communism, dang, another similarity, and his tolerant attitude towards foreign oil companies, however, g…”

COPEI member_of IMF book_quoted ▶ 30:48

“Beholding to global financial interest in neoliberal institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the PAC parties delivered Venezuela little more than the same tired policies the dictatorship…”

Democratic Popular Action member_of IMF book_quoted ▶ 30:48

Democratic Popular Action covered_up Jorge Antonio Rodríguez book_quoted ▶ 31:18

“Among those killed was Jorge Antonio Rodriguez, a student whom intelligence service captured in 1976 and tortured to death. His son, Jorge, and daughter, Deli, both currently serve as high-level offic…”

COPEI covered_up Jorge Antonio Rodríguez book_quoted ▶ 31:18

Hugo Chavez attempted_coup_against Carlos Andrés Pérez book_quoted ▶ 31:48

“combined subservient to the neoliberal order, eventually gave way to unprecedented political upheaval, a social crisis that set the stage for Chavez's democratic election in 1998. The average Venezuel…”

Rafael Caldera pardoned Hugo Chavez book_quoted ▶ 33:40

“In an effort to unify the country, Perez's successor, Rafael Caldera, released Chavez and his cohort from prison in March 1994. As Chavez predicted, a new political situation did eventually rise in Ve…”

Hugo Chavez headed Venezuela documented ▶ 35:38

“are the properties of the republic. They are public domain and therefore inalienable and not transferable. In other words, Venezuela nationalized its vast national wealth, including the oil reserves, …”

United States targeted_for_regime_change Venezuela host_asserted ▶ 38:58

“Asserting Chavez's death presented the country with an opportunity to turn the page on one of the darkest periods in its history. That's a quote. And embark on a new albeit difficult path to restore t…”

United States funded International Republican Institute documented ▶ 40:58

“Lopez. Remember that name, Leopardo Lopez. He is used throughout this entire book. Very critical player. Leopoldo Lopez in the year 2000. Just one year later, the U.S. State Department funded Internat…”

International Republican Institute funded Primero Justicia documented ▶ 41:29

“poured almost half a million dollars into that political party as part of initiative to train party members, molding them into a professional class of opponents, representing the Primero Justica on be…”

Hugo Chavez appointed Nicolás Maduro documented ▶ 42:28

“Chavez made a televised address in which he urged the country to support Maduro if his health took a turn for the worse. This is, quote, choose Maduro as president of the republic, he said. I am askin…”

Nicolás Maduro succeeded Hugo Chavez documented ▶ 46:31

“Venezuela's heeded their revolutionary leader's call and elected Chavez as president on October 14, 2013. Venezuela's National Electoral Council declared Maduro's victory over Capriles by a narrow mar…”

United States targeted_for_regime_change Venezuela host_asserted ▶ 47:30

“The U.S. and its allies unleashed an unprecedented assault on his ability to govern. It arrived in the form of a hybrid regime change war, stifling economic sanctions, covert destabilization tactics, …”

USAID funded 2014 Venezuelan protests documented ▶ 50:52

“Another journalist noted that the protests kicked off just weeks after the leaked document revealed that Washington, through the USAID, was actively backing a plot to create crisis situations in the s…”

Alvaro Uribe member_of Strategic Plan for Venezuela documented ▶ 51:21

“The document was prepared by a D.C. consulting firm and several Colombian foundations. Columbia. That's weird. Including one led by the country's former president, Alvaro Uribe. Uribe. The guy that wa…”

Mark Feierstein member_of Strategic Plan for Venezuela documented ▶ 51:54

“Drafted during a June 2013 meeting of Venezuelan opposition figures and USAID, then director for Latin America, Mark Feierstein in Colombia. So he's stationed in Colombia and they're using Alvaro Urib…”

Maria Corina Machado carried_out_attack 2014 Venezuelan protests documented ▶ 52:53

“at the university campus. In the early weeks of 2014, the Venezuelan opposition figures charged with directing the U.S.-backed scheme sprang into action. On January 23rd, a right-wing opposition lawma…”

Leopoldo Lopez carried_out_attack 2014 Venezuelan protests documented ▶ 53:22

“She reportedly attended the USAID summit in Colombia, according to news articles. Officially launched Salida, S-A-L-I-D-A, meaning exit, protest campaign alongside Leopoldo Lopez, who was co-founder o…”

United States funded Leopoldo Lopez host_asserted ▶ 55:28

“hung effigies of the government officials in public and carried out physical attacks against doctors providing health care in under-deserved communities. Lopez and Makedo's commanding role of La Cita …”

United States funded Maria Corina Machado host_asserted ▶ 55:28

Leopoldo Lopez founded Voluntad Popular documented ▶ 55:59

“By 2014, Lopez was leading the Validad Popular, a party he founded in 2009, that, as we will see, the U.S. State Department intentionally cultivated a pro-Washington alternative to Maduro. Meanwhile, …”

United States funded Sumate documented ▶ 56:24

“revealed that in 2004, Washington had similarly funded Malkato's organization, Sumate, S-U-M-A-T-E, join us via the USAID program. So she's lock, stock, and barrel funded by USAID, which is a CIA fron…”

USAID funded Sumate documented ▶ 56:24

George H.W. Bush member_of Washington, D.C. documented ▶ 56:53

“The U.S. officials invested in Samate because they considered it to be highly effective, well-organized opposition. In 2005, U.S. President George W. Bush even hosted Makedo for a friendly meeting and…”

Leopoldo Lopez attempted_coup_against Nicolás Maduro host_asserted ▶ 58:49

“in the race to be the new opposition leader. Despite ultimately receiving a 14-year prison sentence over his role in the riots, Lopez continued to command Venezuela's radical opposition from behind ba…”

United States targeted_for_regime_change Venezuela host_asserted ▶ 1:06:54

“Asserting U.S. officials lobbied for Mudd's withdrawal on part of their effort to delegitimize the upcoming presidential vote, which was slated for May 20th. Now, what dictator do you know that actual…”

United States overthrew Orange Revolution host_asserted ▶ 1:07:24

“Because USAID and the CIA sabotaged the 2004 election and overthrew the democratically elected president. And I'm sure that's what they're hoping for here. Indeed, the U.S.-backed opposition decision …”

United States targeted_for_regime_change Venezuela host_asserted ▶ 1:08:15

“When Henry Falcon, the governor of Estado Lara and de facto leader of the Venezuelan's moderate opposition, tossed his hat in the ring, Washington threatened him with sanctions. So that tells you who …”

United States targeted_for_regime_change Venezuela host_asserted ▶ 1:08:39

“a vocal critic of U.S. interference in his country's internal affairs, was so threatening to Washington that it apparently prepared to undermine even those candidates who opposed Maduro. Despite Washi…”

Nikki Haley exposed 2018 Venezuelan presidential election documented ▶ 1:09:34

“Today's so-called election in Venezuela is an insult to democracy, said Nikki Haley on Twitter. It's time for Maduro to go, she said. Though the EU and the Organization of American States, OAS, had pr…”

Organization of American States exposed 2018 Venezuelan presidential election documented ▶ 1:10:05

“In a May 21st statement titled, quote, the day after the farce, unquote, OAS Secretary General Luis Imago declared his organization would follow Washington's lead and reject Maduro's reelection, vowin…”

United States targeted_for_regime_change Venezuela host_asserted ▶ 1:11:01

“Donald Trump signed an executive order imposing a fresh round of sanctions on Caracas, describing Maduro's re-election as a sham. Though a vast majority of the world's governments, including Russia, C…”

Donald Trump funded Venezuela documented ▶ 1:11:01

United States installed Juan Guaidó host_asserted ▶ 1:11:31

“and Venezuelan opposition they sponsored. And the OAS set the stage for Washington's January 2019 recognition of Juan Guaido, a virtually unknown opposition lawmaker as Venezuela's president. As we wi…”

Juan Guaidó carried_out_attack Venezuela host_asserted ▶ 1:11:59

“Enabled by the U.S. and Europe's outsized command of the global finance system, the characters behind Guaido's coup regime would eventually execute an extraordinary heist of Venezuelans' international…”

Elliot Abrams member_of United States documented ▶ 1:17:07

“who is formulating proposals for President Trump during his first administration, massaging intel and feeding him what it is that he wants him to know. And that's why I wanted to spend a few minutes g…”

Elliot Abrams involved_in Assassination of Orlando Letelier guest_asserted ▶ 1:18:06

“But unfortunately, if that's the case, it had real world implications for a whole lot of countries, one of which is Venezuela, as we're going to see. Go ahead, Elanai. Hey, Colonel. Two things. First …”

Peter Kornbluh exposed Augusto Pinochet guest_asserted ▶ 1:18:36

“He did – so at least according to – so this is Peter Kornbluh's book and sort of a review of the FOIA documents involved with Pinochet. But he did come out against the Pinochet regime. I think it's pr…”

Marcos Pérez Jiménez overthrew Venezuela documented ▶ 1:19:04

“But there was sort of that circumstance. If I recall correctly, he was working with Kissinger on it as well. Now, one other thing that I did while I was looking at this, looking at all these different…”

Henry Kissinger member_of United States guest_asserted ▶ 1:19:04

Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonso founded OPEC documented ▶ 1:20:03

“After the 1948 military coup and, you know, Perez Jimenez is forcing him to stay out of the country. He's able to come back in 1958. And then by 1960, he's working with the Saudis and some of the othe…”

Leopoldo Lopez member_of Venezuela documented ▶ 1:21:05

“You mentioned Leopoldo Lopez. This guy actually received honors. He got the U.S. Florida Medal of Freedom in 2017. And in 2018, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Or in 2018, he got a Nobel Peace P…”

Lyndon LaRouche founded Executive Intelligence Review guest_asserted ▶ 1:26:25

“And, I mean, he's been basically putting out this, I mean, the LaRoucheites have been putting out this report since 1974. But it actually contains a lot of the different, you know, link analysis that,…”

Henry Kissinger involved_in Aldo Moro kidnapping and murder book_quoted ▶ 1:26:51

“And, I mean, the work that they've done on Kissinger is just stunning. They found a 1980 prosecutor's brief filed in an Italian court that alleged that Kissinger had prior knowledge of the Aldo Moro a…”

Henry Kissinger involved_in Roberto Calvi death book_quoted ▶ 1:26:51

Henry Kissinger member_of P2 Masonic Lodge book_quoted ▶ 1:27:21

“was always kind of Operation Gladio in Italy, and all these false terror attacks that involved the P2 Masonic Lodge. They found a 1980 prosecutorial filing in Italy showing allegations that Kissinger …”

Lyndon LaRouche exposed Philip Agee guest_asserted ▶ 1:30:06

“All the New York Times or Washington Post article is, is the CIA trying to refute his reporting, which I found fascinating during this last three years. Very, very good information there. He was one o…”