Venezuela? It's about oil!!!
Some history of the US overturning governments that want
to use their own country's resources for their own people
Heather Gray, February 19, 2019, Justice Initiative, Justice Initiative <hmcgray@earthlink.net>
The US is doing every conceivable thing to undermine Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's leadership so, as many concur, it can control Venezuela's huge oil reserve:
In truth, Washington's motivation is the fact that according to The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) - Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves on Earth - more than Saudi Arabia and accounting for nearly a quarter of all OPEC production. (Justice Initiative)
And, invariably, the US authorities will mask the real reason why they oppose the leadership in Venezuela or in other countries. They won't admit their own greed!
But then, the US attempting to control resources in other countries is not new. The US has repeatedly overthrown, assisted in assassination, or undermined leaders that wanted to use their own country's resources to benefit their own people rather than line the pockets of wealthy in their own country, or those in the US or Europe, etc. These actions to undermine remove and/or assassinate leaders is something the US has done repeatedly throughout the 20th, and now in the 21rst century.
Below are examples of what happened in Iran in 1953, the Congo in 1961, Chile in 1973, and Iraq in the 2000s as the US involved itself in overturning the governments/leaders of these countries that desired programs and benefits for their own people.
Invariably, most of these leaders wanted, at the very least, to follow the US model of the New Deal implemented by President Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s to assist the masses in the US as they suffered from the depression; and/or to nationalize rather than privatize their vast resources; and/or to employ the important and effective socialist model developed by Fidel Castro in Cuba, etc.
Quote from Nicolas Maduro
Venezuelans have a long history. So we are able to listen to each other, to talk to each other. From here were born the liberators of the region, and they said before and after that process we have a culture of political action. We are not in despair. That's the image broadcast to abroad.
US Overturning Iranian Government in 1953
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| Mohammad Mosaddeq |
The first leader to be overturned by the CIA was Mohammad Mosaddeq in Iran in 1953 and it was, of course, about oil.
In 2015, I wrote the article entitled "Iran and Post WWII History-The Atlantic Charter and Iranian Independence Thwarted" which is largely about the CIA overturning the Iranian government of Mosaddeq in 1953 and installing the Shah who would protect the western oil interests in Iran:
The Iranian-Armenian historian Ervand Abrahamian, author of "The Coup: 1953, the CIA and the Roots of Modern US-Iranian Relations", said in a recent interview that the coup was designed "to get rid of a nationalist figure who insisted that oil should be nationalized. Unlike other nationalist leaders, including Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, Mosaddeq epitomised a unique "anti-colonial" figure who was also committed to democratic values and human rights...." (Guardian)
Mosaddeq was not assassinated but was placed under house arrest for the rest of his life. He had mistakenly thought Iran was a sovereign nation (as does Venezuela's Maduro think about Venezuela). Ultimately, the issue was Iranian "oil" and the British were not about to give up on that valuable resource they had controlled since 1908.
What appalled the west was that Mosaddeq actually wanted to control Iran's own oil resources in order to benefit the Iranian people. The United States and Britain were not about to let that happen as they wanted the oil under western control altogether.
Nevertheless, as noted below in the excerpt from my 2015 article on Iran, in 1979, the Iranian people overthrew the government under the Shah and installed the Ayatollah Khomeini to lead the country and they then suffered from United States disdain that did not appreciate Iran actually being an altogether independent country:
(Justice Initiative) Both the Shah and the Ayatollah Khomeini were not democratically elected as was Mosaddeq. It is rather mind boggling to speculate as to what might have happened had the U.S. not overturned the Iranian government in 1953 and instead had assisted the Iranians in having control over their own oil resource and respected the democratic process in Iran by adhering to the Atlantic Charter and Principle Three's concept of "self-determination". Nevertheless, the Iranians have suffered from isolation and economic sanctions from the west largely because some sectors decided to take the situation into their own hands rather than serving the dictates of the United States or the West overall. As Noam Chomsky notes:
Why the assault against Iran? We're back to the Mafia principle. In 1979, Iranians carried out an illegitimate act: They overthrew a tyrant that the United States had imposed and supported, and moved on an independent path, not following U.S. orders. That conflicts with the Mafia doctrine, by which the world is pretty much ruled. Credibility must be maintained. The godfather cannot permit independence and successful defiance, as in the case of Cuba. So, Iran has to be punished for that. (Democracy Now)
Quote From Mohammad Mosaddegh
Yes, my sin - my greater sin and even my greatest sin is that I nationalized Iran's oil industry and discarded the system of political and economic exploitation by the world's greatest empire. This at the cost to myself, my family; and at the risk of losing my life, my honor and my property. With God's blessing and the will of the people, I fought this savage and dreadful system of international espionage and colonialism.
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US Role in Assassination of Patrice Lumumba
in the Congo in 1961
The Congo rich in natural resources (United Nations)
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| Patrice Lumumba |
In 1960, The Congo was finally independent of the long oppressive and excessively violent occupation by Belgium. This Belgian control had been on-going since the late 1800s when the Belgian King Leopold II (1835-1909) claimed the Congo as his own personal property
The young and brilliant Congolese leader, Patrice Lumumba, became the Prime Minister of the Congo in 1961.
The model of removing a controlling occupier had been something North Americans had done as well when ousting Britain in the American Revolution (1756-1763). When I saw videos of Lumumba arriving in New York in June 1960, I had always assumed he thought, given the US history, that its leaders would, in turn, appreciate the Congolese endeavors of finally gaining independence. If he did think that, Lumumba was, unfortunately, mistaken.
Like Mossaddegh in Iran, Lumumba hoped to use the significant natural resources in Congo to benefit the Congolese people...finally! But the West was not about to allow this independence. Lumumba was assassinated on January 17, 1961.
Here in some information about the US involvement in the assassination of Lumumba:
The 2001 report by the Belgian Commission describes previous U.S. and Belgian plots to kill Lumumba. Among them was a Central Intelligence Agency-sponsored attempt to poison him, which was ordered by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower. CIA chemist Sidney Gottlieb, a key person in this plan, devised a poison resembling toothpaste. In September 1960, Gottlieb brought a vial of the poison to the Congo with plans to place it on Lumumba's toothbrush. This plot was abandoned, allegedly because Larry Devlin, CIA Station Chief for the Congo, refused permission...
In the early 21st century, declassified documents revealed that the CIA had plotted to assassinate Lumumba. These documents indicate that the Congolese leaders who killed Lumumba, including Mobutu Sese Seko and Joseph Kasa-Vubu, received money and weapons directly from the CIA. This same disclosure showed that at that time, the U.S. government believed that Lumumba was a communist and feared him because of what it considered the threat of the Soviet Union in the Cold War. (Wikipedia)
Quote from Patrice Lumumba
"The colonialists care nothing for Africa for her own sake. They are attracted by African riches and their actions are guided by the desire to preserve their interests in Africa against the wishes of the African people. For the colonialists all means are good if they help them to possess these riches". Speech at the All-African Conference in Leopoldville August, 1960.
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US Role in Assassination of Salvadore Allende
in Chile in 1973
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| Salvadore Allende |
Chilean President Salvador Allende was a socialist and a friend of Cuba's Fidel Castro. When he became the Chilean president in 1970, he immediately began to restructure the economy with admirable socialist initiatives to advance opportunities for the Chilean masses. For example, his sweeping policies included the nationalization of some large-scale industries such as copper mining and banking; he took under the auspices of the Chilean government the educational system, the health care system, and offered a free milk program for poor children; he was engaged in land reform and the raising of the minimum wage for Chilean workers. (And you're right - some of this sounds like the US New Deal under President Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930's that conservatives have always wanted to dismantle.)
At the time Allende took office, the three major American corporations in Chile were ITT and two American copper-mining companies Anaconda and Kennecott. ITT owned 70% of the Chilean Telephone Company and funded the right-wing newspaper El Mercurio. They were not pleased with Allende and by all accounts complained to the American government and had, with US government knowledge, given money to Allende's opponents. There are also reports that ITT channeled money to the CIA to help dismantle the Allende government.
Yes, we should certainly call this U.S. interference in another country's government!!!
Allende's threat? It was apparently independence from the United States and offering a new democratic alternative in the region.
Allende also obviously thought Chile was a sovereign nation, but Henry Kissinger (Nixon's Secretary of State) and the U.S. corporate investors in Chile thought otherwise.
Allende's policies infuriated Kissinger, who, by all accounts, gave the CIA the green light to get rid of Allende. But Allende also alienated some of the Chilean middle class and some Christian groups who saw his policies of empowering the poor as a threat or as a Cuban style authoritarian state.
So Allende was assassinated in 1973, became a martyr, and what followed was devastating for Chileans. on the whole, as thousands of Chileans became "disappeared" and activists were killed or tortured - tortured, I am told, to cleanse them of their collective "social contract" mindset. (Justice Initiative)
Quote from Salvador Allende
The Popular Unity government represented the first attempt anywhere to build a genuinely democratic transition to socialism - a socialism that, owing to its origins, might be guided not by authoritarian bureaucracy, but by democratic self-rule.
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