Bolton's coup revelation typifies Washington's hegemonic ethos

WASHINGTON - Former US National Security Advisor John Bolton's recent admission that he had helped plan coups in other countries is a typical example of America's hegemonic thinking and power politics that have undermined world peace and stability.

STARTLING CONFESSION

"The United States has indeed sponsored and participated in lots of coups and foreign government overthrows, dating back to the turn of the 20th century," American journalist and author Jonathan M. Katz wrote in a newsletter.

"Bolton was personally involved in many of the recent efforts -- in Nicaragua, Iraq, Haiti, and others," Katz wrote. "Generally, officials do not admit that sort of thing on camera."

Bolton's confession was made in a CNN interview with Jake Tapper last week on the investigation by a US House of Representative select committee of the Jan 6, 2021, Capitol riot, saying that he disagrees with the premise that then outgoing President Donald Trump attempted a coup.

"As somebody who has helped plan coup d'etat, not here but other places, it takes a lot of work, and that's not what he did," said the neoconservative former diplomat who refused to go into specifics but mentioned the US government's efforts to back the opposition in Venezuela in 2019.

In a different interview with Newsmax later, Bolton doubled down on his comments, saying: "This is something that some of the snowflakes on the left were kind of shocked at. But when you're looking out for America's best interests, you do what's necessary to protect those interests."

US OBSESSION WITH "REGIME CHANGE"

"Regime change" has been an integral part of US foreign policy for more than 100 years, former New York Times correspondent Stephen Kinzer wrote in his book Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq.

Starting with the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893 and continuing through the Spanish-American War and the Cold War and into our own time, the United States has not hesitated to overthrow governments that stood in the way of its political and economic goals, according to a summary of Kinzer's book.

It was widely reported that Trump repeatedly raised the possibility of invading Venezuela in talks with top White House aides in 2017. Speaking to Newsmax, Bolton called the attempted overthrow of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro "a good example" of a coup d'etat.

Last week, Venezuela's National Assembly voted unanimously to condemn Bolton's comments. "This confession is more proof in a long list of actions and direct attacks by US imperialism against the free peoples of the world," Venezuelan lawmaker Pedro Infante said.

Lindsey A. O'Rourke, an assistant professor at Boston College, wrote in her book Covert Regime Change: America's Secret Cold War that the United States engaged in 64 covert attempts and six open attempts at regime change between 1947 and 1989.