John Bolton brags on TV about helping plan “coups” in other countries

First modification: 07/13/2022 – 20:07

The former National Security Advisor of the United States, also a former ambassador to the United Nations and an official in several Republican governments, John Bolton, boasted of helping plan coups in other countries and stated that the assault on the Washington Capitol in January 2021 “ he fell short”.

As an adviser to Donald Trump, Bolton was the architect of the hardening of US policies towards the governments of Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaraguawhom he called the “troika of tyranny” because of their shared characteristic of clinging to power at any price.

The confession, in which he openly acknowledges and presumes his role in fueling unrest in foreign countries, was made on Tuesday, July 12, while being interviewed by the ” network to talk about the assault on the Capitol last year after the hearing of Congress hours earlier, in which lawmakers on the panel accused former President Donald Trump of inciting violence in a last-ditch bid to stay in power after losing the 2020 election.

However, speaking to ” host Jake Tapper, Bolton suggested that Trump was not competent enough to lead a “carefully planned coup”, offhandedly adding: “As someone who has helped plan coups, not here, but you know, (in) other places, it takes a lot of work. And that’s not what he (Trump) did.”

Immediately Tapper asked him what attempts (coup d’état) he was referring to and Bolton replied that he was not going to go into details, but then he mentioned the political crisis in Venezuela in 2019, while he was an adviser and when the US government recognized the leader opposition Juan Guaidó as interim president.

“It turned out to be unsuccessful. Not that we had much to do with it, but I saw what it took for an opposition to try to unseat an illegally elected president (Nicolas Maduro) and they failed,” Bolton said.

In addition, the former official judged “laughing” to believe that Trump is “not even half as competent as the Venezuelan opposition” to organize a coup.

Washington’s interventions in Latin America

Bolton, considered a republican militarist “hawk”, confessed anti-communist, untimely and hostileas pointed out by those who have written about his life, has been favorable to the interventionism of the United States.

He served as National Security Advisor from 2017 until Trump fired him in 2019 due to disagreements over policy towards Venezuelaone of the issues of disagreement with Trump, who privately complained that he was poorly advised on how easy it would be to replace Maduro.

From that position, he led the attempt to overthrow Nicolás Maduro and defended economic sanctions for both the government and the state oil company PDVSA.

In the case of Cubawhere Bolton partially ended the rapprochement that former President Barack Obama had initiated on the Island, restricted travel and remittances.

Mark Feierstein, director of hemispheric affairs at the National Security Council during the Barack Obama administration, told the ‘BBC’ in 2019 when Bolton left the Trump administration that “before Bolton’s arrival, the policy towards Cuba was less harmful to the Cuban people” and in the policy towards Venezuela “there was more strategy,” he said.

The history of interventions marks the trajectory of Bolton

In the Government of Ronald Reagan (1981-1989), Bolton was coordinator of programs and policies of the Agency for International Development, in charge of designing the strategy on developing countries. Then, in the 1990s, he was head of the Arms Control and International Security Affairs area. Between 2005 and 2006 in the Government of George Bush, his son was ambassador to the UN.

This trajectory, among other positions, which gave him political and operational power to overthrow governments, includes the planning of interventions with all kinds of weapons and without territorial limits, from the invasion to Iraq Y Afghanistan until the breaking of the nuclear pact with Iran.

With the advent of Democratic administrations, Bolton continued to influence the Republican Party. He advocated preemptive strikes against North Korea and Irantwo countries with nuclear capabilities.

“John Bolton, who has served in the highest positions in the US Government, including ambassador to the UN, casually boasting of having helped plot coups in other countries,” wrote BBC journalist Dickens Olewe On twitter.

Several foreign policy experts have harshly criticized, over the years, the history of Washington’s interventions in other countries and their consequences for the civilian population.

With Reuters and EFE and local media