Shock Horror! CIA Director Admits US Trying to Overthrow Venezuelan Government
SPUTNIK NEWS
US Central Intelligence Agency Director Mike Pompeo has admitted the US is working to change the elected government of Venezuela, and collaborating with Colombia and Mexico to do so. While it’s the first public acknowledgement of US meddling in the embattled country, Latin American political analysts likely won’t be surprized.
Speaking at a Q&A session at the Aspen Institute think tank’s annual security forum, Pompeo said he was “very hopeful” of a “transition” in Venezuela.
“I was in Mexico City and Bogota a week before last talking about this, trying to help them understand [what] they might do so they can get a better outcome for their part of the world and our part of the world. I’m always careful when we talk about South and Central America and the CIA, but suffice to say, we’re very hopeful there can be a transition in Venezuela and we [are] doing [our] best to understand the dynamic there, so that we can communicate to our State Department and to others,” he said.
Colombia and Mexico have been quick to refute Pompeo’s allegations, both issuing eerily similar statements attesting to their mutual respect for international law and rejecting the existence of any plan or desire to overthrow President Nicolas Maduro’s administration on either of their parts.
“The director of the CIA has said the CIA and US government is working in direct collaboration with the Mexican and Colombian government to overthrow the government and intervene in our beloved Venezuela. I demand the governments of Mexico and Colombia properly clarify the declarations and I will make political and diplomatic decisions accordingly before this audacity,” he said.
The exposure comes as both Maduro and Venezuela face mounting problems, with food shortages and soaring inflation — produced by the US ongoing official economic war against the country — producing much unrest, and protests sparked by the decision of the Supreme Court to absorb legislative powers from the opposition-controlled National Assembly raging since April. They have endured despite the Court reversing the ruling.
Critics may find Pompeo’s statements ironic given the ongoing uproar in mainstream US discourse about Russia’s interference in the 2016 Presidential election — allegations based on evidence-free claims issued by anonymous sources which have been refuted by cybersecurity experts and former intelligence professionals.
US interference in the politics of sovereign nations the world over is arguably borderline non-newsworthy — particularly in Latin America. The US’ first known foray into 
the southern Americas was Operation PBSuccess in 1953, which overthrew the democratically-elected, progressive government of Jacobo Arbenz.
The coup was motivated by Arbenz’ nationalization program, which saw plantations owned by US fruit giant the United Fruit Company passed back into public hands. Washington feared the firm’s vast profits would be dented, and Guatemala’s social democratic reforms would spread across the continent, and set the CIA to work.
“The engine of American foreign policy has been fueled not by a devotion to any kind of morality, but rather by the necessity to serve other imperatives — making the world safe for American corporations, enhancing the finances of US defense contractors, preventing the rise of any society that might serve as a successful example of an alternative to the capitalist model and extending political and economic hegemony over as wide an area as possible,” historian William Blum has observed.
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