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The Plot to Overthrow Venezuela: How the US Is Orchestrating a Coup for Oil
“Helps to cut through the Orwellian lies and dissembling …just when such truth-telling is so desperately needed.”—Oliver Stone, Activist and Director, from his Foreword
Since 1999 when Hugo Chavez became the elected president of Venezuela, the US has been conniving to overthrow his government and to roll back the Bolivarian Revolution which he ushered in to Venezuela. With the untimely death of Hugo Chavez in 2013, and the election of Nicolas Maduro that followed, the US redoubled its efforts to overturn this revolution. The US is now threatening to intervene militarily to bring about the regime change it has wanted for twenty years.
While we have been told that the US’s efforts to overthrow Chavez and Maduro are motivated by altruistic goals of advancing the interests of democracy and human rights in Venezuela, is this true? The Plot to Overthrow Venezuela answers this question with a resounding “no,” demonstrating
The battle for Venezuela which is now being waged will determine the fate of all of Latin America for many years to come. The Plot to Overthrow Venezuela lets readers know what is at stake in this struggle and urges readers to reconsider which side they are on.
Since 1999 when Hugo Chavez became the elected president of Venezuela, the US has been conniving to overthrow his government and to roll back the Bolivarian Revolution which he ushered in to Venezuela. With the untimely death of Hugo Chavez in 2013, and the election of Nicolas Maduro that followed, the US redoubled its efforts to overturn this revolution. The US is now threatening to intervene militarily to bring about the regime change it has wanted for twenty years.
While we have been told that the US’s efforts to overthrow Chavez and Maduro are motivated by altruistic goals of advancing the interests of democracy and human rights in Venezuela, is this true? The Plot to Overthrow Venezuela answers this question with a resounding “no,” demonstrating
The battle for Venezuela which is now being waged will determine the fate of all of Latin America for many years to come. The Plot to Overthrow Venezuela lets readers know what is at stake in this struggle and urges readers to reconsider which side they are on.
240 pages, Paperback
Published June 25, 2019
17 people are currently reading
288 people want to read
About the author
Dan Kovalik
13 books80 followersTeaches International Law and International Human Rights at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
August 28, 2019
This account of our lethal bullying of the people of Venezuela at times made me physically sick, and at other times brought tears to my eyes. By sitting back and allowing our country to commit these atrocities makes us complicit. I don't think there is an American citizen who should be spared from reading this exposé of our downright insidious foreign policy, a policy that assumes the American Empire has a right -- and unfortunately, the might -- to impose ourselves anywhere on the face of the earth to gain access and possession of anything that will enhance the p&l statements of the corporations which have taken over the functions of our government. It's perverse to hear the justification we give for the pillaging of Venezuela, and a myriad of other countries, to bring democracy to its shores --- when we have absolutely lost it at home. When Harvey Weinstein can buy immunity from the judicial system for $44 million, we know we're in trouble.
July 23, 2019
In one concise statement, Dan Kovalik sums up the criminal — if self-serving and for now effective — foreign policy of the U.S. across the planet:
“The US appears to be intentionally spreading chaos throughout strategic portions of the world, leaving virtually no independent state standing to protect their resources, especially oil, from Western exploitation. And, this goal is being achieved with resounding success, while also achieving the subsidiary goal of enriching the behemoth military-industrial complex.”
A divided Korea, a decimated Vietnam, endless war in Afghanistan, a barely functional Iraq, a destroyed Libya, ongoing destruction of Syria and Venezuela, relentless attacks and incipient war on Iran, give us more than a glimpse into the awesome power of America’s military might, its malice and ruthlessness in projecting that power, its no-holds-barred no-moral-qualms no-body-count no-questions-asked ends-justify-the-means tactical use of genocide, its jaw-dropping hypocrisy in portraying itself as a force of good, its psychopathic exceptionalist world view which judges all other nations and their populations as dispensable, and its ultimate loyalty to a tiny autocratic ruling elite who use “democracy” as just another tool in their bag of tricks to promote absolute corporate tyranny — the framework of fascism Sheldon Wolin calls inverted totalitarianism — and global hegemony. It’s for good reason that the U.S. is now often referred to as the Empire of Chaos.
The Plot to Overthrow Venezuela: How the US is Orchestrating a Coup for Oil, as the title suggests, more specifically focuses on the horrors inflicted by the U.S. government on Venezuela. This thorough, extremely well-researched, and fully supported exposé covers the current crises in and about Venezuela, intentionally and purposefully instigated by the U.S. to overthrow its current government and plunder the country’s rich oil reserves. Just as importantly it offers rich and revealing historical accounts of America’s past dealings with Venezuela and almost identical scenarios with other Latin American nations, detailing the darkness and corruption that lies at the heart of U.S. foreign policy, and how that has cast a pall of oppression over the entirety of South and Central America, the nations of which have the geographical misfortune of being in America’s self-declared hemisphere of influence — read that as hemisphere of total domination and ruthless exploitation. From Chile to Haiti to Panama to Honduras to Nicaragua to El Salvador to Colombia, we see the brutal deployment of U.S. political and military assets leaving whole countries impoverished, the poor without hope — often deprived of even food and water — and piles of nameless corpses in escalating numbers, dismissed by the U.S. government and its lapdog media as collateral damage of the Great Imperial Project.
By the end of Kovalik’s chilling indictment of U.S. malfeasance in its war on the people of Venezuela, what is astonishing and shocking is that the U.S. is again getting away with such overt and illegal aggression, by not only using the same play book, but by using the same players. With Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State, John Bolton as National Security Advisor, and Elliot Abrams as Special Envoy to Venezuela, at the helm of the project to take Venezuela’s government apart and replace it with the puppet regime of the unelected Juan Guaido, we have three of the most notorious of the notorious — murderous, lying thugs — doing the dirty work. All three have sordid histories of inciting war and orchestrating regime changes. Abrams was indicted and convicted for lying to Congress about the Iran-Contra affair.
The thought-provoking Plot to Overthrow Venezuela is very well-written, with a clarity, accessibility, and erudition which puts it in a class with the best works of Noam Chomsky. The Foreword by Oliver Stone is a worthy and deserving way to get things started. I give it six out of five stars, truly one of the most engaging and informative books I’ve read in ages.
“The US appears to be intentionally spreading chaos throughout strategic portions of the world, leaving virtually no independent state standing to protect their resources, especially oil, from Western exploitation. And, this goal is being achieved with resounding success, while also achieving the subsidiary goal of enriching the behemoth military-industrial complex.”
A divided Korea, a decimated Vietnam, endless war in Afghanistan, a barely functional Iraq, a destroyed Libya, ongoing destruction of Syria and Venezuela, relentless attacks and incipient war on Iran, give us more than a glimpse into the awesome power of America’s military might, its malice and ruthlessness in projecting that power, its no-holds-barred no-moral-qualms no-body-count no-questions-asked ends-justify-the-means tactical use of genocide, its jaw-dropping hypocrisy in portraying itself as a force of good, its psychopathic exceptionalist world view which judges all other nations and their populations as dispensable, and its ultimate loyalty to a tiny autocratic ruling elite who use “democracy” as just another tool in their bag of tricks to promote absolute corporate tyranny — the framework of fascism Sheldon Wolin calls inverted totalitarianism — and global hegemony. It’s for good reason that the U.S. is now often referred to as the Empire of Chaos.
The Plot to Overthrow Venezuela: How the US is Orchestrating a Coup for Oil, as the title suggests, more specifically focuses on the horrors inflicted by the U.S. government on Venezuela. This thorough, extremely well-researched, and fully supported exposé covers the current crises in and about Venezuela, intentionally and purposefully instigated by the U.S. to overthrow its current government and plunder the country’s rich oil reserves. Just as importantly it offers rich and revealing historical accounts of America’s past dealings with Venezuela and almost identical scenarios with other Latin American nations, detailing the darkness and corruption that lies at the heart of U.S. foreign policy, and how that has cast a pall of oppression over the entirety of South and Central America, the nations of which have the geographical misfortune of being in America’s self-declared hemisphere of influence — read that as hemisphere of total domination and ruthless exploitation. From Chile to Haiti to Panama to Honduras to Nicaragua to El Salvador to Colombia, we see the brutal deployment of U.S. political and military assets leaving whole countries impoverished, the poor without hope — often deprived of even food and water — and piles of nameless corpses in escalating numbers, dismissed by the U.S. government and its lapdog media as collateral damage of the Great Imperial Project.
By the end of Kovalik’s chilling indictment of U.S. malfeasance in its war on the people of Venezuela, what is astonishing and shocking is that the U.S. is again getting away with such overt and illegal aggression, by not only using the same play book, but by using the same players. With Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State, John Bolton as National Security Advisor, and Elliot Abrams as Special Envoy to Venezuela, at the helm of the project to take Venezuela’s government apart and replace it with the puppet regime of the unelected Juan Guaido, we have three of the most notorious of the notorious — murderous, lying thugs — doing the dirty work. All three have sordid histories of inciting war and orchestrating regime changes. Abrams was indicted and convicted for lying to Congress about the Iran-Contra affair.
The thought-provoking Plot to Overthrow Venezuela is very well-written, with a clarity, accessibility, and erudition which puts it in a class with the best works of Noam Chomsky. The Foreword by Oliver Stone is a worthy and deserving way to get things started. I give it six out of five stars, truly one of the most engaging and informative books I’ve read in ages.
March 8, 2021
Dan Kovalik has penned yet another book delineating the high crimes of the US Empire. With his usual extensive research and plethora of first sources, Kovalik demonstrates for anyone with eyes to read just how grim, not to say reprehensible, the US tactics are when it comes to that seemingly unbreakable habit, regime change. With one goal in sight, that of taking control of the resources of another country, we may nevertheless ask ourselves: has the Empire perhaps met its match in Venezuela?
As I write this review in early March 2021, the budding (sic) Biden administration has already defined its attitude to the "situation," as they call it, in Venezuela. Nothing will change. A private Venezuelan citizen by the name of Juan Guaidó has been recognized by the Biden team as the legitimate president of the country in place of the actual president, Nicolás Maduro. If it was not so serious, this would be laughable. Trump placed Guaidó in charge over two years ago and since that time, he has organized unsuccessful terrorist attacks on his own country, requested a military invasion of his own country by the United States and Colombia, disposed of Venezuelan assets, amounting to a huge amount of cash, provided to him by Trump, in unknown ways, and now lost all credibility at home, even among most members of the Venezuelan opposition.
And yet Biden wants to hang on to him, giving me the impression that both men are just as unimpressive, the one as as the other. But Biden is dangerous. Biden is vicious and intelligent enough to know that the country he thinks he is governing is in a great deal of trouble. Dan Kovalik covers all of this and more in detail in an immensely readable work that I trust will only be ancient history before much longer.
As I write this review in early March 2021, the budding (sic) Biden administration has already defined its attitude to the "situation," as they call it, in Venezuela. Nothing will change. A private Venezuelan citizen by the name of Juan Guaidó has been recognized by the Biden team as the legitimate president of the country in place of the actual president, Nicolás Maduro. If it was not so serious, this would be laughable. Trump placed Guaidó in charge over two years ago and since that time, he has organized unsuccessful terrorist attacks on his own country, requested a military invasion of his own country by the United States and Colombia, disposed of Venezuelan assets, amounting to a huge amount of cash, provided to him by Trump, in unknown ways, and now lost all credibility at home, even among most members of the Venezuelan opposition.
And yet Biden wants to hang on to him, giving me the impression that both men are just as unimpressive, the one as as the other. But Biden is dangerous. Biden is vicious and intelligent enough to know that the country he thinks he is governing is in a great deal of trouble. Dan Kovalik covers all of this and more in detail in an immensely readable work that I trust will only be ancient history before much longer.
November 2, 2019
I’m not one to write reviews, but this author forced my hand. This book is bad propaganda. Yes, the author explains the US government’s meddling in Venezuelan affairs, which is the purpose of my purchasing of this book. What the author doesn’t do, however, is explain to you the state of the general Venezuelan population. At many times, the author will just mention off-hand about some protest against the government, but does not give context behind any of the protests, or even the subject that people are protesting. He just goes on to cherry pick organizations that aren’t joining in on the protests. In fact, he just cherry picks anyone who is pro-Maduro. There isn’t a single interview with a dissenter of the VZ government.
The author paints Chavez and Maduro as saintly figures, and where I agree that the US government (which I can’t stress enough is different from the US citizen, because the author does not) should not be puppeteering in the affairs of other nations: the US is not the only government antagonizing the Venezuelan people! Their own government is doing this!
In summary, this book is written by an American who just wants to label America and anything against the socialist Venezuelan government as evil and racist. I tried reading it with an open mind, but it is just horribly dishonest.
The author paints Chavez and Maduro as saintly figures, and where I agree that the US government (which I can’t stress enough is different from the US citizen, because the author does not) should not be puppeteering in the affairs of other nations: the US is not the only government antagonizing the Venezuelan people! Their own government is doing this!
In summary, this book is written by an American who just wants to label America and anything against the socialist Venezuelan government as evil and racist. I tried reading it with an open mind, but it is just horribly dishonest.
May 25, 2021
Dan Kovalik has written a quick and essential book on a geopolitical conflict that we are all better off for understanding. He deconstructs the State Department propaganda our media launders for us and provides an honest account of the US/Venezuela relationship since before Chavez. In effect, the US levies economic sanctions and cultivates political unrest in nations whose socialist (or even slightly left of liberal) leaders are restricting Western corporate access to raw materials and cheap labor. The hope is to turn the nation's people against that leader so they will vote for the CIA-backed replacement whom the US helps install, and whom Western media helps legitimize. If this "peaceful" option (which has already killed/displaces thousands in Venezuela) doesn't work, military action comes next. The American public will have already been subject to nearly a decade of anti-Maduro propaganda – with US media pointing to the economic results of sanctions and ascribing them to "socialist tyranny." We have proven a nation rather facile when it comes to resisting "human rights" focused military invasions in the past.
September 20, 2022
Undeniable fact number 1: the US is hostile to leftist political projects at home and abroad.
Undeniable fact number 2: the US, and the Trump administration in particular, wants regime change in Venezuela.
Debatable: and in my opinion, an absolutely false assertion, is that the US is interested in regime change in Venezuela just so they can steal its oil.
I was surprised at how poorly argued this book was on this very point. Kovalik uses Iraq as an example of a classic oil grab, but Iraqi oil is still owned by the Iraqi state and the vast majority of its petroleum exports do not even go to the United States.
Would the US prefer to have Venezuelan oil to privatized? Yes, of course, but that's not a guaranteed outcome.
The truth is US foreign policy towards Venezuela is more like an election strategy that panders to Florida reactionaries, but we shouldn't downplay this because such pandering has deadly consequences, e.g. a punishing sanctions regime.
Undeniable fact number 2: the US, and the Trump administration in particular, wants regime change in Venezuela.
Debatable: and in my opinion, an absolutely false assertion, is that the US is interested in regime change in Venezuela just so they can steal its oil.
I was surprised at how poorly argued this book was on this very point. Kovalik uses Iraq as an example of a classic oil grab, but Iraqi oil is still owned by the Iraqi state and the vast majority of its petroleum exports do not even go to the United States.
Would the US prefer to have Venezuelan oil to privatized? Yes, of course, but that's not a guaranteed outcome.
The truth is US foreign policy towards Venezuela is more like an election strategy that panders to Florida reactionaries, but we shouldn't downplay this because such pandering has deadly consequences, e.g. a punishing sanctions regime.
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August 20, 2024Daniel (Dan) Kovalik
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Dan Kovalik https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
and
Daniel Kovalik https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
are the same author.
Goodreads insists on pretending they are two distinct authors: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
June 25, 2019
Given there is no god in Marxism, authors have to work to generate dark motives that would take the place of Satan's.
I await the second volume when the Reptilians will reveal themselves.
I await the second volume when the Reptilians will reveal themselves.
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September 13, 2019987.0642 K884 2019
October 1, 2020
Informative and an absolute must read for anyone interested in American Foreign Policy. Spoiler alert: it's always about the oil, money, and control.
February 13, 2025
This book is incredible. Excellent. It is clear, thorough, and provides ample evidence not only about Venezuela but US intervention as a whole. Reading this as it continues to happen in real time only adds to the importance of the information. Recognizing trends in US actions and beginning to hold the government accountable at least in personal beliefs can allow for bigger changes to happen. In particular, with the economic changes since COVID, this becomes even more important.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews