The U.S. government's work-in-progress of removing a democratically elected president of a developing country, Venezuela in this case, and replacing him with a “president” that will comply with whatever the U.S. wants is a story as old as the U.S. as superpower after World War II.

Nicholas Maduro, the duly elected president has committed the crime of moving to keep the natural resources of the country, especially oil, for the use and benefit of the people of Venezuela, and at the same time, carrying on the Bolivarian Revolution of the late president, Hugo Chavez.

Venezuela has one of the largest reserves (some estimate that it's the largest) of oil in the world and that appeals to the avarice of the fossil-fuel gluttons of America, who never have seen a pool of oil that they did not covet and prepare to do anything to make that oil come “home,” to the U.S. It has happened time after time and the motivation is likely only second to the frantic attempts to stop communism in nations around the world. Now, however, the communist threat has been replaced with the threat of socialism, the buzzword for right-wingers in the U.S.

As the U.S. government continues its worldwide propaganda campign against Maduro and his government, it recently recognized on Jan. 23, the president of Venezuela’s National Assembly, Juan Guaido, as “interim president.” His “administration” was quickly recognized by the U.S. and many of its allies, but the reality in Venezuela itself is different from what is being portrayed in U.S. media. Maduro has a core of support among the people that may constitute 30 percent of the country's electorate, a large number and a very politically active part of Venezuela's society and economy. Under Chavez' administration, this core became active in determining the country's direction. But, all the while, the world's oil powers went into gear to thwart the intentions of Chavez, as is happening with Maduro today.

The U.S. game plan for Venezuela is pretty much the same as in other countries, except in the current campaign against Maduro, the prize is oil, which is much favored as an energy source and, incidentally, a source of great wealth, by the president of the U.S., Donald Trump. He has explained how he would make deals with people like Guaido who he says would be happy to be made president and give a large percentage of his country's oil to the U.S. and its biggest corporations, especially the oil (or “energy”) companies.

For the poor countries in the Western Hemisphere, the U.S. has acted like a Monroe Doctrine predator on steroids, interfering in the democratic processes of a number of countries as if they were colonies to be used for their resources, whether natural or human. Particularly, though, the threat of socialism and communism have always weighed heavily on the minds of the America's colonial powers. No matter what, they thought and acted upon the fear that some leader of some nation would take to socialism: the idea that the resources of the nation should be a benefit to the people, not to oligarchs or foreign powers.

In viewing what's happening to Venezuela today, it is instructive to review what happened in Chile in 1973. Sept. 11, 1973, to be specific. It was not particularly for oil that Salvador Allende was overthrown as president, but that he was a Marxist and had the socialist instincts of one and wished to begin spreading the wealth of the nation among the people. He, like Maduro, would not be a puppet of the U.S. government and its corporate masters, so he needed to be eliminated. The U.S. campaign against him and his ideas started long before he was elected president. The CIA had been at work there for several years, since Allende came within a 3 percent margin of becoming president in 1958. The U.S. campaign over the years involved tens of millions of dollars spent on propaganda of every description: newspapers, broadcast outlets, posters, and outreach to peasants, students, labor unions, and other groups.

In his well-researched book, The CIA: Forgotten History,” published in 1986, William Blum wrote about the 1964 election in Chile: “After channelling funds to several non-leftist parties, the electoral (CIA) team eventually settled on a man of the centre, Eduardo Frei, the candidate of the Christian Democratic Party, as the one most likely to block Allende's rise to power. The CIA underwrote more than half the party's total campaign costs, one of the reasons that the Agency's overall electoral operation reduced the American treasury by an estimated $20 million, much more per voter than that spent by the Johnson and Goldwater campaigns combined in the same year in the United States. The bulk of the expenditures went toward propaganda.”

The fear of Allende may sound familiar, as explained by Blum: “What threat did he represent, this man against whom the great technical and economic resources of the world's most powerful nation were brought to bear? Allende was a man whose political programme, as described by the (Senate) committee report was to 'redistribute income (two percent of the population received 46 percent of the income) and reshape the Chilean economy, beginning with the nationalization of major industries, especially the copper companies; greatly expand agrarian reforms; and expand relations with socialist and communist countries.'”

U.S. intervention around the world, but especially in this hemisphere, goes on without interruption. There are those who are opposed to these constant interventions, including this one in Venezuela, but their voices are not much heard either in the U.S. or in the selected country, amid the cacophony of propaganda which demonizes the target leader or party. For example, U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW) issued a statement this month, saying in part: “The U.S. has no legitimate claim to intervene in the internal affairs of other countries, to take sides in internal political disputes, or to undermine governments elected by the people. We have seen the disastrous consequences of recent U.S. interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and, through its alliance with Saudi Arabia, in Yemen. U.S. intervention in Venezuela can only bring further hardship and suffering, as followed U.S. support for the 2009 coup in Honduras that overthrew the elected government there and contributed to the stream of asylum-seekers now on our southern border seeking relief from that disaster.”

When the U.S. puts sanctions on a country and forces its allies and other countries to adhere to the sanctions, it can bring most functions of the government in question to a virtual halt. In the two years run-up to the coup in 1973, every effort was made to destabilize Chile and delegitimize Allende. Blum quoted then-American Ambassador Edward Korry, who warned Chileans and the world: “Not a nut or bolt (will) be allowed to reach Chile under Allende.” Such was the power of the U.S. over other countries, just as it is with Maduro and Venezuela. It doesn't take much imagination to determine what happens to a country when it is shut off from the world by such powerful sanctions. Of course, there are problems in Venezuela and people are leaving, but some credence has to be given to the idea of intentional destruction of that country's economy.

Oil was the main economic driver for Chavez' Bolivarian Revolution. Some of the difficulty with the oil economy has something to do with Saudi Arabia's overproduction of oil that has driven down the prices of oil from around $100 a barrel, to less than $30 a barrel. Saudi Arabia is an “ally” of the U.S. and has been largely protected from international criticism by Trump. Again, USLAW: “It reveals the deep cynicism of U.S. policy makers that they denounce what they call a dictatorial regime in Venezuela while providing unlimited support to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its murderous absolute dictatorship of the royal family. The U.S. also supports a host of other autocrats, authoritarians, absolute monarchs and dictators in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, to name a few.”

The suffering of Venezuelans is far from over, as every effort is being made to place in the position of highest power in that country a man whom few Venezuelans know, but Trump, the U.S. right wing, and some democrats and neoliberals are sure that he will do the their bidding, including giving up most of the oil under their soil to the world market. That is, to the giant transnational oil companies and their beneficiaries in Congress and other deliberative bodies.

How is it that such aggression can be perpetrated time after time, without the slightest recognition that the rich and powerful are hypocrites, through and through? It's said that “to the victor go the spoils” and, as well, they get to write the history. The arrogance of the powerful, which has caused so much suffering in the world, perhaps can be summed up in one statement by Henry Kissinger, in June 1970, advisor to the U.S. president, at a meeting of the National Security Council's Forty Committee. He stated, according to Blum: “I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist because of the irresponsibility of its own people.”

What followed in a short time was the overthrow of Allende and 17 years of the brutal and bloody dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, who was placed under house arrest in Britain, but released on medical grounds in March 2000. Although the charges against him numbered in the hundreds, he escaped trial. He died in Santiago in 2006 of a heart attack. The people of Chile were the ones who suffered most, as will the people of Venezuela when the rich countries, led by Trump's U.S., are finished with them.