I thought this column was only going to take me a minute. The idea was simple: Slap down a list of all the times the US government (and the slime molds who control the US government) perpetrated or facilitated coups, kidnappings, assassinations, and plane landings (really fast into the side of a mountain) in Latin America since about 1950. The slapping down of said list ended up taking me several hours, and the list certainly isn’t exhaustive and doesn’t include a lot of things it probably should but some of those things are debatable. …But it’s a list.
It’s easy to feel like Donald Trump’s unhinged brazen war criminal behavior is unlike anything the United States has vomited up before. But sadly, it’s not. Sadly, the US has been behaving like a global mafia hitman with dementia for decades. The only difference is that most US coup’ings and attempted coup’ings in Latin America have been somewhat subtle — or rather the US involvement has been somewhat subtle. But Donald Trump pronounces the “B” in subtle. (Not my joke.)
An exception to that subtlety doctrine was George H.W. Bush’s 1989 invasion of Panama in which Manuel Noriega was kidnapped by US forces and roughly 1,000 people were killed and some neighborhoods were made to look like “little Hiroshimas.” But in general, US presidents have preferred to manipulate/dominate/crush/control Latin American countries with a mixture of economic war, lawfare coups, bribery, threats, and unorthodox plane landings.
So let’s make clear just how common the US empire’s murderous, illegal, belligerent behavior is with the following list of nearly 20 times we’ve coup’ed Latin American countries since 1950. Keep in mind, this list does not include attempted coups or attempted assassinations except when they were particularly egregious — such as the 634 times the CIA tried to whack Fidel Castro. To add all attempted coups, I would need to clear my schedule for the next three weeks — as would you to read about every last pathetic bloody misadventure, such as the 2020 Bay of Piglets attack on Venezuela.
The following list also doesn’t include lawfare coups (such as was done to Lula da Silva in Brazil), which have been the most common form of US-backed regime-change ops over the past 20 years. (I plan to put out a column on lawfare coups fairly soon.) And finally, my list here only encompasses Latin America since the year 1950.
That being said, I probably still forgot some. So please add them in the comment section.
U.S.-Backed Kidnappings, Assassinations and Coups in Latin America Since 1950
- 1954 — Guatemala — President Jacobo Árbenz — Overthrown in CIA Operation PBSUCCESS
- 1960s, 70s, 80s — Cuba — Prime Minister Fidel Castro — The US tried to assassinate him about 634 times and invaded the country during the Bay of Pigs
- 1961 — Dominican Republic — Rafael Trujillo — US-backed coup and assassination
- 1964 — Brazil — President João Goulart — US-supported coup
- 1965 — Dominican Republic — President Juan Bosch — US-supported coup
- 1970 — Chile — General René Schneider — US-supported kidnapping and assassination
- 1971 — Bolivia — President Juan José Torres — US-supported coup
- 1973 — Chile — President Salvador Allende — US-backed coup and “suicide” of Allende
- 1976 — Argentina — President Isabel Perón — US-backed coup
- 1976 — Bolivia (in exile in Argentina) — former President Juan José Torres — US-supported assassination
- 1981 — Panama — General Omar Torrijos — Death in suspicious plane crash with likely US support
- 1981 — Ecuador — President Jaime Roldós — Death in suspicious plane crash with likely US support
- 1983 — Grenada — Prime Minister Maurice Bishop — US invasion and removal of Bishop in Operation Urgent Fury
- 1980s — Nicaragua — Sandinista government — Sustained covert regime-change war
- 1989 — Panama — Gen. Manuel Noriega — Invasion, kidnapping and transfer to US custody in Operation Just Cause
- 2002 — Venezuela — President Hugo Chávez — Kidnapped by US-backed military forces for less than 48 hours before being restored to power
- 2004 — Haiti — President Jean-Bertrand Aristide — Kidnapped and flown to Africa on a US military plane
- 2009 — Honduras — President Manuel Zelaya — US-backed kidnapping and coup
- 2026 — Venezuela — President Nicolás Maduro — US kidnapping and extraction to US custody
The horror show Trump and Rubio have scripted for us is… well, a horror show. However, it’s not a new horror show. Some of their actions — like blowing fishermen to bits in the waters off Venezuela — are more full-frontal than we’re accustomed to seeing in Latin America. But controlling, decimating, and destabilizing countries around the world is the S.O.P. of the US empire.
I don’t say this to convey apathy or boredom with the completely criminal and unhinged invasion of Venezuela and kidnapping of Maduro. I convey this history to explain that Trump is not a bad apple. He is a representation of a long-running and absolute moral rot of the US empire — And we must keep fighting against it.
If you want to learn about the REAL reason Trump kidnapped Maduro, read this short column.
