Venezuela Decoded

An essay on oil, empire, and the pattern that never changes

On January 3, 2026, US forces conducted airstrikes on Caracas, followed by a special operations raid that seized Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from his residence. Within 48 hours, Maduro and his wife were in a Brooklyn detention facility facing charges of narco-terrorism and drug trafficking. Dozens of Venezuelans lay dead—soldiers, civilians, members of Maduro’s security detail. Cuba reported 32 of its citizens killed, some allegedly military personnel.

Then President Trump said something unusual. He said something true.

The United States, he announced, would temporarily “run” Venezuela to facilitate a “safe and judicious transition.” He emphasised access to oil reserves. He indicated that US companies would invest in rebuilding the oil sector.

For those paying attention, this was not a gaffe or a moment of unguarded honesty. It was confirmation of a pattern that has repeated across seven decades, documented meticulously by a researcher most people have never heard of.

His name is F. William Engdahl.

---

Support Independent Research

This work remains free because paid subscribers make it possible. If you find value here, consider joining them.

What paid subscribers get: Access to the Deep Dive Audio Library — 170+ in-depth discussions (30-50 min each) exploring the books behind these essays. New discussions added weekly. That’s 100+ hours of content for less than the price of a single audiobook.

[Upgrade to Paid – $5/month or $50/year]

Get in touch Essay ideas, stories, or expertise to share: unbekoming@outlook.com

---

The Analyst They Don’t Teach You About

F. William Engdahl is an American-German researcher, historian, and economic journalist whose work spans five decades. He holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and has written extensively on oil geopolitics, food politics, and the architecture of American power. His books—A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order, Full Spectrum Dominance, Seeds of Destruction, Manifest Destiny: Democracy as Cognitive Dissonance, and Myths, Lies and Oil Wars—constitute perhaps the most thorough documentation of how energy resources drive US foreign policy.

You won’t find Engdahl on mainstream news panels. His work isn’t assigned in university international relations courses. This is not because his research is poor—it is exhaustively sourced, drawing on declassified documents, official reports, and the public statements of policymakers themselves. The problem is that his conclusions are too clear, too well-documented, and too damning to be absorbed into polite discourse.

Engdahl’s central thesis is straightforward: US foreign policy, regardless of the rhetoric employed—democracy promotion, humanitarian intervention, counter-terrorism, the war on drugs—is fundamentally organised around the control of global energy resources, particularly oil. The various justifications offered for military interventions and regime change operations are, in his analysis, pretexts. The constant is oil. The constant is control.

As Belgian author Michel Collon put it, in a line Engdahl quotes approvingly: “If you want to rule the world, you need to control oil. All the oil. Anywhere.”

The Pentagon has its own term for this ambition. They call it “Full Spectrum Dominance.”

---

Full Spectrum Dominance: The Doctrine

In 1992, a Pentagon document titled “Defense Planning Guidance” was leaked to the New York Times. The document, drafted under Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney and his assistant Paul Wolfowitz, described US strategy for the post-Soviet world. As Engdahl documents:

“The Pentagon strategy paper stated that, ‘America’s political and military mission in the post-cold-war era will be to ensure that no rival superpower is allowed to emerge in Western Europe, Asia or the territories of the former Soviet Union.’ The New York Times added that, ‘The classified document makes the case for a world dominated by one superpower whose position can be perpetuated by constructive behavior and sufficient military might to deter any nation or group of nations from challenging American primacy.’”

This was not defensive posture. This was a blueprint for global hegemony.

The document presented, in Engdahl’s words, “a vision of a US-run ‘Sole Superpower’ world, what the Pentagon later called ‘Full Spectrum Dominance’—US control of the world’s seas, land, and even its air—including outer space and even cyberspace.”

Energy control sits at the heart of this doctrine. In 1999, Dick Cheney—then CEO of Halliburton, the world’s largest oil services company—addressed the London Institute of Petroleum. He told the assembled oil executives:

“By 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come from? Governments and the national oil companies are obviously controlling about ninety percent of the assets. Oil remains fundamentally a government business.”

Fifty million barrels a day. That figure represented almost two-thirds of total world oil output at the time—six times Saudi Arabia’s entire production. And Cheney saw it as a problem that governments controlled their own oil.

“While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities,” Cheney continued, “the Middle East, with two-thirds of the world’s oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies.”

Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves. Larger than Saudi Arabia. Larger than Iran. Larger than Iraq.

Prize, indeed.

---

The Template: Iran 1953

To understand Venezuela 2026, we must understand the template. And the template was established in Iran in 1953.

In 1951, Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh nationalised the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (later BP). Iran offered just compensation. Iran guaranteed to maintain oil supplies to Britain at previous levels. Iran offered to continue employing British nationals.

None of this mattered. As Engdahl writes:

“In British eyes, Iran had committed the unforgivable sin. It had effectively acted to assert national interest over British interests.”

Britain imposed full economic sanctions, froze Iranian assets, stationed warships outside Iranian coastal waters, and organised an international boycott of Iranian oil. The Anglo-American oil majors warned any potential buyers of nationalised Iranian oil that they would face legal action—a circular strategy, since Britain simultaneously refused to sign any compensation agreement that would have resolved the legal question.

The goal was economic strangulation. When that proved insufficient, the CIA and British intelligence manufactured a coup. Mossadegh was removed. The Shah was installed. And control of Iran’s oil shifted from British Petroleum to the Rockefeller Standard Oil companies.

This is the template: a government asserts sovereign control over its own natural resources, is subjected to economic warfare, and when that fails, faces a coup or military intervention. The specific justification varies—communist influence in 1953, terrorism later, drugs later still. The pattern does not vary.

Engdahl documents that the Shah, grateful for his restoration to power, transferred generous gifts to his American benefactors. Records from the Pahlavi Foundation show $1 million to Allen Dulles (former CIA chief who orchestrated the coup), $2 million to David Rockefeller, $2 million to Loy Henderson (US Ambassador who aided the coup). The arrangement was transactional and everyone understood it.

---

The Drug War Pretext: Panama 1989

If Iran established the oil template, Panama established the drug war template—the specific pretext now being applied to Venezuela.

On December 20, 1989, US forces invaded Panama. The stated justification: arresting General Manuel Noriega on drug trafficking charges.

Engdahl documents what actually happened:

“According to eyewitness accounts, upwards of 6,000 Panamanians, mostly poor civilians, were killed as U.S. Special Forces and U.S. bombers invaded the small country on the pretext of arresting the de facto ruler, General Manuel Noriega, on charges of being a drug cartel kingpin.”

The operation introduced a new legal doctrine. Attorney General Richard Thornburgh formulated what became known as the Thornburgh Doctrine, which “stipulated that the American FBI and the Justice Department had authority to act on foreign territory, if deemed necessary, ‘in the course of extraterritorial law enforcement.’”

Translated from legalese: the United States claimed the unilateral right to invade any country, seize any leader, on the basis of criminal charges determined by US courts alone. Sovereignty was rendered conditional—conditional on not being indicted by the US Justice Department.

The Thornburgh Doctrine is the precise legal framework under which Maduro was seized in January 2026. The charges—narco-terrorism, drug trafficking—are identical in category to those leveled against Noriega. The operational model—special forces extraction followed by detention in a US facility—is identical.

There is a bitter irony here that Engdahl documents extensively. Throughout the 1980s, the CIA was deeply involved in drug trafficking operations. The Contras in Nicaragua, whom the Reagan administration backed against the elected Sandinista government, “were later reported to be raising more funds by selling huge amounts of cocaine on the streets of Los Angeles and other US cities. The CIA claimed it turned a blind eye to the Contra drug business because its ‘priority’ was defeating Ortega’s duly-elected government.”

This pattern—using drug accusations against official enemies while protecting or facilitating drug operations by allies—recurs throughout Engdahl’s documentation. In Laos during Vietnam, in Afghanistan with the Mujahideen, in Kosovo with the KLA. The war on drugs, like the war on terror, functions as a selective enforcement mechanism. It provides legal architecture for removing inconvenient governments while ignoring identical behaviour by useful assets.

Noriega, notably, had been a CIA asset for years before his indictment. The drugs flowing through Panama were not news to Washington. What changed was Noriega’s usefulness.

---

The Humanitarian Mask: Libya 2011

Libya demonstrated how the template had evolved by the 21st century. The pretext was neither communism nor drugs but humanitarianism—specifically, unverified claims that Gaddafi had ordered aerial shootings of unarmed civilians.

Engdahl’s analysis of Libya is unsparing:

“The most remarkable facet of NATO’s war against Libya was the fact that ‘world opinion’ accepted without question an act of overt military aggression against a sovereign country that was guilty of no violation whatsoever of the UN Charter. Instead, it viewed the US war against Libya—an act of de facto neo-colonialism in violation of basic precepts of the laws of nations—as a ‘humanitarian’ war.”

Why Libya? Engdahl provides the context that media coverage omitted:

“Under Gaddafi, Libya had avoided turning its oil riches fully over to Western oil majors, keeping the vast majority of Africa’s largest oil reserves firmly in Libyan hands, making long-term concession agreements with select foreign companies. China was a major partner with Libya’s state oil company.”

Libya under Gaddafi had the highest life expectancy and lowest infant mortality in Africa. Literacy had risen from below 10% to above 90%. Less than 5% of the population was undernourished—a figure lower than the United States. When food prices spiked globally, Gaddafi abolished all taxes on food. A lower percentage of Libyans lived below the poverty line than in the Netherlands.

None of this made Libya immune to the template. Gaddafi controlled oil that Western majors wanted. He had signed deals with Chinese companies. The sin, as with Mossadegh, was asserting national control over national resources.

The humanitarian pretext was assembled rapidly. The US pressured the Arab League—reportedly trading favours regarding Bahrain and Egypt—to provide formal cover for intervention. Armed with this fig leaf, Washington pushed a UN Security Council resolution through, with Russia and China abstaining. NATO began bombing.

“At issue was not whether or not Gaddafi was good or evil,” Engdahl writes. “At issue was the very concept of the civilized law of nations and of just or unjust wars.”

Libya today exists in a state of failed statehood, “run by hundreds of armed tribal bands and criminal gangs fighting for oil and power.” The humanitarian intervention produced a humanitarian catastrophe. The oil, however, is now accessible to Western companies.

---

The Objection That Misses the Point

The objection arises predictably: but Gaddafi was a dictator. But Mossadegh was flirting with communists. But Noriega really was involved in drug trafficking. But Maduro is authoritarian and his government is corrupt.

Engdahl’s framework does not require defending these figures. It requires noticing the pattern. Many governments around the world are authoritarian. Many are corrupt. Many have leaders involved in criminal enterprises. The question is not whether the accusations contain truth. The question is why these particular governments, at these particular moments, face the full weight of American intervention—while others, equally authoritarian, equally corrupt, equally criminal, receive American support, American weapons, American silence.

The answer, consistently, is resources. The answer, consistently, is compliance. Saudi Arabia is not invaded for human rights violations. Egypt’s military government receives billions in annual aid. The criterion is not virtue. It is utility to American strategic interests.

Maduro may be everything his accusers claim. That is irrelevant to understanding why this operation happened now, in this way, with these stated goals. The template operates regardless of the target’s character.

---

Venezuela: Two Decades in the Crosshairs

Venezuela’s targeting did not begin in 2026, or 2024, or 2019. It began the moment Hugo Chavez moved to assert Venezuelan control over Venezuelan oil.

But American interest in Venezuelan oil predates Chavez by generations. Engdahl documents that “Rockefeller family interests had spread from Venezuelan oil to Brazilian agriculture” as early as the 1940s, when Nelson Rockefeller was running US intelligence operations in Latin America. The family “regarded Latin America as a de facto private family sphere of influence.” Venezuela’s oil was always part of the calculation.

What Chavez represented was not a new American interest in Venezuelan oil, but a disruption of established arrangements. Engdahl documents the response:

“And when the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, tried to take more direct policy control of the Venezuelan state oil company, the Bush administration attempted a covert coup.”

This was April 2002. Chavez was briefly removed from power before being restored by popular mobilisation and loyal military units within 48 hours. The coup failed, but the template had been activated.

Why Venezuela specifically? Engdahl provides the strategic context:

“Colombian oil and that of neighboring Venezuela were also subject to growing U.S. military presence. The Bush administration announced plans to spend $98 million to provide military training and support in Colombia. This was not intended to stop the flood of cocaine into the United States. It was to resist the guerillas of the FARC and ELN, who threatened the large Occidental Petroleum pipeline there.”

And then the crucial detail:

“U.S. oil imports from Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador exceeded those from the entire Middle East.”

Read that again. Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador together supplied more oil to the United States than the entire Middle East. Venezuela alone holds reserves larger than Saudi Arabia. And Venezuela under Chavez, and later Maduro, insisted on maintaining sovereign control over PDVSA, the state oil company.

This was the unforgivable sin. The same sin Mossadegh committed. The same sin Gaddafi committed. The assertion of national interest over American interest.

---

The Soft Power Toolkit: Color Revolutions

When the 2002 coup failed, Washington pivoted to a different approach—one Engdahl documents extensively in Manifest Destiny. Rather than relying solely on military force, the US developed sophisticated techniques for manufacturing regime change through seemingly indigenous popular movements.

“Rather than solely relying on military overt force to advance its global agenda, Washington unveiled a dramatic new weapon: ‘fake democracy’ nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that would be used to covertly create pro-Washington regimes in strategic parts of the world after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Democratic freedom would be the banner, incredibly enough, to introduce a new tyranny.”

The architecture is extensive. The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), created in 1983 under CIA Director Bill Casey, serves as the central node. As Allen Weinstein, who drafted the legislation establishing the NED, admitted in a 1991 Washington Post interview: “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”

Around the NED orbit a constellation of affiliated organisations: the International Republican Institute (IRI), the National Democratic Institute (NDI), Freedom House, USAID’s Office of Transitional Initiatives, and the Open Society Foundations of George Soros. These organisations fund and train opposition movements, sponsor “election monitoring” that can declare results fraudulent on cue, cultivate media outlets, and coordinate the logistics of mass demonstrations.

The RAND Corporation, working for the Pentagon, developed specific techniques called “swarming”—deploying “mass mobs of digitally-linked youth in hit-and-run protest formations moving like swarms of bees.”

Engdahl traces the deployment of these techniques:

• Serbia 2000: The template was perfected against Milosevic, using the US-trained youth movement Otpor! (”Resistance!”)

• Georgia 2003: The “Rose Revolution” installed Saakashvili, using KMARA! (trained by Otpor! veterans, using the same clenched fist logo)

• Ukraine 2004: The “Orange Revolution” attempted to install Yushchenko, using Pora! (”It’s Time!”)

• Ukraine 2014: The Maidan coup succeeded where 2004 had ultimately failed

In each case, the formula was similar: fund and train youth movements, coordinate with compliant media to establish narratives of fraud, deploy swarming techniques to create the appearance of overwhelming popular revolt, and pressure security forces to stand down.

“The goal was to turn the target countries into US economic satrapies, or vassal states, by way of a series of regime-change color revolutions. It took a while before the unsuspecting target nations realized what was being done to them and their economies in the name of US export of ‘democracy.’”

Venezuela received the full treatment. NED funding flowed to Venezuelan opposition groups for two decades. Opposition figures were cultivated and trained. In 2019, the US recognised Juan Guaidó—then president of the National Assembly—as “interim president” despite his never having stood in a presidential election. The State Department’s stated expectation was that the military would switch sides, Maduro would flee, and Guaidó would assume power.

It didn’t work. The military remained loyal. Maduro remained in Caracas. Guaidó’s parallel government existed only in press releases and Washington’s imagination.

The 2024 election brought another attempt. Opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia was declared the “true winner” by the US and allied governments despite official Venezuelan results showing a Maduro victory. María Corina Machado, barred from running herself, was positioned as the moral center of the opposition and awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize—a familiar form of Western institutional legitimation for Washington’s preferred actors.

Still Maduro did not fall. The color revolution toolkit, so effective in Serbia and Georgia and Ukraine, had met its match.

This is the context for January 2026: twenty-four years of failed soft power. A 2002 coup reversed within 48 hours. A 2019 parallel government that existed only in Washington’s imagination. A 2024 election challenge that changed nothing.

The velvet glove had failed. What remained was the iron fist.

---

The China Dimension: Denying the Dragon

To understand why the intervention happened in 2026—rather than 2002 or 2019—requires understanding a factor that mainstream analysis consistently ignores. Venezuela was not merely about American oil companies wanting access to crude. It was about denying that crude to China.

In Target: China, Engdahl documents a critical turning point: “In 1994 China passed from being an exporter of oil to the world to becoming a net oil importer. The shift was to have profound implications for China’s national security and her vulnerability to Anglo-American attempts to control her oil sources.”

By 2010, China had ninety times more cars than in 1990. Its industrial economy demanded ever-increasing petroleum inputs. Projections indicated China would soon surpass the United States in total oil consumption. Securing adequate oil supplies became, in Engdahl’s words, “a national security priority.”

China responded by pursuing energy partnerships across the developing world—Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and Latin America. Wherever China went, Washington followed with destabilisation.

Engdahl traces the pattern:

“Beginning in 1999, China’s major investments in oil extraction in Sudan began to sound alarm bells in Washington.”

Sudan became the target of a sustained campaign. Washington backed separatist movements in the oil-rich south, eventually splitting the country in two. The new South Sudan’s border “conveniently cut Sudan’s oil fields down the middle,” and over 350,000 barrels per day—90% of Sudanese production, largely destined for Chinese ports—was disrupted. The head of the UN Darfur mission was accused by Khartoum of using humanitarian convoys to supply rebel groups. “Darfur,” Engdahl writes, “was the beginning of the Pentagon’s undeclared new Cold War, this one over oil.”

Libya followed the same pattern. Before NATO’s 2011 intervention, Gaddafi “had already signed with China to build oil and gas pipelines.” China was “a major partner with Libya’s state oil company.” After NATO’s humanitarian bombing campaign, those partnerships were terminated. Western majors moved in.

The strategy, Engdahl argues, operates on two levels simultaneously: acquiring resources for Anglo-American interests while denying them to China. “In Beijing it was duly noted that Washington’s strategy was not about anything other than raw power.”

Venezuela represented the pattern’s Western Hemisphere manifestation. Under Chavez and Maduro, PDVSA signed extensive agreements with Chinese state oil companies for development of the Orinoco Belt—the region containing Venezuela’s massive heavy crude reserves. Chinese investment flowed in. Chinese tankers carried Venezuelan oil across the Pacific. Venezuela became a significant supplier to China’s energy-hungry economy.

From Washington’s perspective, this was intolerable on multiple levels. Not only was Venezuelan oil under sovereign control rather than Western corporate control, it was actively flowing to America’s designated strategic rival. Every barrel China received from Venezuela was a barrel that strengthened Beijing’s energy security and reduced Washington’s leverage.

The timing of the 2026 intervention makes sense in this context. As US-China tensions escalated through the late 2010s and early 2020s—trade wars, technology restrictions, military posturing in the South China Sea—tolerating a major Chinese energy foothold in the Western Hemisphere became strategically unacceptable. The soft power approaches had been tolerable when China was less threatening. As the great power competition intensified, the calculus shifted.

Venezuela was not merely a prize to be won. It was an asset to be denied.

---

January 2026: The Pattern Fulfilled

Examine the Venezuela operation through Engdahl’s framework, and every element maps to documented precedent.

The oil motive, stated openly. Trump’s announcement that the US would “run” Venezuela and that US companies would “invest in rebuilding the oil sector” is remarkable only for its candor. The motive that Engdahl has documented behind intervention after intervention—from Iran to Iraq to Libya—was simply stated aloud. Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves. Under Chavez and Maduro, those reserves remained under sovereign Venezuelan control, with PDVSA partnering with Chinese and Russian companies rather than Western majors. This was the intolerable situation. This is what has been “corrected.”

The drug war pretext. Maduro faces charges of narco-terrorism and drug trafficking—the same category of charges used against Noriega in 1989. The Thornburgh Doctrine, establishing US authority to seize foreign leaders on US criminal indictments, provides the legal architecture. The 2020 indictment against Maduro has been unsealed and operationalised. Whether Maduro was involved in drug trafficking is, in a sense, beside the point. The question is why this pretext, applied selectively to official enemies, was activated at this particular moment against this particular target. Engdahl’s framework provides the answer: because the soft power alternatives had failed, and the oil was too valuable to leave under hostile control.

The humanitarian framing. Secretary of State Rubio’s clarification that the US is “not at war with Venezuela” but “targeting drug organizations” is the 2026 version of humanitarian intervention rhetoric. We are not conquering; we are liberating. We are not seizing resources; we are fighting criminals. The framing serves the same function as “preventing ethnic cleansing” in Kosovo or “protecting civilians” in Libya—providing a moral vocabulary for actions whose actual drivers lie elsewhere.

The dismissal of inconvenient democrats. Trump’s rejection of María Corina Machado is instructive. She “lacks domestic respect,” he said, indicating willingness to work with figures like Delcy Rodríguez instead. Engdahl would recognise this pattern: democracy promotion is the rhetoric, but compliant governance is the goal. Whoever can deliver access to PDVSA and stability for oil extraction may become acceptable, regardless of their democratic credentials or political history. Saakashvili in Georgia was useful until he wasn’t. Yushchenko in Ukraine was useful until he wasn’t. The criterion is not democracy but compliance.

The regional demonstration effect. Venezuela serves as a message to the hemisphere. The Rockefeller family, Engdahl documents, “regarded Latin America as a de facto private family sphere of influence at least since the 1940’s.” That sphere of influence had been challenged by the “pink tide” of left-leaning governments in the early 2000s—Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina. The Venezuela operation announces that such challenges will not be tolerated. Resource nationalism has consequences.

---

What Engdahl’s Framework Predicts

Based on the patterns Engdahl has documented across seven decades of US interventions, certain outcomes become probable.

Oil infrastructure will be the operational priority. Regardless of rhetoric about democratic transition or humanitarian concerns, securing PDVSA assets and restoring production capacity will drive actual decision-making. The Cheney energy report of 2001 was explicit that “foreign powers do not always have America’s interests at heart”—meaning that nationalist governments with ideas about their own development “might not share the agenda of ExxonMobil or ChevronTexaco.” Expect rapid moves to restructure PDVSA’s contracts, partnerships, and ownership arrangements in favour of Western majors.

Economic restructuring will follow military control. Engdahl documents how the International Monetary Fund and World Bank serve as instruments for opening conquered economies to Western capital. Any “reconstruction” of Venezuela will likely involve structural adjustment conditionalities: privatisation of state assets, removal of subsidies, liberalisation of trade and investment rules. The pattern from Russia in the 1990s—where US-backed “reformers” oversaw the looting of state assets by a handful of oligarchs connected to Western banks—provides a template.

The transition will be managed, not democratic. Engdahl’s assessment of color revolutions applies equally to military interventions: “true democracy was never the aim.” The transition will produce leaders acceptable to Washington and US oil interests, selected through processes that can be described as democratic while being substantively controlled. The criteria will be compliance with US economic and strategic interests, not genuine popular mandate.

Permanent military presence is probable. Engdahl quotes analyst Zoltan Grossman: “Establishment of new bases may in the long run be more critical to U.S. war planners than the wars themselves.” The US has sought military positioning in Venezuela’s neighbourhood for decades—bases in Colombia, presence in the Caribbean. A compliant Venezuelan government will likely host US military installations, completing the encirclement of the Caribbean basin and providing platforms for power projection throughout South America.

The precedent will be applied elsewhere. Every successful intervention makes the next one easier. Iran established that nationalist oil policies could trigger regime change. Panama established that drug charges could justify invasion. Libya established that humanitarian rhetoric could cover resource grabs. Venezuela establishes that overt military seizure of a government, in peacetime, for openly stated resource access, will be absorbed by the international community with nothing more than verbal protests. The next target—Bolivia? Mexico? Any nation with resources and insufficient compliance—now knows what is possible.

---

The Cognitive Dissonance

Engdahl titled one of his books Manifest Destiny: Democracy as Cognitive Dissonance. The phrase captures something essential.

Americans are taught that their country promotes democracy and human rights around the world. They are taught that military interventions, however regrettable, serve humanitarian purposes or defensive necessities. They are taught that the wars are unfortunate but the intentions are good.

Engdahl’s documentation makes this belief difficult to sustain. The pattern is too consistent. The correlation between resource wealth and intervention is too strong. The gap between stated justifications and subsequent actions is too wide.

Iran was not about communism. It was about oil.

Panama was not about drugs. It was about control.

Libya was not about humanitarianism. It was about oil.

Venezuela is not about narco-terrorism. It is about oil.

“In true Orwellian doublespeak,” Engdahl writes, “tyranny was Washington’s model for democracy, NGO tyranny. It remained to be seen how much longer a war-weary world population would accept that cognitive dissonance.”

The question for each of us is whether we will accept it. Whether we will allow the rhetoric of democracy and human rights and law enforcement to obscure what is being done, and why, and to whom.

Engdahl has spent five decades documenting the pattern. The documents are available. The history is clear. The template has been applied again and again.

Now it has been applied to Venezuela. The largest oil reserves on Earth are being transferred from sovereign national control to the American sphere. Dozens of Venezuelans are dead. A head of state has been seized from his own country and detained in a foreign prison. And the justification offered—drugs, terrorism, democracy—is the same justification offered every time.

The choice is whether to see it.

---

References

Books by F. William Engdahl:

• Engdahl, F. William. A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order. London: Pluto Press, 2004.

• Engdahl, F. William. Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order. Edition.engdahl, 2009.

• Engdahl, F. William. Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation. Montreal: Global Research, 2007.

• Engdahl, F. William. Manifest Destiny: Democracy as Cognitive Dissonance. Mine.Books, 2018.

• Engdahl, F. William. Myths, Lies and Oil Wars. Edition.engdahl, 2012.

• Engdahl, F. William. Gods of Money: Wall Street and the Death of the American Century. Edition.engdahl, 2010.

• Engdahl, F. William. Target: China – How Washington and Wall Street Plan to Cage the Asian Dragon. Progressive Press, 2014.

• Engdahl, F. William. The Lost Hegemon: Whom the Gods Would Destroy. Mine.Books, 2016.

Key Primary Sources Cited by Engdahl:

• “Defense Planning Guidance,” US Department of Defense, 1992 (leaked to New York Times).

• Cheney, Dick. Speech to the London Institute of Petroleum, 1999.

• Cheney, Dick. National Energy Policy Development Group Report, 2001.

• Weinstein, Allen. Interview in Washington Post, September 30, 1991.

• Declassified US State Department documents on Argentina (1976), Iran (1953), and Saudi oil policy (1985-1986).

Historical Events Documented:

• Iran coup (Operation Ajax), 1953

• Argentina military coup, 1976

• Panama invasion (Operation Just Cause), 1989

• Venezuela coup attempt, 2002

• Georgia “Rose Revolution,” 2003

• Ukraine “Orange Revolution,” 2004

• Libya intervention, 2011

• Ukraine Maidan coup, 2014

Organisations Discussed:

• National Endowment for Democracy (NED)

• International Republican Institute (IRI)

• National Democratic Institute (NDI)

• Freedom House

• Open Society Foundations

• USAID Office of Transitional Initiatives

• RAND Corporation

---

Support Independent Research

This work remains free because paid subscribers make it possible. If you find value here, consider joining them.

What paid subscribers get: Access to the Deep Dive Audio Library — 170+ in-depth discussions (30-50 min each) exploring the books behind these essays. New discussions added weekly. That’s 100+ hours of content for less than the price of a single audiobook.

[Upgrade to Paid – $5/month or $50/year]

Get in touch Essay ideas, stories, or expertise to share: unbekoming@outlook.com

Bitcoin: 3Q6BK8x8zjoPaXykQggzvoJxg5FiEbkb3U

Ethereum: 0x4CB0d39d8466a34609318FC1B003B745893788b3

New Biology Clinic

For those of you looking for practitioners who actually understand terrain medicine and the principles we explore here, I want to share something valuable. Dr. Tom Cowan—whose books and podcasts have shaped much of my own thinking about health—has created the New Biology Clinic, a virtual practice staffed by wellness specialists who operate from the same foundational understanding. This isn’t about symptom suppression or the conventional model. It’s about personalized guidance rooted in how living systems actually work. The clinic offers individual and family memberships that include not just private consults, but group sessions covering movement, nutrition, breathwork, biofield tuning, and more. Everything is virtual, making it accessible wherever you are. If you’ve been searching for practitioners who won’t look at you blankly when you mention structured water or the importance of the extracellular matrix, this is worth exploring. Use discount code “Unbekoming” to get $100 off the member activation fee. You can learn more and sign up at newbiologyclinic.com