The New York Times’ Long History of Backing US Coups

The New York Times is pushing for regime change in Venezuela and supported a failed coup attempt this summer against President Maduro, who it calls a dictator who won a “tainted election.” Of course, the Times celebrated the short-lived 2002 U.S.-backed coup against Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and has continued to call for another ever since.

In fact, “the Paper of Record” has supported virtually every U.S.-backed coup since 1945 and the end of World War Two. In 1953, it lauded a CIA-engineered plot against Mohammed Mossadegh, the democratically-elected prime minister of Iran. The coup against Mossadegh brought to power the shah, a U.S.-sponsored dictator who would rule the country until the 1979 Islamic Revolution removed him from power.

Discussing Mossadegh’s ouster, the Times wrote:

Underdeveloped countries with rich resources now have an object lesson in the cost that must be paid by one of their number which goes berserk with fanatical nationalism.”

Like Mossadegh, Brazilian President Joao Goulart was far from a communist; the center-left reformer who ruled between 1961 and 1964 modeled himself after John F. Kennedy. He was overthrown in a U.S.-supported military coup d’état that brought about over twenty years of fascist dictatorship that saw tens of thousands of people arrested and tortured.

Two days after the event, the Times’ editorial board announced, “We do not lament the passing of a leader who had proved so incompetent and so irresponsible.” As with Bolivia, it refused to use the word “coup,” instead claiming that Goulart, who “had almost no supporters,” was deposed in “another peaceful revolution.”

More recently, the Times claimed that the 2019 coup against Bolivia’s Evo Morales was no coup at all. Instead, they claimed, Morales had merely “resigned.”

Why does the Times continually support U.S.-backed coups around the world? Because it functions as an arm of the U.S. state. Leaked emails show that Times editors collude with the CIA and even send their articles to national security officials for editing and approval before publication.

The bottom line is this: wherever the U.S. empire goes, the “Old Grey Lady” will go with it, supporting it every step of the way.

For a full investigation into the paper’s history of supporting coups, click here.

Alan MacLeod is Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent, as well as a number of academic articles. He has also contributed to FAIR.org, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, and Common Dreams.

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