Bolivian coup...Another notch on Uncle Sam's regime change gun?

The ouster of Bolivia's first indigenous president Evo Morales November 10 by high ranking members of his command wasn't even called a coup by US media. The Economist pondered "Was there a coup in Bolivia?" Foreign Policy retorted "Coup isn't the right word". But coup is was and audio recordings released by independent Costa Rican publication El Periodico purports coup plotters mentioning support from US Senators Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Bob Menendez, all long term proponents of regime change in Latin America.

It may take awhile to sort out possible US involvement. Uncle Sam knocked off Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddegh in 1953 but didn't acknowledge it till 2009 after 56 years. It only took 45 years to acknowledge our coup that ousted Guatemalan leader Jacobo Arbenz in 1954. President Clinton actually apologized for that coup. Poor Mosaddegh ran afoul of Big Oil as in British Petroleum; Arbenz irritated Big Fruit as in United Fruit Company. As President Coolidge famously said, "The business of America is business".

It Bolivia was America's latest coup victim in Latin American it likely won't be the last. We're still trying to knock off Nicholas Maduro in Venezuela, Danny Ortega in Nicaragua and after 60 years, still lusting to topple the hated Castro - Diaz Canel regime in Cuba.

In his first Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933, FDR announced a Good Neighbor Policy for Latin America, seeking to turn the page on decades of US intervention there. Eighty-six years later Uncle Sam is still the neighbor from Hell.