Hugo Chávez lays out US-backed coups in 2009 interview

The possibility of a war is there, then?

But don't you see? Don't you see the threat that is for us? The empire of the United States?

Why do you think the United States wants to attack Venezuela?

Well, there is the recent history. I'm going to tell you the most important cause. Here, right here, is the largest oil reserve on this planet. Here in Venezuela we have oil for more than 100 years. The United States is running out of oil. The main reason that the United States wants to put here a government subordinated to it, to the empire, as they had for a long time, is Venezuelan oil.

I want to ask you a question without bothering you. Are you paranoid about the United States? the you were not born. Just because he wanted to make an agrarian reform. He was invaded by the United States and he was overthrown. You could ask that question to Joao Goulart, the Brazilian. He was overthrown by the United States. You could ask that question to Salvador Allende, the president martyr. You could ask that question to Juan Bosch, the Dominican president overthrown by the invasion of the United States. You could ask that question to my General Omar Torrijos, who was murdered by the CIA.

And that's it. Many more. It's not paranoid. It's the truth. I am fulfilling a responsibility as head of state. The paranoid ones are different. Those on the far right, the crazy ones who think the world won't change, the bourgeoisie of this continent, the piti-yankis who want to keep dominating these people and won't be able to do it. Only after September 11, the United States began to make the list of terrorists.

Well, and they have me on that list too. The United States, the US government, launched an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, an atomic bomb. The United States, the US government, launched an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, an atomic bomb. And another on Nagasaki. That's terrorism.