3/19/26 Patrick Pillow on Washington’s Preferred Method of Regime Change

Summary

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Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews

Episode: Patrick Pillow on Washington’s Preferred Method of Regime Change

Date: March 28, 2026
Guest: Patrick Pillow (Libertarian Overwatch)
Host: Scott Horton

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into the anatomy of U.S.-backed “color revolutions” and regime-change operations, particularly during the Clinton and Bush years, with researcher and writer Patrick Pillow (aka Libertarian Overwatch). Scott and Patrick discuss the patterns, mechanisms, key actors, and media narratives behind the wave of regime changes from the late 1990s through the early 2000s, drawing on Patrick's extensive research series about these events. They also review the role of U.S. government agencies and NGOs, seminal uprisings in Eastern Europe and beyond, and how these tactics have evolved up to the present day.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Motivation & Research Methodology

• Patrick's Interest and Approach ([01:58]):
  • Patrick drew inspiration from Scott Horton's own writing and books like Provoked and was particularly intrigued by the recurring themes and mechanics across various color revolutions.
  • “...it seemed like for each revolution there seemed to be like a lot of characters involved, a lot of themes involved, and it seemed that it was almost like one big story.” — Patrick ([02:13])
  • Patrick's project focuses on pulling together narratives and on-the-ground evidence from domestic, international, and archival internet sources to tell a cohesive story for each case.

2. Defining "Color Revolutions"

• Scott asks for a definition ([03:52]):

  • Patrick highlights the serialized, almost formulaic nature of these movements, starting especially with Serbia in 2000 ("Bulldozer Revolution"), and how lessons from earlier events were applied in later ones.

• Anecdote on Changing Perceptions ([05:21]):

  • Patrick and Scott recall how antiwar critics initially debated whether such revolutions were organic vs. U.S.-backed, especially as Iraq War II overshadowed these European uprisings in the news.

3. Research Challenges and Digital Sources

• Using Digital Archives ([07:22]):

  • Patrick emphasizes how the internet (and internet archival tools) has been crucial in uncovering details about youth groups’ tactics, real-time campaign decisions, and changing logos (ex: Belarus’s “Jeans Revolution” and symbolic bison logo).
  • “[Y]ou're actually able to find on Internet archive the youth groups and figure out the time, what are they saying, you know, what are the movements that they're going to be doing next ...” — Patrick ([07:22])

• Open Societies and USAID's Overt Admissions ([09:18]):

  • Patrick finds reports where groups like Open Society Foundations and USAID openly brag about their involvement in critical infrastructure for regime change (e.g., TV stations in Georgia).

• The Contradictory Academic Narrative ([11:55]):

  • Scott discusses the abundance of U.S./European academic articles from journals (like the Journal of Democracy, linked to NED) that essentially lay out the playbook for these uprisings: “they're perfectly happy to put in a journal and tell you ... here's what we did, here's what we learned, here's how we can do better next time” ([12:08])

4. Notable Early Case Studies

• Montenegro, Armenia, Slovakia, Serbia ([14:06]):

  • Patrick singles out the Armenia case for outright voting fraud (“600% of the people voted this way”), and credits researcher Kit Clberg for helping uncover details about Montenegro.
  • Serbia (2000) stands as “the start of it all,” where U.S. financial/organizational influence is clearest.

• U.S. Involvement—Confirmed ([15:46]):

  • Scott: “And I'm pretty sure I do have a source or two in there affirming that, yes, CIA did help guide this whole thing, too. It wasn't just the NED doing.” ([15:46])

5. Cultural and Tactical Export: T-Shirts, Documentaries, and Youth Movements

• Patrick recounts a French documentary showing the IRI (International Republican Institute) office with a “tour t-shirt” listing the countries targeted for color revolutions ([16:49]):

  • “...the tour dates are Georgia, 2003, Ukraine, 2004, Russia, TBD, Belarus, TBD. And I was just watching that and just stunned.” ([17:10])

• Media & Pop Culture:

  • Reference to the documentary “Bringing Down a Dictator”—shown to activists in Kyrgyzstan as a case study ([17:52]), highlighting the cross-border training aspect.

6. U.S. Media’s Overt Coverage

• Wall Street Journal and New York Times Openly Describe Interventions ([18:19]):
  • Scott: “The Wall Street Journal says, yeah, we're fixing to overthrow Kistan, and here's how we're gonna do it. We're paying this guy and this guy, and they're running the printing press, and we picking up the bills for all these groups.” ([18:19])
  • Notably, the Wall Street Journal "brags" about American involvement, contradicting official denials.

7. Case Survey: Ukraine’s Orange Revolution & Others

• Ukraine 2004: “Political Carnival” ([19:33]):

  • Patrick: Massive concerts, tent cities, and coordinated youth movements (e.g., PORA) were signature elements.
  • “...they have these massive concerts. There's even a compilation disc... who were performing on stage at that time ... starting to see, like, the tent city and things like that...” — Patrick ([19:33])

• Belarus: Failed Attempts:

  • Scott and Patrick note how similar youth movements and tactics couldn't replicate Ukraine’s success in Belarus due to lack of local leadership and infrastructure.

8. Other International Cases

• Philippines 2001: Domestic Roots ([23:17]):

  • Overthrow of Joseph Estrada had some U.S. pressure but was largely local—a “genuine domestic uprising.”
  • “...that one is absolutely like domestic uprising and things like that. Mostly when it comes for, like, foreign influence and things like that, it's mostly the usual US Tricks as it was ... But it did seem like a very genuine domestic uprising ...” — Patrick ([23:26])

• Madagascar 2002: Violent and Chaotic ([25:10]):

  • “...almost like an apocalyptic kind of Mad Max style...” — Patrick ([25:22])
  • Lack of western media coverage makes such cases more difficult but rewarding to research (“like a detective”).

• Lebanon: Cedar Revolution ([29:49]):

  • Based on the aftermath of Rafiq Hariri’s assassination; Patrick utilized court testimony to piece together the background, including intriguing lines about warnings from British intelligence just before the bombing ([29:49]).
  • He remarks that the deep issues at the heart of the Cedar Revolution remain unresolved.

• Iran: Green Revolution ([26:33], [27:23]):

  • Scott notes how NED funding of opposition gets less attention as it occurred under Obama; the 2009 events fit the “president change” rather than full regime change pattern seen previously.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “[I]t just seems like the lessons that were learned in Serbia 2000 are still being applied in Belarus in 2006.” — Patrick ([02:29])

• “[W]hen the president does it, that means that it is not a liberty. We're gonna take out seven countries. They don't know what the they're doing. Negotiate now. End this war.” — Scott Horton, tongue-in-cheek on White House regime-change ambitions ([00:21])

• “Like, who do you think you're fooling with this stuff?” — Scott, on U.S. academics providing contradictory regime change origin stories ([12:49])

• “Serbia is the big one. I mean, it's kind of like the start of it all, as it were.” — Patrick ([15:54])

• (On the IRI tour t-shirt): “I couldn't believe what I was looking at. It was, it was crazy.” — Patrick ([17:19])

• "[W]e're fixing to overthrow Kistan, and here's how we're gonna do it ... The Wall Street Journal's like, nah, we did it." — Scott ([18:19]–[19:13])

• "Yeah, in the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon ... Hezbollah turned out twice as many a couple days later, and that was the end of that." — Scott ([26:33])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [02:13] – Patrick on his research approach and the ongoing narrative of color revolutions
• [05:21] – Reflection on shifting perceptions of U.S. involvement pre/post Iraq War II
• [07:22] – Use of internet archives to track youth groups & protest logistics
• [09:18] – Open admission of foreign funding/influence (Open Societies, USAID)
• [12:08] – Academic journals as regime change playbooks
• [14:06] – Case studies: the earliest color revolutions
• [15:46] – Confirmation of CIA/NED guidance in Serbia, 2000
• [16:49] – IRI offices' “tour t-shirt” as brazen evidence of coordination
• [18:19] – Media reporting openly on plans to engineer foreign uprisings
• [19:33] – Ukraine 2004: Political carnivals, concerts, and tent cities
• [23:26] – Philippines 2001: distinguishing local uprising from foreign-sponsored ones
• [29:49] – Lebanon’s Cedar Revolution: assassination, aftermath, use of court sources

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The Guest’s Objective

Patrick aims to present a nuanced, evidence-driven history of regime change outbreaks, highlighting both overt and subtle forms of foreign (mostly U.S.) support, and the evolving tactics across regions and years. He stresses the importance of cross-referencing local, Western, and archival sources, and seeks to fairly answer whether and how regime change was instigated in each case.

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Conclusion

This episode is a richly detailed exploration of the mechanics, media, and mythmaking around U.S.-backed regime changes from the late 1990s into the 2000s, drawing on original research, historical footnotes, and the lived experience of reporting at the time. Patrick Pillow’s deep dives, archived sources, and analogies (from tour t-shirts to Mad Max) illustrate the sometimes overt, sometimes shadowy nature of Washington’s preferred method of regime change.

Links:

• Libertarian Overwatch on Substack

For More:

• Check out the ongoing series at Libertarian Overwatch, and Scott Horton’s books for further context.

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Transcript

[A]

You ladies and gentlemen of the press have been less than honest according to the American people. What's going on in this country?

[B]

We're dealing with Hitler revisited. This is the Scott Horton Show. Libertarian foreign policy mostly.

[A]

When the president does it, that means that it is not a liberty. We're gonna take out seven countries. They don't know what the they're doing. Negotiate now. End this war. And now, here's your host, Scott Horton. All right, y', all. Introducing Patrick Pillow, AKA Libertarian Overwatch. Over on the sub stack here is his site and anatomy of a regime change. The latest here, I think it's the latest one. Yeah. IS regime change Kyrgyzstan 2005. But check this out. Here's the list. Here's my point. Look at this list, guys. He's done these great pieces on all of the color coded revolutions of the Bill Clinton and W. Bush years. And I don't know if he'll get as far as the Maidon, but I guess he must probably do that. Of course he tried to overthrow Belarus again in 2020, don't forget. But here, so check out 1997, Montenegro 98, Armenia 99, Slovakia 2000 Serbia 2001, Philippines 2002, Madagascar and Venezuela 2003 Georgia part 1 and 2, 2004, Ukraine 1 and 2, 2005, Lebanon. And now here he's got Kyrgyzstan. And what fun to read. What great work you've done here. And why don't we start with tell us what it is that got you interested in in this subject and made you decide to go back and review each of these color coded regime changes in this way.

[B]

Yeah, well, first of all, thank you for having me. I think one of the biggest things that got me into it is this book over here. I don't know if you've ever seen it before. I was reading this book here.

[A]

I know that guy that wrote that.

[B]

And so yeah, I was just. There are certain topics that I get really interested in. And when I was reading Provoked, I was really honing in on the Rose Revolution, really looking at the Orange Revolution and especially like how in depth it went. And it seemed like for each revolution there seemed to be like a lot of characters involved, a lot of themes involved, and it seemed that it was almost like one big story, which at this point, especially as I do more and more research as we go along, it just seems like the lessons that were learned in Serbia 2000 are still being applied in Belarus in 2006. And from there it's just been really interesting to find all the quotes from different sources from international ones, from domestic ones. What was the time saying? What was the Washington Post saying? You know, what were they saying in the German papers or the Ukrainian weekly and things like that? So it's taken a lot to get it all together into, like, one cohesive story. But it's been a really interesting project so far. And yes, I hope to bring it all the way up to modern day by the end of this project.

[A]

So that's great. Well, yeah, I mean, all these essays have just been fantastic. I'm learning a bunch from them. I kind of hate stuff like this because then I'm kicking myself going, oh, I don't even have a thing about that. Especially when it's something that I remember reading that, but I don't remember why I decided that I could do without that fact. When now I look at it, I'm like, oh, that should definitely be in there. Oh, anyway, in other words, you do. You're doing a great job on this stuff. And to me, it's endlessly fascinating. You know, of course, you know, we covered all this stuff in real [e-mail] and I'm real lucky I was working for just Raimondo at X Ray eyes on all this stuff at that time. But of course, the big doings was Iraq War two took all the attention away. And you might even say these were legitimate in comparison. But mostly the point being that they were overshadowed by Iraq War two. And only people who really cared about this stuff were zooming all the way in on what happened in the Rose Revolution and things like that. So. But all of it, of course, is so crucial. So I wanted to drop one more footnote here before we go on. I know you mentioned a lot about Mark McKinnon and his great book the New Cold War, and now that's Mac Kenan, not Mick Kenan, because Nick Kenan is a Republican strategist guy from D.C. and Mac Cannon is from the Toronto Daily Globe and Mail up there in Canada, Stan. And so different guys. And he did such great work in that book covering these things. And so I know that you gave him a lot of credit. And so I figured I. I never did interview him because I was just in too much of a hurry when I was writing Provoked. I was only really doing like one interview a week of Kyle Anzalone about Gaza or whatever and trying to keep my nose the grindstone, but I should have interviewed him. I'm sure there's really a lot there. But anyway, so I guess let me ask you this, Patrick. Like how would you characterize the thing overall? What is a color coded revolution or, or maybe what are the color coded revolutions and what's the point?

[B]

Yeah, I would say it's funny going back to, to Justin mentioning his older articles on anti war. I was actually looking at his going all the way to the start going to like the year 2000 and when the first, I would consider the first big one to be Serbia in 2000 with the bulldozer revolution. And it's really funny kind of comparing it where in 2000 Justin is talking a lot about how someone else was saying oh this is all Ned, this is CIA. And Justin goes wait a second. And then to look at his next article where he's talking about some of it in 2006 and it was I believe called the color revolutions turned to black. And just what you mentioned right in between there there's this big event called Iraq War two which would definitely lead you to have a much different perception on some of these revolutions and things like that.

[A]

He got in a lot of trouble with, you know, because he was so good on the Kosovo war of course, but he got in a lot of trouble with the anti war party when it came to the Bulldozer revolution because he actually supported Kostanitsa, I believe is the guy who was the Ned's chosen compromise candidate. But Justin was just so fed up with Milosevic at that point. He was saying this is overall what would be better for the country is to have this more free market leaning guy in. And then a lot of people were really pissed because they were like no Justin, this is the American sock puppet and whatever. So I'm not sure if he ever admitted that he made a bad call on that one or not. But he certainly always tried to make up for in 03 and 04 and 05, that's for sure. But

[B]

yeah, absolutely. And I mean I think the biggest thing with these is I like to try to take it on where I'm kind of trying to prove a case essentially where I don't want to overemphasize any one particular area. I just kind of like to look at from a whole collection of sources. In fact, right now I've been working on the Bell Rus one and we're getting a lot of different information and still trying to put that timeline bell

[A]

roost one there are three or bell

[B]

in 2006, I should say five.

[A]

Bellarus.

[B]

Yes, yes.

[A]

Okay, there you go.

[B]

We're looking at that one, at the, the genes revolution and things like that. And I will Say, one of the biggest things that I've come to discover as well is just how crucial the Internet has played in a lot of these revolutions. So especially with Kyrgyzstan. Part two will be coming for Kyrgyzstan next Wednesday. But you're actually able to find on Internet archive the youth groups and figure out the time, what are they saying, you know, what are the movements that they're going to be doing next, you know, what's our next plan? And especially in Belarus with the jeans revolution, they're really talking it up. In fact, it goes all the way back to 2001. And you can even see their logo change as it goes on. Initially, their logo with the bison, same color scheme as OTPOR in Serbia. And then right around September of 2005, right before the jeans revolution happens, you can see it change to the bison and the jeans logo and things like that. So I think it's been really interesting using sources like that. In fact, today I found one that was called the March Diaries and it's someone who was on the ground at the time and ended up getting arrested during the jeans revolution and being able to kind of talk about how the protests as they started on Sunday was a whole big crowd. But then as it went on, especially with the cold and you know how some of it was cracking down and things like that. By later in the week it was hardly anyone there. And in fact, Dan McAdams has a really great article on Anti War.com about it. I think he was on there on Wednesday when the revolution started on Sunday. So as the week went on, just seeing it go down and down, things like that. But then another really important source is just going to the NED website, going to the Open Societies foundation website. When I was looking at Georgia, their television was Rostavi 2. And on the Open Societies foundation website they even say in their year end review, yes, Open Societies and USAID played a very crucial part in Raavi 2, which was then responsible for the exit polls which led to a lot of the revolution in Georgia and things like that. So it's really been interesting just taking all the different sources and things like that. And in fact, for the Bellarus one that we were just looking at, you saw the osce, and then you also have the cis, the different kind of ones that are compiling the election information and it's just so drastic. On one side you're hearing they're free and they're fair, and then on the other side, nope, there is all this fraud and things like that. So trying to make sense of it all too you know, trying to take my biases aside and figure out like, hey, what's the real story here? And when I'm working on them, I try to make sure that I can answer it myself where I'm able to say, have I sufficiently answered it to myself? Like, if I were reading this, would I be like, hey, what, what's the answer here? So I really, I don't complete it until I'm like, okay, I think I've answered what I need to know for each one of these, you know.

[A]

Yeah. Hey guys, Scott here for Mundo's Artisan Coffees. It's the Scott Horton Show Flavored Coffee breakfast blend. It's part Ethiopian, part Sumatra. It's really good. All you do is go to Scott Horton.org Coffee and they'll forward you on there to Moondo's Artisan Coffees. Get it? They hate Starbucks because they represent the war party, of course. And so they're moon dose and they support peace. And guess what? Scott Horton Show Coffee is the number one best selling coffee at Mundo's Artisan Coffees right now. Just go again to Scott Horton.org coffee. Well, I feel like you're picking up some of my slack where I might have delved into some of these things a little bit deeper. But yeah, I was right up about 1400 pages at that time, so I had to quit somewhere. But you know, one thing that I remember really kind of being maybe even overwhelmed by was like the number of journal articles about this and all the fancy pants journals from all kinds of academics across Europe and the United States. I mean there's the Journal of Democracy which is I guess the NED directly or one of their front groups. But then there are just so many journal articles and once you pay your dues to get the JSTOR membership and a couple those others that I went ahead and got, I was researching for Provoke and it's just endless how many, you know, like I had a whatever amount of space to fill any more in here about what happened here. But there's so much where, you know, it's like, here's what we did, here's what we learned, here's how we can do better next time in the most like overt way. Like that would just be an internal memo at regime change headquarters which they're perfectly happy to put in a journal and tell you. I think I have a sort of anecdote in the book about, about that kook McFall where he has one article where he says it was totally these groups that did it. Then he has another article and he says, but that didn't have anything to do with us. Totally organic. And he has another article where it's like all these groups are backed by us. And then in the third article, he's like, okay, we backed these groups to do the thing. Yeah, come on, man. Like, who do you think you're fooling with this stuff? It's something very close to that. Anyway, it's in the book. But anyway, I should ask you a question. So, you know, one of the. One thing is. And I. I do feel bad about this, but it was a matter of time and. And space constraint was in my introduction to the color revolutions in there. I say, yeah, so they got away with doing this in Albania and in Slovakia. And then I forgot which one. Maybe not Albania, Slovakia and one or two others before I really get. The first one I really cover is the Bulldozer Revolution. I guess I gotta mention there's one in Croatia where they were in the middle of overthrowing Tudman, who was Bill Clinton's buddy, who's now stabbing in the back and overthrowing. But then he died anyway, so it kind of, you know, made no difference there. There was that kind of thing. And so can you take us? Oh, I think Montenegro was one of the first ones. And this is where I asked Dan McAdams. I was like, man, I really need to go back and get. And I actually did find, if I remember right, if you. If people go to Scott Horton.org provoked SL notes, that's where I have the links to the footnotes there. And so you can follow along from the footnotes in the book and find the hot links to the things. And he was able to. He and. And some others. I was able to find quite of information. Quite a bit of information about some of those earlier ones that I try to just throw in the footnotes, even though I didn't have time to get too deep into them myself. But can you tell us a little bit about some of your insights into some of the earlier color revolutions there in the. In other words, before W. Bush got that.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, those ones, I would say the 97, 98 and 99 ones, those are where I was kind of. Of getting my. My feet in the water, as it were. So I think the biggest one, Armenia, is the one that's always kind of stuck out to me, where at the end it seemed like they were actually able to make friends with each other, you know, the two opposing parties. And then, as in a lot of these violence kind of interrupted it all. But in that one, it was one of the most blatant examples of some of that. Some of the fraud. I think in one district, it was like 600% of the people voted this way. And so I'm like, okay, all right. But the one thing I will say is, yeah, reaching out to people has been really helpful to figure out some more about this. And, in fact, I have been talking to Kit Clberg, and he has been awesome on it. He's been able to give me great information about Montenegro and stuff like that. And he's been, like, a really big supporter of a lot of my stuff, which has been really awesome because he. Yeah, he. He's fantastic on this stuff, and he also has a lot of that. Those documents there. I'm like, I don't know where you find this stuff, you know, and is able to really give some really good insight into that. So with Montenegro, I would say he is definitely. Definitely got the ball on that one. But, yeah, I would say Serbia is the. I would say is the biggest one. Where we're looking. I think the biggest ones that come to my mind is right around, you know, Serbia is right around the end of Clinton. And it's so funny looking at the Washington Post, where there is kind of what you talked about earlier where he's like, CIA didn't do this, but if they did, I mean, I wouldn't have a problem with it, you know, so. And I think the. The total that they said there was between, like, USAID and the NDI and all of them, it ended up being $41 million that was spent towards this election.

[A]

And I'm pretty sure I do have a source or two in there affirming that, yes, CIA did help guide this whole thing, too. It wasn't just the Ned doing.

[B]

Yes, yes. Yeah. And it's just. That's definitely. I would say that's the biggest one where when I've put it all together and I'm even planning on in the future kind of ranking them from the 2000s to 2010. Where does foreign influence seem to have the most influence in these elections? I would say Serbia is the big one. I mean, it's kind of like the start of it all, as it were. It's when you start seeing Mr. Helvey, when you start seeing Gene Sharp, when you start seeing the. The bringing down a dictator. And, in fact, I'm gonna see if I can find this real quick, because I did have this on my laptop here, but there's this documentary I don't know if you've ever seen it, it's called USA the Conquest of the east. And it's this French documentary. And in it, I did have to use Google Translate as I'm watching it, because I don't speak French, but I'm watching it. And they are in the IRI offices and it is one of the.

[A]

No, that's the, the International Republican Institute tied at the hip with the Ned and the Soros groups there. Go ahead.

[B]

Yes. And with John McCain as well, being the chair on IRI. And in this documentary, they are in there with a leader from Belarus and there is a T shirt on the wall. And you know how when an artist comes to us, they're doing like a tour, for example, right? Like, oh, I was in Kansas this time. I was in New York this day. They have this shirt that's in the IRI offices and the tour dates are Georgia, 2003, Ukraine, 2004, Russia, TBD, Belarus, TBD. And I was just watching that and just stunned. I, I couldn't believe what I was looking at. It was, it was crazy. And I'm not saying that John McCain went in there and printed out the shirt and put it there, but I am saying that, you know, someone who was working for the IRI did put that up and said, hey, and the guy from Belarus is just commenting on it like, yep, there we go. This is what the T shirt says over there. So, yeah, that documentary has been really, really fascinating to look at.

[A]

Yeah, I've never seen that.

[B]

Yeah, I'll send it your way.

[A]

I've seen the Martin Sheen one, which is pretty crazy itself. You know, that Bringing down a dictator. You mentioned it.

[B]

Yes. And in fact, in the, the French documentary, that's where I saw in Kyrgyzstan, they're all sitting around a laptop and they're watching the Bringing down a dictator and they're all commenting on it and things like that. So, yeah, this documentary is. It's really fascinating stuff. They also have some people from different NGOs and Kyrgyzstan talking and things like that. Yeah, very, very fascinating. And it's going to be kind of the spoiler, but it's going to be the end of my part two of, like the transition from Kyrgyzstan into Belarus for the next week.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Kistan was one where, if I remember right, I, I used to have this wrong that it was just like five days apart and whatever. And then I triple checked and I was wrong about that. But same damn difference anyway, where the Wall Street Journal says, yeah, we're fixing to overthrow Kistan, and here's how we're gonna do it. We're paying this guy and this guy, and they're running the printing press, and we picking up the bills for all these groups. And. Yeah, yeah, then they have. I forget where the five days come from. Maybe it's five days later, the coup happens, and then a couple weeks after that, the New York Times runs a piece that says, here's how we did it.

[B]

This is the Wall Street Journal going,

[A]

here's how we're about to do it. And the New York Times going, here's how we did it. And there you go. And in fact, I think it was the Journal. I forget which one. I think it was Kyrgyzstan, where the Journal headline was Putin not too pleased about coup in Kyrgyzstan or whatever, you know, or like, American bats color coup there. Oh, no, that was Georgia, I guess. Anyway, whatever. They're sitting there, oh, no, it's a popular uprising and a popular revolution. The Wall Street Journal's like, nah, we did it.

[B]

I like the quote from Ukraine in 2004. I think I saw it somewhere where, you know, they're going on to their third round of voting, and Putin's like, what, are we gonna do this 25 more times? Or what? You know, what's this gonna look like at the end of this thing? You know, so. But yeah, that. That's Ukraine in 2004 is a really, really interesting one, especially considering Yanukovych is so involved in 2014 as well. But just, you know, looking at. And it's funny because I do remember you said it was kind of like a carnival, and some guy that you're talking to is like, no, it's not a carnival. What are you talking about? I go into the Ukrainian weekly and I see a political carnival. So exactly as you mentioned. And, yeah, I mean, they have these massive concerts. There's even a compilation disc where they have of all the people who were performing on stage at that time and things like that. And of course, that's like, we're really starting to see, like, the tent city and things like that, which continues on. They're also. They tried it in Belarus, but it just did not seem like all the gears are working together. The youth groups could not bring it together in the way that pora did in 2004 or Camaro in 2003. They didn't really have those figures and things like that that were able to kind of make it another revolution. But, yeah, that's been really interesting.

[A]

All right, guys. Well, if you're like me and pretty much Everybody else, you use Amazon.com all the time because what are you gonna do? They got prime, they bring this stuff right to your door and all that. So that's fine. But what you do is make sure and stop by Scott Horton.org and click the Amazon link in the right hand margin there. Get yourself a bug assault shotgun, salt shotgun for destroying flies trespassing on your property. And then also whatever you get from Amazon and the Scott Horton show will get a kickback from Amazon's end of the sale, which is very nice. Yeah, I'm not sure. I'm trying to remember that. And I may have just been kind of rereading for copy mistakes or whatever and finally occurred to me that this footnote from Voice of America where the reporter describes Soros bringing in trucks full of roses for the rose revolution and all this money and everything, that, that name, that, that must be Tucker Carlson's father. There it is. Richard Carlson is the one, which obviously he was some kind of CIA guy and. But in that case, he's the one ratting on the rest of his friends for what they're doing and putting the whole story in Voice of America. And it doesn't seem like he's bragging. It really does seem like he's exposing them, you know what I mean? Like, oh, get this guy with George Soros brought all the damn roses and that kind of thing. So when I met Tucker, that was like one of the first things I told him, hey, your dad is a footnote in my book. Talking about the overthrow the government of Georgia in 2003. And then like, so we hit it off pretty easy after that. But yeah, I. I guess I don't. I'm curious as to like, what was behind that because, you know, obviously the guy was a wheeler dealer. He just decided maybe there's like a faction fight in there between the more Democrat leaning types and others or something. I don't know.

[B]

Yeah. Was that the. Was it for when he was with the FDD or was it. It was maybe hosted on the FTD's website, but it was from V. Oh.

[A]

Oh, I don't think it was from the fdd. I guess I'd have to go back and look. I. I think it was just reporting for Voice of America.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

You know, geez. Well, I guess I could find that. Good night. As long as I'm here. So. Okay, tell me. Here's one that I wish I knew more about. The Philippines in 2001. You talk about that?

[B]

Yeah, absolutely. And I think with that one, this

[A]

Is, oh, wait, what the hell was I about to Google?

[B]

I just forgot about Richard Carlson.

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah, go ahead.

[B]

Sorry, sir. Yeah, no, The Philippines in 2001 was a really interesting one where it's one of those ones where it kind of comes full circle in the end, where you may have thought that it was bad at the start, but essentially at the end, same kind of thing still happens. So you have Joseph Estrada, who is the president at the time, and essentially there's like a lot of corruption. If you're looking at the stock market, it's like the companies that his buddy owns is going way off the charts, while the regular stock market is like staying at an even level or even going down a little bit. So they have a vote and they voted 11 to 10 to keep those records to the side and to not expose them. And so essentially this one, they did have a popular revolution in 1986. And so they use yellow as like the symbol and things like that. And so it's kind of a continuing of it. It's the EDSA2 movement. And so eventually he gets overthrown. And like many of these, it goes down to where like the military is defecting as well as a lot of the media is not on the side anymore. And so eventually they put in someone named Royo and they even, I want to say it was the generals, I believe, that were talking to her, and she was the vice president at the time, and they told her, you have no choice. This is kind of what's going to be happening. And then it was just a full cycle, though by the time Arroyo a few years later, same kind of things, same kind of corruption. They even had like a Time magazine article about the Philippines election, I believe it was in 2004. And in fact, I think she even ended up in a mental hospital for a little bit as well, too. But that one is one where I think that one is absolutely like domestic uprising and things like that. Mostly when it comes for, like, foreign influence and things like that, it's mostly the usual US Tricks as it was. You know, hey, we're not going to give you that much money for military this year unless, you know. But it did seem like a very genuine domestic uprising and things like that. But yeah, that's a really interesting one that I've been able to uncover and talk about a little bit some of the years, I would say 2001, and then also 2002 with Madagascar, some of those ones is a little bit harder to find the information about where, as we've talked about with Georgia and Ukraine, it's just so easy to find some of these sources. But those ones, you've had to kind of go out your box a little bit to find some of those ones. And where 2001 was very peaceful at the Philippines, 2002, it was almost like an apocalyptic kind of Mad Max style where there are these different factions and things like that and, like, very, very violent uprisings and things like that between a guy who was a former yogurt salesman. So those ones have been very interesting to kind of research, and it's almost nice to have the ones where there's not as much about it. It becomes a little bit of a challenge to find those resources and things like that. So especially once I get past Belarus and things like that, when I start getting into the later. Outside of the Green revolution in Iran, of course. But, you know, there's some of those years where it's like, oh, I'm gonna have to stretch it a little bit, but I'm gonna try to figure out the case as best I can. You know, I'm like a detective over here trying to figure out what happened.

[A]

Yeah. You know, in the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, I remember being surprised that they were able to turn out that many people. And then, of course, Hezbollah turned out twice as many a couple days later, and that was the end of that. But they were able to organize a lot of different factions to come together there. And. And then, you know, the Green revolution in Iran doesn't get as much attention because it was Obama years, so it gets kind of separated out from the Bush ones. But there was a post by Kenneth Timmerman at Newsmax talking about how, yeah, the National Endowment for Democracy has been backing all these groups who are supporting Moavi in this thing. So that wasn't, you know, like. Well, again, just like with most of these, it's not a full regime change. It's just president change or prime minister change. Reject the results of the election and demand that your guy win kind of a thing. So. But in which, of course, that one failed. And that might have been a clue for this war. Right. Like, remember when the liberals of Tehran tried to help that one guy win that one time, and then the people of the country made it known that they were all religious conservatives and wouldn't stand for it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, which, by the way, is funny, that Richard Carlson, footnote, is at the Washington examiner, which means it's a reprint. It's got to be a reprint from the Weekly Standard. But then I'm wondering If that Weekly Standard piece is a reprint, because I remembered it being a Voice of America piece, but I guess I could just have that wrong. But, you know, by the way, if anybody ever wants to go persecute somebody from the Weekly Standard that you hate and you can't find their stuff because the website's gone. The entire archive is there at the Washington Examiner. They have reprinted all of the Weekly stand, I believe all of the Weekly Standard is there. Certainly some of the most incriminating stuff is still. So anyway, I have archive PH jumping over the paywall for me. Here we go. Richard Carlson, Georgia on his mind. This is his being George Soros here.

[B]

And then

[A]

you know what it does not say. It does not say who he wrote this for originally. Maybe he did just write it for the Weekly Standard. Well, let me see. Control F Roses here. What does he have to think?

[B]

I think in my research, I do remember at the bottom it was, yeah,

[A]

this is the article where he talks about he bust in the. The Roses to do the thing, trucked in from out of the country and all of that. So this is the same article. I could have swore it was in the Voice of America. Well, that's funny. The fact that it's in the Weekly Standard, I guess, is an extra little punchline there. Anyway, let's go back to your great work instead of this. Yes, you got so many good ones on this list. Oh, you do have a Lebanon one. I'm sorry, I have not read this one yet. So, yeah, take us back through this. This was all the aftermath of the assassination of Rafa career. Right. So tell us.

[B]

Yeah, so I mean, this one, this is another one started off by like, obviously a case of violence and things like that. And. And this one, actually one of the primary kind of sources I've been using for a lot of the information is like court testimony and things like that, both for his assassination and also kind of the lead up to it. So they were talking about these different meetings that were happening right before the assassination actually ended up happening. They ended up meeting, I believe, three times at like a hotel. And so he would kind of send his envoys or people around him to go and talk to him. And you could see that he was starting to shift towards the opposition, as right around the time that he ended up getting killed in a car bomb. And it was three separate meetings. And by the second or third one, they were sending like more influential guys in his circle, like, hey, yeah, I'm going to be joining the opposition here pretty soon. And there's one kind of throwaway line in the court document that I thought was really, really interesting. And I hope to dig more into this at some point. But they even mentioned, hey, I heard from British intelligence, like, we need to be careful. And this is the day before the bombing happened, which I found to be super, super interesting. And then I started to dive into kind of like, who did it as well, too, because at this time, we don't have, like, a definitive case of who did it. At the time, there was this guy whose name was, I believe, Abu Adas, who they said had filmed something like Al Jazeera and things like that. And it turns out in this court document that I was looking at, they were talking about, and this was very recent, this might have been 2022, 2023, but they were talking about how all the things that they accused him of, it was things like, oh, he drove to the bombing site. Well, he doesn't have a driver's license, and things like that, or he had all this stuff on his laptop. And they said that could have very easily been planted and things like that. So he did end up arresting a few. And they. I want to say there are four that got arrested, and then one who actually ended up getting charged with other people kind of got sent away and things like that. So that was really interesting diving into that, too, because at the time, this Abu Adas story was kind of everywhere. It was apparently on Al Jazeera and things like that. And I tried for hours to find this video of the Al Jazeera piece, but I was unable to find that. And it looks like it's just gone into the ether at this point. But, yeah, it's been a very interesting story. And kind of like what you talked about, I mean, these were massive, massive crowds in Lebanon. And the crazy part about it is kind of when I get to the aftermath is I say, like, hey, this. This is still kind of happen. You know, none of this really got resolved. You know, a lot of what they were fighting for is we're still seeing the consequences and things that are happening in Lebanon right now, you know, and kind of in that case, too, we were seeing how important independent media and things were. A lot of journalists were being assassinated. Some of them were also killing car bombs, just like Hariri. So that's been a one where it was just the scale of it was very impressive, like you said, considering everything that was going around at the time.

[A]

Yeah, well, the Israelis in the war party here were quick to blame Hezbollah and Assad for it, but I know Justin Raimondo wrote about this. I'm pretty sure Gareth Porter as well showed that it was much more likely bin Ladenites who did it. And there was a dispute over, you know, the method of the bombing, whether it was a truck or whether it was a bomb hidden under the road or this or that. I Forget it's been 20 years, but that's pretty good for 20 years. But yeah, man, I'm sorry, I'm out of time. I have got to, I've got to run because I got a show to do in a minute and I gotta eat where I'm going die. So we're gonna have to cut this short. But that's good because that's just giving them just enough to know that they got to go and subscribe to Libertarian Overwatch on substack libertarian overwatch substack.com and catch up and read up on all of the colorcoded revolutions there. Thank you very much for coming on the show, Patrick. Appreciate it.

[B]

Of course. Thank you so much.

[A]

Scott the Scott Horton show is brought to you by the Scott Horton Academy of Foreign Policy and Freedom, Robertson Roberts Brokerage, Inc. Mundo's Artisan Coffee, Tom Woods, Liberty Classroom and APS Radio News. Subscribe in all the usual places and check out my books, Fool's Errand, Enough Already. And my latest, Provoked, How Washington Started the New Cold War With Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine. Find all of the [e-mail] and I'm serializing the audiobook of Provoked at scott hortonshow.com and patreon.com Scott Hortonshow Bumpers by Josh Langford Music, intro and outro videos by Dissident Media. Audio mastering by Podsworth Media. See y' all next time.