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DNA on weapons implicates ex-U.S. Green Beret in attempted Venezuelan coup, federal officials say (apnews.com)

submitted 3 months ago by Linkerbaan@lemmy.world to c/worldnews@lemmy.ml

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Federal investigators say they found the DNA of a decorated former U.S. Green Beret on some of the 60 automatic weapons he allegedly smuggled from Florida to South America as part of a failed 2020 coup attempt against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

The plot, exposed by The Associated Press two days before the incursion, was carried out by a ragtag group of Venezuelan army deserters whom Goudreau allegedly helped arm and train in neighboring Colombia. Goudreau later claimed responsibility for the putsch, but said he was acting in concert with the Venezuelan opposition to protect democracy. He also said he was in touch with then-President Donald Trump’s administration, which made no secret of its desire to see Maduro gone, even though there’s no evidence U.S. officials blessed the invasion.

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[-] NeuronautML@lemmy.ml 29 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

So it's 2020 and the US is still using special forces to carry out coups and arming rebel militias around the world, often to mediocre results and incredibly hard consequences, such as runaway rebel militias and an absolute mistrust of the US as a partner.

Yeah good job US. It would be worrying if the CIA & co were not so famously demonstratedly laughably incompetent. Stop orchestrating coups and arming militias. It will never work out the way you expect. It's so ridiculous. One would think that after some 50 years of failure in the middle east and south america a country would learn what not to do, but here we are. I guess some countries take a little while more to learn.

[-] queermunist@lemmy.ml 26 points 3 months ago

Even in failure the US has still succeeded, every country in the Global South has seen what happens when you try to do something like land reform or expand the welfare state or nationalize the country's resources. It acts as a deterrent to countries daring to think they can develop themselves and not serve the US as sources of cheap resource extraction and highly exploitable labor.

[-] umbrella@lemmy.ml 14 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

not failure. the chaos and destruction is a desireable outcome.

as long as we don't get to be free.

[-] undergroundoverground@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago

100%. People only think them failures or the CIA as incompetent as they presume the CIAs illegal actions, in those instances, to have been done in good faith, despite the contradiction.

As always, the intended outcome was access to that particular country's resources, for a very small group of wildly wealthy people, at regime-change prices.

When it comes to that, the CIA are amazing at what they do.

[-] NeuronautML@lemmy.ml -1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

But that's a failure in and of itself. A prosperous country produces more, therefore has more goods and services to trade, therefore presents itself as a source for wealth for everyone involved than an ailing country.

This is mere short sightedness. A country that's destabilized like this requires foreign help, is often sanctioned, its people will eventually seek asilum elsewhere and it produces very little. If the point is to generate wealth, this is the opposite of what should be done.

[-] eldavi@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 months ago

If the point is to generate wealth, this is the opposite of what should be done.

the point is to make the american hegemony look good and this helps; especially when cia et. al. fucks it up because people will see that's the point; it's a a bit like russian defenestration: everyone knows it's them so it's better that they make it obvious for the world to see.

[-] undergroundoverground@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

I don't disagree with anything you're saying. However, I think the reason it's not sitting right with you is your assumption of good faith on their part.

What if they never cared if the country is more profitable generally and they just wanted to rip them off as much as possible before they realise what's going on?

To me, their actions make far more sense if I presume that was what they really intended to do. More so, any assumption of good faith, as you point out, makes their behaviour seem, at best, bizzare.

[-] NeuronautML@lemmy.ml 0 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

So the point is not wealth but spite ? You don't have to act in good faith to cooperate with others. Like i said, in trade, a prosperous peer is worth more and generates more wealth than an ailing one.

This is not an argument on good faith, it's self interest and selfishness. It's right there on game theory and pretty much the entire course of biological history and evolution. One might profit from destroying and seizing the resources of a peer, but in most cases that profit is inferior to quid pro quo cooperation.

To me this is just acting deranged and nonsensical. Just being belligerent for the sake of cruelty and destruction. It's more believable to me that its motivations are about projection of power and hegemony like other commenters have pointed out.

[-] undergroundoverground@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

I don't think I explained it very well.

They dont look to own the country when they overthrow it. Thats old school colonialism. Its expensive to maintain and people will dislike you for it. Neo colonialism has them pay for their colonisation from the start.

It'll be for access to specific resources. Say they had, oh I dunno, oil. You install a puppet government thats 100% dependent on you, who knows they'll be killed if they lost US backing, and you force them sell you their oil fields for a fraction of their worth.

Then, any revolution or even democratic vote that tries to take them back, despite how wrong and unlawfully they were obtained, would be seen as breaking international law and have them cut off from the rest of the world. Cuba was and still is meant as a warning to the rest of the Americas.

You don't need the rest of the country to be prosperous for that. In fact, that would just push up the labour costs.