Federal investigators say they have uncovered the DNA of a 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.

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.

  • NeuronautML@lemmy.ml
    313·
    1 month 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 she/her@lemmy.ml
      251·
      1 month 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
      151·
      1 month ago

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

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

      • undergroundoverground@lemmy.world
        51·
        1 month 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
          11·
          1 month 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.