BAY OF PIGS 2.0
How Much Did the Trump Administration Know About the Failed Venezuela Coup
Attempt?
US regime change operations have been outsourced to semi-private companies and
NGOs for decades, giving the government a paper-thin veneer of plausible
deniability.
by Alan Macleod
May 08th, 2020
By Alan Macleod
The government of Venezuela is claiming victory after a coup attempt led by a
group of mercenaries led by ex-Green Berets failed spectacularly Sunday, as the
highly trained group’s incursion failed to even make it to the beach,
overpowered by local fishermen’s collectives. Eight of the party were killed,
and 23 more are in custody, including two Americans. Now, as the dust settles,
recriminations are beginning at home.
Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy described the fiasco as a “botched Bay of Pigs
like paramilitary operation.” “Now, [Senators] Tim Kaine, Tom Udall and I are
asking the administration a simple question: What did they know, and if they
didn’t know, why not?” he added.
President Nicholas Maduro, whose forces appear to have had knowledge of the
attack before it took place, is certain who was behind it. “The United States
government is fully and completely involved in this defeated raid,” he said,
describing it as a “covert operation ordered by Donald Trump,” supported by
Colombian President Ivan Duque and self-declared U.S.-backed “interim
president” Juan Guaidó, outsourced to “professional American mercenaries” on a
mission to assassinate him.
Trump officially denied all knowledge of the weekend’s events. But Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo contradicted the president’s words on Wednesday, stating only
that “there was no U.S. government direct involvement,” although he did admit
that he had known who bankrolled the failed project, promising to divulge the
information “at an appropriate time.”
However, in an interview with CNN on Wednesday, one of the coup’s organizers,
Juan José Rendon, may have let slip that the Trump administration was even more
heavily involved than it concedes. Referring to a $212.9 million contract they
signed with Guaidó in October to overthrow the government, Rendon explained
that it was above board as they were merely capturing and delivering to justice
members of the Maduro regime who have an arrest warrant in the United States.
The problem is that those warrants, along with the $15 million bounty placed on
Maduro’s head, were only made public in March. Therefore, if Rendon spoke
correctly, it indicates his team may have had months of contact and cooperation
with the U.S. Department of State.
The two Americans captured have been named as Airan Berry and Luke Denman. Both
are ex-Special Forces and honed their skills in the U.S. wars in the Middle
East. Denman’s family made an impassioned plea for his safe return. “He
deserves to come home,” said his brother Mark, claiming that, “Luke’s
motivation has always been to help others in any way he can… He thinks of kids
who are being harmed and innocent people who are suffering and I’m sure this
was his motivation to do this.” Perhaps he had not watched Denman’s interview
broadcast on Venezuelan television, because the 34-year-old Texan said he
participated after the promise of being paid between $50-100,000 for the job,
describing himself as a “mercenary” for hire.
Both Berry and Denman worked for Silvercorp USA, a private security firm set up
in 2018 by another former soldier, Jordan Goudreau. The company began by trying
to sell school security services, but Goudreau and his men diversified, even
being directly employed as private security guards by the Trump team at their
rallies.
Italien Feeld 🧊
@julianfeeld
If you were to tell me that a QAnon guy (Airan Seth Berry followed hashtags
QArmy and QAnon8kun on twitter) would end up on Venezuelan state media
confessing to a coup — in the middle of COVID — I would have been like lol
gtfo. But here we are.
View image on Twitter
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While the White House might officially deny direct involvement in the latest
coup attempt, it is difficult to see what stronger evidence could come out
directly implicating them. For a number of decades, U.S. regime change
operations have been outsourced to semi-private companies and NGOs, rather than
directly employing government officials, giving the government a paper-thin
veneer of plausible deniability. The founder of the National Endowment for
Democracy, Allen Weinstein noted of his organization, “A lot of what we do
today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.” Thus, this is exactly the
maximum extent of evidence that any modern covert regime change operation has
linking it to the government.
The Trump administration refuses to recognize Maduro, despite his election
victories, instead, propping up deeply unpopular right-wing politician Juan
Guaidó as the ruler, despite his failure to control or command anything inside
the country. The U.S. has a long history of supporting coups against the
socialist government. In 2002, it bankrolled a briefly-successful ouster of
Hugo Chavez, only for it to be rolled back almost immediately through mass
popular mobilization. Since then, it has continued to fund, train and nurture
virtually every opposition politician and organization, more or less openly.
Thus, the question of whether the operation was directly organized in
Washington D.C. is moot, because, as with so many other botched power grabs, it
would never have happened without the implicit and explicit support of the
power of the U.S. empire.
