US citizen Luke Denman, arrested in Venezuela during a failed incursion, was broadcast on the nation’s state media detailing the plot, which boiled down to kidnapping President Maduro and shipping him to the United States.
Denman said the idea was for him and the other contractors, who work for Florida-based Silvercorp USA, to seize control of Caracas international airport, and then capture President Maduro, spirit him into the airport, and fly him to the United States. He said there were about 50 people trained for this operation.
Though US officials have denied a direct role in the matter, the Trump Administration has sought to remove Maduro from power for well over a year, either diplomatically or via force. Silvercorp has suggested that they were paid by US-backed opposition figure Juan Guaido for this plot, and this funding almost certainly would’ve come from the US.
Guaido has denied any ties to Silvercorp, and the State Department has vowed to do anything possible to secure the release of the American plotters inside Venezuela. With Denman openly admitting a plan to capture the president, it’s unlikely he’ll be released voluntarily.
CNN studiously didn’t cover this at all at first, then portrayed Venezuela’s govt as repressive and violating human rights to have detained Americans and allegedly coerced a confession. This is media as a weapon against rational or informed thought by American citizens, we are expected to not wonder how elite American mercenaries found themselves detained in Venezuela… it just happened somehow, and their govt is somehow in the wrong, automatically, because Americans by definition never do anything wrong in international relations, we are entitled to inflict any wrong on others.
They were obviously innocent American citizens on a Caribbean vacation, and definitely not “illegal combatants” deserving of indefinite detention and torture in some Guantanamo-like hellhole.
Venezuela should find a little chunk of the Falklands or an island nearby and build a prison for enemy combantants such as this.
that will make a great ending to the movie. our crack navy seals landing there and rescuing our freedom fighters who’s only crime was removing the most brutal dictator operating in the 21st century.
They have seen too many coup movies. On the other hand, maybe this is grist for the Hollywood mill?
How could this result in anything different under the direction of the crack “diplomatic” team of elliott abrams and pompass?
You have a valid point here, Taras, Indeed, how could this result in anything different under the direction of the evil “diplomatic” team of Elliott Abrams and Fat-face Pompass? Those 2 scumbags directed the illegal incursion of a group of US mercenaries; therefore, they’re guilty and have to be prosecuted, then sent to Gitmo.
They were clearly missing Ollie North.
ollie’s an advisor now. but yes he would have had this cleaned up quicker. that jv team we hired from florida insisted they could get it done and for a lousy 15m (lowest bid we received) we gave them the contract. problem is nicky doesn’t stray far from his bodyguards so it could get messy with the next attempt.
American foreign basically models a hollywood cowboy movie. This was a straight remake of The Magnificent Seven.
A parody, surely?
The movie, the real military operation, and the US imperial foreign policy are artless parodies, but, with purposive intent. They to cast the exploiter as the good guy, Nature’s Nobleman. To all but slow witted juveniles, Eliot Abrams-Lee Van Cleef, Ollie North-Charles Bronson,The Donald, Fat Pompii, …the whole team, is broad farce. The reality is mass scale “collateral damage”. As Debord pointed out we inhabit a polity whose raison d’etre is consumerism, with the supreme commodity, Spectacle. The reality, with all its horror, is boring, beneath our notice.
the good guys always win in the end. venezuela better start planning for a new president that we approve of and soon.
How is this different or any less criminal than 911?
911- how it evolved – was based on rough interrogations and one or two intact passports .
i hope this at least convinces people that we are coming after nicky “pockets” maduro once and for all. we do not care if it is considered illegal to depose a dictator who was elected in a foreign country. he is guilty of a host of charges and will be captured and brought back here for trial or worse for him if he continues to elude us.
“a dictator who was elected in a foreign country.” Cute.
Trump says he had nothing to do with the botched Venezuela raid.
if it had been a success, he had taken ownership and bragged about it until election day.