America faces blowback against failed mercenary invasion of Venezuela -- WMR via Mentifex

[JAT]

-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: America faces blowback against failed mercenary invasion of
Venezuela -- WMR via Mentifex
Date: Mon, 18 May 2020 06:22:07 -0700 (PDT)
From: menti...@gmail.com
Newsgroups: soc.culture.venezuela

Wayne Madsen Report
May 12-13, 2020 -- America faces blowback against failed mercenary
invasion of Venezuela
publication date: May 12, 2020

Caracas

The Trump administration is facing blowback from Venezuela and other
Latin American and Caribbean countries after its failed mercenary
invasion of Venezuela. The mercenary team was led by a former U.S. Army
Green Beret and native of Canada, Jordan Goudreau, and his mercenary
company, Silvercorp USA of Melbourne, Florida. Silvercorp and Goudreau
had previously provided security for Trump campaign rallies and Goudreau
has close links to Keith Schiller, the longtime security director and
enforcer for the Trump Organization.

Goudreau appears to have answered the March 26 "Most Wanted" call by
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for the arrest of Venezuelan President
Nicolas Maduro and his four top government officials on dubious drug
trafficking charges brought by Attorney General William Barr's
totally-politicized Justice Department. Pompeo offered a bounty of $15
million for Maduro and $10 million each for the other four Venezuelan
government officials.

On May 6, in answer to a reporter's question, Trump said of the invasion
and coup attempt, during which at least two former U.S. servicemen were
arrested, "As for who bankrolled it [the invasion] we’re not prepared to
share any more information about what we know took place." Trump, of
course, was lying, as is his usual gambit. He knows plenty about the
aborted invasion since it involved Schiller and members of south
Florida's right-wing Latin American expatriate community of Cubans,
Colombians, and Venezuelans, many of whom are top Trump financial
supporters.

One of the ex-Green Berets Silvercorp employees arrested in Venezuela,
Airan Berry, is reportedly a believer in the Qanon conspiracy drivel
that emanates from a fringe group of die-hard Trump supporters. The
other mercenary, Luke Denman, speaking on Venezuelan television,
revealed that one of their mercenary training camps was located in
Rioacha, Colombia, less than 100 miles from the Colombian border with
Venezuela's Zulia state.

In February 2019, Silvercorp provided security for a "humanitarian aid”
concert in Cúcuta, Colombia that was held on behalf of Guaido and
Venezuelan "refugees" in Colombia. The concert was sponsored by British
billionaire Richard Branson.

It is now more apparent that the attempted invasion, code named
Operation GIDEON by Goudreau and his main clients, opposition Venezuelan
National Assembly president Juan Guaido, the self-anointed president of
a rival government and a lackey of the Central Intelligence Agency, and
Guaido's public relations flack, Miami-based Juan Jose ("J.J.") Rendon.
A Venezuelan expatriate and the Latin American "Karl Rove" in ensuring
stolen elections south of the border on behalf of right-wing candidates,
Rendon has close relations with the U.S. Republican Party.

Following the botched invasion, Guaido fired Rendon and another official
of his "Strategic Planning Committee." Guaido approved and Rendon,
Venezuelan National Assembly members Sergio Vergara, and Cuban-American
attorney Miguel J. Retureta had signed a $212 million contract with
Silvercorp for mercenary services aimed at toppling Maduro and his
government from power. That phase of the operation is code-named in the
contract as PROJECT RESOLUTION OPERATION. Rendon and Vergara resigned
from Guaido's committee in the wake of the failed invasion. Venezuela
has issued international arrest warrants for Rendon, Vergara, and Goudreau.

If Jamaica or Curacao were not pre-occupied with the Covid-19 pandemic,
opposition politicians in both countries would be demanding answers from
their respective governments about how much they knew about Silvercorp's
activities in the region. Neither Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness
nor Curacao Prime Minister Eugene Rhuggenaath have made any statements
about Goudreau's previous presence in their nations.

The terms of the contract are very specific in calling for "An operation
to capture/detain/remove Nicolás Maduro . . . remove the current Regime
and install the recognized Venezuelan President Juan Guaidó.”

There is a widespread belief in Venezuela that the contract was leaked
by one of the many rival factions inside Guaido's opposition. One power
struggle pits retired Venezuelan Army Major General Cliver Alcalá
Cordones, who had a falling out with U.S. Special Representative to
Venezuela and Iran-contra felon Elliott Abrams, and Ivan Simonovis, a
former Venezuelan police officer.

On March 27, around the time of Goudreau's first attempted invasion of
Venezuela, Alcala Cordones was arrested by Colombian authorities, turned
over to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and extradited
to New York to face trial on charges of drug trafficking, the same Barr
Justice Department ruse being employed against Maduro and his
government. It is very likely that Venezuelan opposition forces loyal to
Alcala Cordones leaked the Silvercorp contract to embarrass Guaido and
Simonovis. Florida Democratic Representative Debbie Wasserman-Schultz is
known to be close to Simonovis and his family and Abrams is known to
support the opposition's Simonovis faction against that of the
now-imprisoned Alcala Cordones.

On May 3, the Venezuelan Navy intercepted a boatload of mercenaries
north of Caracas. A few of the mercenaries who had earlier landed on the
coast were rounded up by Venezuelan security forces. Another group of
mercenaries who landed on the coast on May 4, the following day, were
surrounded and subdued by a group of local fishermen.

Although the two-pronged invasion failed, it is now becoming clear that
it not only had the backing of the Trump administration, but also that
of far-right wing Colombian President Ivan Duque.

Goudreau's Venezuelan mercenary colleague, former Venezuelan National
Guard Captain Javier Nieto issued a communiqué from Florida following
the botched invasion: "The operations will be halted given that a number
of errors were made." This is when one does a face palm and utters, "No
shit, Sherlock!"

Goudreau was involved in another aborted invasion of Venezuela on March
28. He launched it from Jamaica, where the CIA station in Kingston was
reported to have been well-aware of Goudreau's intentions. However, when
Goudreau's boat transmitted an emergency radio beacon signal after it
broke down near Curacao, Dutch naval units in Curacao responded.
Goudreau was forced to return for Florida. It can be assumed that the
Dutch naval authorities in Willemstad, Curacao were also well-aware of
Goudreau's mission since his boat contained weapons.

On May 10, Colombia's military attaché in Washington, Colonel Juan
Esteban Zapata, along with Colombia's chief of military intelligence,
General Gonzalo Garcia, were fired over Colombia's failure in the
aborted invasion of Venezuela and its exposure as complicit in the
aftermath of the debacle. The official reason for the sackings was over
the roles of Esteban Zapata and Garcia in an ongoing illegal wiretapping
scandal in Colombia. However, the timing of the firings in the aftermath
of the exposure of Colombia in the failed invasion aroused suspicion
that the wiretapping scandal was a cover story.

Colombia laughingly explained three Colombian Navy boats [left] that
were discovered in Venezuelan territory during the aborted mercenary
invasion had been "dragged" into Venezuelan territory due to a "strong
current." Colombia stated on May 9 that "three boats of the Colombian
Navy that were in a Fluvial Control Post moored on the banks of the Meta
River, in the department of Vichada, on the Colombian-Venezuelan border,
and at the time they were unmanned, they were dragged away by the river
currents at dawn today." The unmanned boats contained machine guns and
ammunition and were seized by Venezuelan patrol boats surveilling the
Orinoco River.

The failed operation has been a propaganda windfall for the Maduro
government. One of the largest members of Guaido's opposition, Primero
Justicia (PJ), which includes such right-wing rivals to Guaido as
Henrique Capriles Radonsky, Julio Borges, and Leopoldo Lopez, is
demanding an independent National Assembly investigation of Operation
GIDEON. The PJ leaders say it is not enough for Guaido to claim that the
operation failed because of "infiltration by the intelligence services
of the Maduro regime."

As far as the Trump administration trying to distance itself from
GIDEON, the fact that the Silvercorp contract calls for the delivery to
Venezuelan opposition forces of AC-130 “gunship” aircraft, armed
Predator drones and Maverick short-range missiles, none of which are
available on the open or black markets, indicates high-level involvement
by the CIA and Pentagon.

https://ai.neocities.org/WMR00513.html

[John Granade]

Fake News. Just some miss guided dumb shits. Trump laughed
at this even and if we come it will a huge force.

[wakal...@yahoo.com.sg]

Looking at the sheer incompetence that the Trump regime is handling the Covid-19 disaster, I am not surprised at the incompetence that went into the regime's planning and execution of the invasion of Venezuela. The Trump planners actually thought several hundred ragtag Rambo wannabes could fight Venezuela's army of over 120,000.

And why is Trump taking time off fighting Covid-19 to invade Venezuela?

Wakalukong