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Mercenaries

In The Heart Of The Beast

March 22, 2022 Patrick Carey, Popular Resistance. , , ,
On February 27th, the British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said she supported individuals from the UK who might want to go to Ukraine to join an international force to fight the Russians.  After all, this is a fight between Good (Ukraine/NATO/the West) and Evil (Putin/Russia/the East). In an interview on BBC One’s Sunday Morning programme, the UK foreign secretary replied “absolutely” when asked whether she would back anyone wanting to volunteer to help Ukrainians “fighting for their freedom”. She told the programme: “The people of Ukraine are fighting for freedom and democracy, not just for Ukraine, but for the whole of Europe.”  Yet by March 10th, speaking at a Washington press conference alongside the US Secretary of State, the oleaginous British politician claimed, “I have been very clear that the travel advice from the United Kingdom is not to go to Ukraine...”

Biden Isn’t Ending The Afghanistan War, He’s Privatizing It

April 18, 2021 Jeremy Kuzmarov, Covert Action Magazine. , , ,
On April 14, President Joe Biden announced that he would end the U.S.’s longest war and withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan on the 20th anniversary of the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks. Over 6,000 NATO troops will also be withdrawn by that time. “War in Afghanistan was never meant to be a multigenerational undertaking,” Biden said during his remarks from the White House Treaty Room, the same location from which President George W. Bush had announced the war was beginning in October 2001. “We were attacked. We went to war with clear goals. We achieved those objectives. Bin Laden is dead and al Qaeda is degraded in Afghanistan and it’s time to end the forever war.” Biden’s claim that he is ending the forever war is misleading.

US Mercenary Exposes Trump Administration Links To Abortive Venezuela Invasion

November 4, 2020 Bill Van Auken, WSWS. , , ,
Senior Trump administration officials were in on the planning of and offered assistance to the abortive May 3, 2020, invasion of Venezuela carried out by a mercenary band that included at least two former US special forces operatives, according to a lawsuit filed in Miami, Florida, last Friday. The conspiracy to carry out the illegal invasion was hatched, at least in part, at the Trump Hotel in Washington D.C. and at a Trump golf course in Florida, and was facilitated by individuals with close ties to the US president and Vice President Mike Pence.

Nicaragua Targeted For US Overthrow In 2020-21

August 2, 2020 S. Brian Willson, Popular Resistance. , , ,
The US has launched a brazen, criminal and arrogant plan to overthrow Nicaragua’s government. A well orchestrated plan financed by the United States to launch a coup d'état in Nicaragua over the next two years was leaked in a document from the US embassy and presented July 31, 2020 by Nicaraguan journalist William Grigsby on his political analysis program "Sin Fronteras", on Radio La Primerísima. The new coup plan is in response to the fact that the US realizes President Daniel Ortega will likely win the November 2021 elections.

State Dept Abandons Families Of Mercenaries Detained In Venezuela

July 27, 2020 Anya Parampil, The Grayzone. , , ,
The Grayzone has confirmed that former US ambassador to the UN Bill Richardson traveled to Venezuela on Monday, July 13, following conversations with the families of former Green Beret soldiers Luke Denman and Airan Berry. Venezuelan authorities detained Berry and Denman on May 4, after they participated in a failed mercenary invasion of Venezuela with the stated goal of kidnapping the country’s elected president, Nicolas Maduro.  Mark Denman, the younger brother of the detained mercenary Luke Denman, told The Grayzone that Richardson had agreed to help his family after the US Department of State failed to offer assistance.

The ‘New’ American Mercenary: A Pocket History

June 26, 2020 Danny Sjursen, AntiWar.com. , , ,
Though the bizarre story has been subsumed by other events, last month’s aborted invasion of Venezuela should’ve hardly shocked anyone. The United States has long used mercenaries to do its bidding. They have provided Washington distance and deniability for unsavory operations. During the Cold War, the U.S. hoped this would limit domestic and international protest. Policymakers also discerned mercenary alternatives to bloody, expensive quagmires like the Vietnam or Iraq Wars. Traditionally, most of these hired guns were foreigners – ex-soldiers of declining European empires. Much of this parallels the latest Venezuelan affair. However, American mercenaries and the system that produced them, are relatively new. The stillborn coup exposed the blurred line between what’s private and public in modern US warfare.

US Imperialism’s Decomposition Accelerates

May 14, 2020 By Francisco Dominguez, Public Reading Room. , , ,
On May 3rd a bunch of mercenaries, led by Rambo-like US soldiers of fortune attempted to disembark on the coastal town of Macuto in the La Guaira state in Venezuela’s Caribbean coast, in a so-called Operation Gedeon.  Their leader, ‘contractor’ Jordan Goudreau, CEO of US ‘security company’, SilverCorp, in interview with Miami-based extreme right wing Venezuelan opposition journalist, Patricia Poleo, candidly explained that the aim of their military incursion against the South American nation was to attack the presidential palace so as to overthrow the government of President Nicolas Maduro and install a de facto Guaidó-led government. Goudreau claimed to have deployed a mercenary force of 300 to carry out the military ‘mission’. The mercenaries received training in at least three camps in Riohacha, Colombia, had the full support of the Colombian government that has declared explicitly its desire to overthrow the government of President Maduro.

Corporate Media Don’t Think Americans Paid To Invade Venezuela Count Are Mercenaries

May 13, 2020 Joshua Cho, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. , ,
When an attempted invasion of Venezuela launched from the shores of Colombia was foiled on May 3, after armed commandos were intercepted at Venezuela’s coastline of La Guira, it seemed undeniable that the heavily armed men, possessing satellite phones and uniforms with the US flag emblazoned on them, had been paid to take part in a coup attempt to overthrow the Venezuelan government (People’s Dispatch, 5/6/20). In recent reports regarding the Bay of Pigs–style invasion, however, the term “mercenary” was accompanied by scare quotes, as if these men could only be seen that way from the perspective of an Official US EnemyTM (whose perspective is always illegitimate in the eyes of corporate media).

US Wants Release Of Two Veterans Who Led Failed Coup Attempt In Venezuela

May 11, 2020 Dave Lindorff, This Can't Be Happening. , , ,
Imperial overreach was on full display this week as the US government demanded that a pair of US citizens — former Special Forces soldiers leading a 60-man invasion of Venezuela with the goal of fomenting a coup and/or capturing or killing that country’s elected president — be released from arrest and returned to the US. Bad enough that the US almost certainly knew in advance about this invasion which involved multiple simultaneous border crossings and beach landings by mercenary forces, many of them reportedly sketchy former Venezuelan soldiers involved in the drug trade, who were on a payroll as soldiers-for-hire. But how about the gall to also claim that when the effort fails, the intended victim of the coup, Venezuela, has no legitimate right to punish the perpetrators, but must release them to their home country, the US — a country that has for years been trying to oust Venezuela’s elected government?

The Hidden Plot Of The New Failed US Attempt Against Venezuela

May 10, 2020 By Marco Teruggi, Resumen English. , , ,
The Venezuelan civil-military deployment is on high alert to the development of what is not yet over. According to the government, 56 mercenaries tried to enter the country, 54 Venezuelans and two Americans, some of whom have been arrested and others killed in Sunday morning’s confrontation. The objective of these groups was to attack the DGCIM, SEBIN and the Miraflores Palace. The structuring of the final plan to asphyxiate Venezuela The strategy of Caracas is to deactivate the actions before they happen, to avoid the execution of the coup plans. The captures, so far, have been early: before the mercenary’s entry and during the arrival of part of the boats. Venezuela is facing a new phase of an uninterrupted siege. The bet of the United States is to achieve that the set of variables with guerilla type attacks to finally succeed in overthrowing Nicolás Maduro so that the restoration and revenge foreseen within the strategy designed from Washington can begin.

Silvercorp: Foiled Venezuela Mercenary Group In Brazil During 2018 Election

May 9, 2020 Nathalia Urban, BrasilWire. , , ,
The paramilitary group behind the foiled operation, called Gedeon, was based around security contractor Silvercorp USA, which has been linked to U.S. President Donald Trump. The State Department denied prior knowledge, yet U.S.- backed Juan Guiadó, the self-declared interim President of Venezuela, and figurehead of several failed coup attempts was revealed to have had a contract with the mercenaries, which include two former Green Berets. The $212 million dollar contract between Guiadó, opposition strategist J. J. Rendon, “US advisors” and Silvercorp included “strategic planning,” “equipment procuring” and “project execution advisement”. Silvercorp USA also claimed that they have forces in Venezuela already, training for a terror campaign, which included a threat to the life of President Maduro, whom the U.S. Government had recently placed a $15m dollar reward for information leading to his arrest.
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