
Why Would You Tweet About Your Coup? - svenfaw
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/05/mercenaries-arrested-after-alleged-failed-coup-in-venezuela.html
======
cs702
Surreal. One couldn't make this stuff up.

I mean, if I were watching one of those brainless action movies late at night
and a bunch of tough mercenaries paused to post a tweet about their secret
plan to overthrow a government, I would think the plot had turned so
unrealistic that I would have to stop watching. There's a limit to how much
one can suspend disbelief.

The thoughts on my mind now are:

Is this really _real_? Could it be a _hoax_? For humanity's sake, let's hope
it's a hoax. But apparently, yes, this is real, and no, it doesn't seem to be
a hoax.

So... _what, exactly,_ were these people thinking?

~~~
pjc50
The very idea of doing your own private Bay of Pigs is incredibly dumb and
hubristic, complete with all the "they'll welcome us as liberators" ideology
that made Iraq such a mess. It happens every now and again; I remember Mark
Thatcher got arrested for plotting a coup in Guinea:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Equatorial_Guinea_coup_d%...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Equatorial_Guinea_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat_attempt)
(along with various other establishment criminals such as Lord Archer, who
later received a four year prison sentence for unrelated perjury). The Guinea
plotters didn't shitpost about it on the internet, but neither did they have
any real opsec, making it easy for Mark to be convicted. While (correctly)
assuming that the UK would take no action against their terrorist plot against
another country, they forgot that post-apartheit South Africa might not see it
that way.

People talk of "keyboard warriors". Here they are. There's an entire
subculture that believes that individual ownership of firearms is going to
enable them to carry out counter-revolutions. For most this is just a delusion
that they talk about constantly. For these guys it was a delusion that they
brought to action.

~~~
LyndsySimon
> People talk of "keyboard warriors". Here they are. There's an entire
> subculture that believes that individual ownership of firearms is going to
> enable them to carry out counter-revolutions. For most this is just a
> delusion that they talk about constantly. For these guys it was a delusion
> that they brought to action.

This feels like "bait", but I'll take it.

Perhaps the most confusing part of this is that the two Americans that were
involved weren't "keyboard warriors". They were actually trained Navy Seals.
Why they would go along with the apparent coup attempt makes absolutely no
sense.

For the sake of argument, let's assume that this is exactly how it's being
presented: Silvercorp was hired by the son of an imprisoned Venezuelan general
to assist in overthrowing the Maduro government and presumably installing his
father as leader. There are so many questions that have no reasonable answers.

Let's focus on the two Americans, Luke Denman and Airan Berry.

Why would they go along with a plan where it's obvious to anyone with any
experience (or basic logic, honestly) that there is effectively no chance of
success?

Why would they proceed, after reportedly being contacted by the CIA in Jamaica
and informed that their operation was compromised and that the Venezuelan
authorities were waiting for them?

Why would the CEO of the mercenary company be tweeting about an operation in
progress?

What's up with the "gear" they were allegedly captured with?

The photos I've seen from this make absolutely no sense.

They had an Airsoft AR-15, still in the box? OK, maybe they were planning to
use it to bluff their way to real weapons... but that doesn't make sense
either, because the flash hider was orange.

Speaking of Airsoft, much of the gear photographed was designed for Airsoft.
The masks, for instance, are on Amazon:
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DNWR2QK/](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DNWR2QK/)

They had three "Beta C-MAG" AR magazines. Those at least appeared to be real,
but are a terrible choice! They're notoriously unreliable, and there are
better, cheaper options available. A C-MAG is a 100-round drum magazine that
retails for ~$250. Surefire makes the MAG5-100, a 100-round "stick" magazine,
for ~$190. The Surefire is well-respected, reliable, and far better balanced.
It also doesn't stick out a foot on each side of the rifle, so it's a whole
lot easier to move around with.

They were captured with 14 pistol braces. Huh? The whole point of a pistol
brace is to comply with US law - the National Firearms Act of 1934 requires
that a rifle have a barrel of >16", and that a pistol be designed to fire with
one hand. Pistol braces ostensibly are intended to sit along the user's
forearm to provide support for the wrist; they're "not designed to be fired
from the shoulder", the fact that they're the same approximate profile as a
standard stock notwithstanding. What purpose would an accessory whose sole
purpose is to comply with US law be taken to Venezuela on an ill-considered
military filibuster? Pistol braces show up fairly often in northern Mexico in
the hands of the cartel, sure, but that makes sense because those are
obviously purchased in the US and smuggled across the border to be issued to
their low-level soldiers. Here, though? They weren't even attached to guns!
Either they were intended to be attached to guns already in country, or they
were removed from guns earlier and carried along with them anyhow. Neither
makes any sense at all.

They were allegedly captured by a fisherman, shown in photos with a handgun.
The same series of photos show four ARs... with pistol braces. Why would four
guys in a boat with rifles allow themselves to be "captured" by a random
fisherman on shore with a pistol?

Finally, and honestly the weirdest part of all to me - who decides to pack
along every form of ID they have ever been issued when attempting to overthrow
the government of a foreign country? Passports, military ID, even expired VA
benefits cards. There were multiple copies of the same ID cards photographed,
along with individual passport photos (like you'd get at Walgreens in the US
if you were getting your passport).

None of this makes any sense.

~~~
kryogen1c
> military ID

That ID is expired and has been for years. I've got one like it, similarly
expired. The certs on them don't work, and most military facilities are pretty
diligent about checking the expiration date - that's why its in bold on the
front. They're not useful for anything, should've been replaced with a
veteran's ID, very unusual to carry.

~~~
LyndsySimon
This is what I mean - it makes no sense to carry it if you're in the US,
right?

It seems like it would make even less sense to have it on you if you decided
to take a dozen of your friends and try to overthrow a foreign government.
What _possible_ purpose would that ID card serve?

I can see carrying your passport, and maybe a single piece of ID showing you
to be a US military veteran. It doesn't seem wise... but none of this seems
wise. I can't see even a very flawed thought process leading to "I should
definitely bring this long-expired identification with me. Just in case."

~~~
pjc50
Having slept on it I've concocted the following explanation, which should be
regarded as "news fanfiction" rather than anything else, but would explain the
incident:

Part Kayfabe, part vaporware startup, part grift, part the Producers. The guy
spent a lot of time in the rightwing griftersphere, where selling terrible
ideas to rich people is the norm. In North America this is easy; you can sell
unlimited bullshit and the chances of you, personally, experiencing any
consequences are near zero. Alex Jones ran the scam for years until he finally
crossed a line, and his attempts to claim it was all kayfabe "entertainment"
in the Sandy Hook libel case failed. This may not be true in South America.

I reckon these guys were running some sort of coup-for-hire scam. Getting paid
to talk about coup plotting, getting to go to fancy parties among the
government-in-exile. The problem came when one of the fish bit the hook and
wouldn't let go. Someone gave him a chunk of money upfront. And that someone
had narco connections (where the got the money from). And they start asking
when he's going to make this coup happen. Possibly they make credible death
threats if he doesn't.

Having made promises to organised crime, he finds himself having to ..
organise a crime. He knows it won't work, but he wants to do the minimum to
convince his backers that he tried while maximising the chances of it failing
_early_ so the coup plotters can be arrested and bailed rather than shot dead.
Hence the ineffective and toy weapons; bank robbers often use imitation
firearms to reduce their charges if caught.

The large pile of ID is there to aid a "don't you know who I am" blag attempt
against his captors. The tweet is also part of that: getting the president to
retroactively approve his actions is a long shot, but it worked for Eddie
Gallagher.

(Getting the co-conspirators along with this is harder to explain, especially
as several of them were killed, but presumably they weren't told it was
expected to fail...)

------
PaulAJ
I dunno. People read "The Dogs of War" and think "I could do that. Hold my
beer and watch this!"

------
keeganpoppen
surreal beyond belief. well, would have been beyond belief pre-2018, or so,
but who the hell knows anymore?

~~~
pjc50
Prediction: some time in 2021 or earlier someone will livestream or at least
livetweet their coup against the US or a state government. Their manifesto
will contain the usual quotes from the usual sources, similar to the
livestreamed mass shooting at the Christchurch mosque.

------
coldcode
Successful couping seems to be a lost art.

~~~
jim-jim-jim
They pulled one in Bolivia just last year.

~~~
cassianoleal
Paraguay a few years before as well.

The one in Brazil with extensive use of lawfare and the media was exemplary
too. Very well played.

~~~
andrenth
The one well played thing is the narrative that gets people to believe the
"coup" nonsense.

~~~
cassianoleal
Should I start linking all the leaks?

~~~
andrenth
Those leaks that contain nothing of substance? Sure, why not. Waste of space
if you ask me.

------
kryogen1c
This is simply not believable at face value. The author's article history is a
party-line, narrative-embraced point of view (Trump is ready to gamble with
American Lives, Honor Labor by compensating it, Feminism should make you
uncomfortable, et al). That doesn't make her wrong obviously, but it indicates
an inclination towards group-think I find untoward.

Regardless, even if the presented facts are "true" (whatever that means),
there simply must be more to the story.

~~~
AlexMoffat
"there simply must be more to the story" === "it's in conflict with what I
want to believe"

~~~
kryogen1c
Yes, that's what I explicitly said. This does not seem believable to me. Are
you trying to imply something else?

