In early May, a somewhat odd team of 300 made an attempt to capture President Maduro. They were quickly thwarted and detained (including some ex-US military.) Brad Johnson, retired Senior CIA Officer/Chief of Station and President of Americans for Intelligence Reform, delves into the intrigue from an Intelligence Community perspective and untangles an intricate web of the communist President Maduro, other communist countries and the supposed involvement of the U.S. State Department. He covers the ‘why’ and the ‘what comes next.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWe_gAmvfAg
[expander_maker id=”5″ more=”Click here for entire transcript” less=”Read less”]
brad johnson it is may the 8th and
00:03
2020 something quite peculiar is in the
00:05
news there is
00:07
uh apparently a coup attempt of sorts
00:11
that happened and not really a coup but
00:12
an attempt to overthrow the venezuelan
00:14
government
00:15
it looks like the sort of old 1800s
00:18
filibuster thing where
00:20
a group of yachters would practically go
00:22
into a caribbean island
00:23
and take over the place for a couple
00:25
weeks and go home i mean
00:27
it’s just a very it was a very odd
00:29
collection of
00:31
marines or ex-military people that
00:34
appeared to be
00:34
attempting to overthrow maduro but they
00:37
were caught before a shot was fired as
00:39
far as i can tell
00:42
and they’ve been trying to they’ve been
00:43
trotted around uh in front of cameras
00:45
it sure it sure feels like something
00:48
heir to one
00:49
would it would it would did actually
00:51
what do you think
00:53
yeah some on that aspect i couldn’t
00:55
agree more i’ll
00:56
and i’ll explain that and just very
00:58
briefly
00:59
venezuela south american country and one
01:02
of the
01:03
the northernmost uh south american
01:06
countries uh right so right on the
01:08
bottom of the caribbean ocean
01:10
at any rate beautiful country wonderful
01:12
beaches great people
01:14
wonderful place to be and until it got
01:16
taken over by the communists and then
01:18
it’s turned into one of those
01:19
you know rear ends of the world sorts of
01:22
places
01:23
and uh widespread starvation and
01:25
shortages and
01:26
people are eating their pets and things
01:27
like that i mean it’s it’s just turned
01:29
into an awful awful place
01:32
and uh so since then
01:35
now maduro has taken over the former
01:37
president died of cancer who was the one
01:39
that turned it communist
01:41
and they’ve there they’ve got uh tens of
01:45
thousands of russian
01:46
uh uh excuse me cuban military and
01:49
intelligence advisors there and actual
01:51
troops as well as
01:52
russian advisors in smaller numbers
01:55
they’re providing kind of the backbone
01:57
to everything to keep it up and running
01:58
and
01:58
they’re a very valuable ally for the
02:01
cubans and russians and basically the
02:03
bad guys of the world and they were in
02:06
large part responsible for
02:08
about what a year and a half two years
02:10
ago when we were having these
02:11
masses of people come up against the
02:14
southern border of the united states
02:15
trying to get in that that was a lot of
02:17
that was
02:18
organized and and paid for out of
02:19
venezuela who’s broke
02:21
so it was clearly chinese and russian
02:24
funding
02:25
these operations trying to just
02:26
basically attack the united states any
02:28
way they could so
02:29
that’s venezuela today now let’s let’s
02:32
not forget iran
02:33
yes and iran is there as well that’s
02:35
absolutely right you know all the bad
02:37
players
02:38
are basically there except for maybe
02:40
north korea tonight
02:41
i can’t say for sure they’re not as well
02:44
but uh
02:45
you know this is this is this was a
02:47
venue
02:48
with which these guys could attack the
02:51
united states and do something because
02:52
it was in this
02:54
american hemisphere to uh to to base
02:56
these things so it’s a value to those
02:58
guys so
02:59
they’re the ones propping up venezuela
03:01
who would have crumbled of its own
03:02
weight long ago
03:03
so the opposition is uh
03:06
basically formed behind juan guido
03:10
and he’s a venezuelan politician who’s
03:12
been recognized
03:13
as the actual president of venezuela by
03:17
most countries
03:18
but of course that’s not recognized by
03:20
the communists and they’re saying it’s
03:22
you know fake whatever
03:23
and uh so this
03:26
coup attempt was very interesting now
03:31
this was denied uh yesterday i believe
03:34
it was or perhaps the day before
03:36
all this has come open in the la or you
03:37
know come to light in the last three
03:39
days
03:40
and yesterday i believe the president
03:42
united states denied
03:43
it having anything to do with the united
03:45
states of america which
03:47
the government which uh i think that’s
03:50
absolute fact i don’t think this had
03:52
anything due to the government it was
03:53
just too
03:54
small and weird to have been done even
03:57
even by the incompetent people that are
03:59
in charge of the ic today
04:01
even they would have done better job
04:02
than this uh
04:04
so also the uh mike pompeo secretary
04:07
state has come out and talked about it
04:08
and said this this wasn’t something we
04:10
were
04:11
we were doing now uh
04:14
these people apparently the plan and
04:16
they had apparently 300 people that were
04:18
going in
04:19
and led by a couple of former u.s
04:21
military green berets special forces
04:23
types
04:24
uh that were kind of the core of the
04:26
leadership for this group
04:28
and doing the planning and and training
04:30
of these uh
04:31
individuals which uh they haven’t talked
04:33
about too much but i think for the most
04:35
part they were actual
04:36
venezuelans uh who were uh you know
04:39
against the the communist regime that’s
04:41
in charge
04:42
there so this group of 300 people
04:46
um well the plan apparently
04:49
was to uh go and take over the airport
04:52
and some of this is coming out of these
04:54
videos that they’ve taken of these
04:56
captured americans which by the way
04:58
those guys are going to say whatever
04:59
they
05:00
need to to stay alive so i wouldn’t put
05:02
a lot of confidence
05:04
in the information they’re putting out
05:05
because they’re more or less going to
05:07
say what they’re told to say
05:08
uh at any rate what apparently the plan
05:12
was was to come in take over the airport
05:13
hit the
05:14
hit the uh uh you know the palace and
05:18
try to
05:19
kill or conceivably capture and
05:22
take out into the united states
05:24
president maduro
05:25
uh then hoping at that point that the
05:27
communist regime would collapse without
05:29
him there
05:30
which i’m not sure that’s valid
05:32
reasoning but that was apparently the
05:34
plan something to that effect
05:35
now as the details come out this was
05:38
apparently funded by a wealthy
05:40
billionaire
05:41
and they’re trying to link this to state
05:43
department
05:44
saying that it was a state
05:47
department-sponsored
05:49
operation and also they have they’ve
05:52
been presenting this
05:53
contract that was supposedly signed by
05:56
wang guido
05:57
now one way those organization i’m i’m
06:00
somewhat familiar with
06:01
and uh i can tell you right now they’ve
06:04
been extraordinarily
06:06
cautious about doing anything that was
06:08
illegal providing
06:09
any sort of pretext for the
06:13
venezuelan communist regime to take
06:15
action against him
06:17
and they’re being arrested anyway and
06:19
harassed anyway
06:20
and uh that’s what the communists do
06:22
they don’t allow
06:23
uh opposition if they can avoid it so
06:26
they’ve been picking away at his
06:27
organization the whole time
06:29
and for gwydo to have signed a contract
06:33
with these guys
06:34
saying yeah come in and take over the
06:37
you know country and kill
06:38
kill the president and all that i’m i’m
06:40
telling you right now that’s nonsense
06:42
absolute nonsense and this thing about
06:44
it being sponsored by state department
06:46
and then openly agreeing yeah go do this
06:49
that’s absolute nonsense i mean covert
06:51
action programs are done by the caa
06:54
not by state department not that state
06:56
department doesn’t have his finger in
06:57
the pie
06:58
somewhere along the line but that’s
07:01
that’s
07:01
they would not just do this by
07:03
themselves it just it wouldn’t
07:04
it’s just it’s not set up that way so
07:07
the whole
07:08
uh basis of what they’re saying went on
07:11
is clearly false so
07:13
i think there’s really only one
07:14
conclusion to come to out of this and
07:16
that was that this was a set this was a
07:18
a set up from the absolute first second
07:22
it was conceived first by probably
07:25
russian intelligence officers advising
07:29
venezuela could be the cubans cubans are
07:32
famously tricky
07:33
sobs for this sort of stuff so it could
07:35
be them to a conglomeration of these
07:37
guys
07:38
iranians the chinese who knows chinese
07:40
are very aggressive intelligence-wise
07:41
now but this was an intelligence
07:43
operation run by the bad guys played out
07:45
in venezuela
07:47
they went and found some friendly
07:48
billionaires so whoever that guy
07:50
is that funded this thing it’s
07:52
conceivable that he’s a dupe
07:54
but i would say he’s probably a willing
07:56
participant to
07:58
duke the these american special forces
08:00
and the green beret guy
08:02
and to put together they knew where
08:03
these these opposition
08:06
uh individuals were that would be
08:08
willing to join this sort of thing to
08:10
fill out that rank of 300 people
08:12
and they use that guy’s money and we’re
08:14
funding it in there and who knows they
08:15
maybe reimbursed him for it or
08:17
maybe he was willing to provide this
08:18
funding in order to set these this whole
08:20
thing up
08:21
but the fact that it was a setup i think
08:23
is just inescapable
08:24
so the billionaire comes in funds the
08:26
whole things get this group together
08:28
they
08:28
they finally uh implement their plan and
08:30
they go in to do this and they’re
08:32
stopped immediately not a shot fired
08:34
again there’s just all of the aspects of
08:37
this
08:38
just make it so conclusive that this was
08:40
a set up from the get-go
08:42
and now what’s going to happen why would
08:44
they do that they do that
08:46
first of all to try and embarrass the
08:47
united states who’s you know the grand
08:49
enemy from their perspective
08:51
and it provides them a little bit a
08:52
level of defense
08:54
because it would just make it that much
08:56
harder for the united states to actually
08:58
do a program like this and so it
09:01
it makes it internationally more
09:03
difficult for the united states to do
09:05
a covert action program basically to
09:06
overthrow the communist regime
09:08
in venezuela so that from their
09:10
perspective is a victory by itself but
09:12
now the next stage
09:13
what’s going to happen next when first
09:15
of all they’ll probably of the
09:16
venezuelans that were caught
09:17
they probably just execute all those
09:19
guys i mean they’re certainly not
09:20
adverse to shooting a few
09:22
hundred people there communists are
09:23
always happy to kill people especially
09:25
if they’re within
09:26
within the ranks of the opposition but
09:28
that doesn’t even matter they’ll kill
09:29
people for whatever
09:30
whatever pretext they need
09:34
and these americans who knows probably
09:36
some sort of international goodwill
09:38
gesture just to prove that
09:39
they’re the civilized ones they’ll let
09:41
these guests go since they set them up
09:43
and they were
09:43
dupes from the from the from the first
09:45
second uh
09:47
they’d probably not shoot them just to
09:49
not create problems
09:50
and then what happens after that then i
09:53
think what we’re going to see is
09:54
is some additional consolidation it’s a
09:56
way to get rid of guay doe and his
09:58
entire organization because now they’re
10:00
termed
10:00
a terrorist organization who tried to
10:02
murder uh
10:04
the uh the so-called president of
10:06
venezuela the communist leader
10:08
and uh the dictator and so they’re going
10:11
to use that as a pretext to just
10:12
dismantle the guido organization as
10:15
terrorists and they’re going to get some
10:17
uh you know
10:18
fake legitimacy if you will but some
10:21
propaganda legitimacy
10:23
and be backed by china by russia by cuba
10:25
you know the usual
10:26
bad guy players are all gonna back this
10:29
and say yeah that’s absolutely right
10:30
that’s a terrorist group and go get them
10:32
and so from there you probably see some
10:35
additional consolidation take place
10:36
within the
10:37
government ranks you know people that he
10:39
doesn’t trust that are
10:40
judges or professors or
10:44
news media people although mostly those
10:46
positions are have already been fully
10:48
fully consolidated he will find anyone
10:50
that he suspects of being related to
10:52
opposition to take out
10:54
and something that you alluded to
10:56
earlier in your initial
10:57
uh question about this was uh
11:01
this how this compares to erdogan it
11:03
seems to be a page out of aragon’s
11:05
playbook
11:06
eragon being the president of turkey and
11:08
uh
11:09
back in what was it 2016 i believe
11:12
um don’t hold me to that but roughly
11:15
within that period of time
11:17
uh there was a again a coup attempted in
11:20
turkey
11:21
which was of course completely fake
11:23
blamed on a
11:25
religious sect that was in the
11:27
educational business and
11:28
and uh they were they were blamed as as
11:31
the cause of this thing it was just
11:33
you know patently silly to blame that
11:36
group to do it they didn’t have the
11:37
wherewithal
11:38
or the or the number of followers to do
11:41
anything of this nature
11:43
and so it was immediately put down not a
11:45
shot fired again
11:46
and none of those people were or ended
11:49
up being getting in trouble they were
11:50
some of the military troops that
11:52
supposedly were doing this attempted
11:54
coup
11:55
and uh but all of the people from this
11:57
religious sect have been tracked down
11:59
ever since and
12:00
they’re trying to um
12:03
force the united states to extradite
12:05
this leader who they would
12:06
immediately execute back in turkey yeah
12:09
who he’s actually
12:10
in in pennsylvania and in the united
12:13
states and so it’s it’s
12:14
it’s a very very close
12:18
uh uh redo
12:21
of the era gone plan and erdogan as a
12:23
result of that
12:24
fully consolidated his power in turkey
12:28
and so i i think we’re going to see the
12:30
same same page used out of the playbook
12:32
here now in venezuela and these next
12:34
steps will be this
12:35
this consolidation of power getting rid
12:37
of the uh
12:38
all of the guadal opposition groups or
12:41
or any of the other opposition
12:42
and he’s just going to crack down so
12:44
it’s going to be the same thing we’re
12:45
going to see
12:46
him go into there’ll be the punishment
12:48
stage the political propaganda stage
12:51
then the consolidation stage then more
12:53
propaganda
12:54
and that’s what we’re seeing unfolding
12:56
here so unfortunately these americans
12:58
that were probably well intended and
13:00
probably decent guys
13:02
uh were taken advantage of this is one
13:04
of the problems when you try to do this
13:05
stuff
13:06
on your own as tempting as it may be
13:09
it’s easy to get in trouble because you
13:10
can be set up because it’s just a group
13:12
of people you don’t have the wherewithal
13:15
to check all the way back through the
13:16
system and see who might be doing it
13:19
and to vet all the people that are
13:20
supplying the funding and so on when it
13:22
comes from a private individual that’s
13:24
one of the problems
13:25
private individuals are subject to
13:26
pressure of their own they might have
13:28
their own
13:30
uh acts to grind somewhere in the game
13:32
you just don’t know these things so
13:34
you know for anyone that’s tempted by
13:35
those sorts of operations yeah my advice
13:37
is
13:38
don’t do it just don’t do it you just
13:39
don’t have the wherewithal it’s a pity
13:41
that
13:41
probably these guys got suckered into
13:43
this and involved but
13:45
uh it has played into the hands of the
13:47
enemy and they’re going to play this out
13:49
and use it to the hilt
13:50
and they’re going to blame the united
13:51
states all the way along the line and
13:52
you’re going to have plenty of people
13:54
using this propaganda to beat up the
13:56
united states and i guarantee you one of
13:58
the things that’s going to happen as
13:59
soon as this propaganda gets in full
14:01
mode by
14:02
china russia cuba iran et cetera et
14:05
cetera
14:06
it’s going to be picked up by the
14:07
mainstream media in the united states
14:09
and the democrats in the united states
14:11
because those guys are all on the same
14:12
side and they’re all anti-trump
14:14
they’re all anti-american citizenry and
14:17
so
14:18
they don’t care they’re happy to back
14:19
this guy in maduro in venezuela they
14:22
don’t care that the people are starving
14:24
to death needing their pets and
14:25
and can’t even buy toilet paper and all
14:27
of those things they don’t care about
14:29
any of that all they care
14:30
about is their own political power so
14:31
they’re going to use it to their benefit
14:33
for the propaganda value
14:35
and to hell with everybody else so it’s
14:37
kind of business as usual this is what
14:39
we’ve been seeing
14:40
uh it’s a very very unfortunate turn of
14:42
events that it
14:43
worked out this way but i i
14:47
i think you can all absolutely take it
14:48
to the bank that this whole thing in
14:50
venezuela was a setup
14:51
and it sure was nice to hear mike pompeo
14:54
say
14:55
that while the united states had nothing
14:57
to do with this attempt
14:58
the united states fully supported the
15:00
goal let’s get rid of this
15:02
we want to see this regime gone i was
15:04
really proud really proud and pleased to
15:05
hear that
15:06
thank you very much brad johnson speak
15:08
to you again soon
15:14
[Music]
15:24
you
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