Home
Creators
Search Recent Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register Favorites Keys Review DMs Logout
Community
Telegram ThePornDude
Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

Radio War Nerd EP #229 — 50 Years of US Mercenary Coups + Yasha Levine on Weaponized Immigrants (Patreon)

Published:
2020-05-13 18:13:21
Edited:
2020-05-14 02:35:07
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Downloads

Content

Guest: Yasha Levine, journalist 

Recorded: May 8, 2020

Intro - On radio intros...

10:10 - "Operation Gideon": Silvercorp USA mercenaries' failed Venezuela coup...

47:02 - "Operation Red Dog"  - the failed Reagan-era US mercenary coup in Dominica (see header photo). Proof that "yes, Virginia, they really can be this fucking stupid."

1:38:42 - Ames on other failed US mercenary coups - Haiti, Tonga sand bars, Abaco, New Hebrides - involving a strange mix of libertarian activists & ex-CIA mercenaries, like the notorious Mitchell WerBell III.

2:04:00 - Yasha Levine talks about his newsletter "Immigrants as a Weapon" at yasha.substack.com ...

Images

*Michael Perdue, ringleader of Operation Red Dog

*Napkin plan for Operation Red Dog

*Mitchell WerBell III

*From Esquire feature article on CIA-libertarian mercenary plot to turn Abaco into neoliberal hell

Reading:

"Bayou of Pigs" by Stewart Bell

"The Amazing New Country Caper" by Andrew St George, Esquire, Feb 1975

"Immigrants as a Weapon" by Yasha Levine

Total time: 3:05:35

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here.

Files

Comments

P. Shaver

Yashas back hell ya!!!!

mt

Direct Link to this episode's mp3 leads to Yasha's substack

Will Harahan

The failed ufc contestants tweet was great re: Venezuela mercs

CR

Theophylact Pay (née Buy)

For good insight on 'steroid culture', I recommend the Michael Bay film "Pain and Gain". Apart from a fine performance by The Rock, it gives a thorough picture into the kinds of inept formulations that can come about with excessive focus on muscles and strength, eo ipso, when confronted with certain financial opportunities. Almost as if bodybuilding transforms these people into impulsive mutants that can no longer deal with the intricacies of the 'people business'...

big microbe

I listen to both, but hadn't realized. Would you mind giving some examples? I don't doubt there are several, but I'm drawing a blank right now

A

Great ep! Ames is right the west has the most docile disturbing population no such thing as a back bone truly a large peasant class.

Kevin Walsh

There seems to have been some mis-scanning in this article - for Thos read Ibos.

Doug Cartel

Its interesting that Gary wonders how many dudes get their military bona fides based on their physiques alone because theres a plaque at West Point, iirc, that literally quotes Eisenhower about how the leadership qualities he looks for are best embodied by WP football players. I dont think I misremembered that

teh_drewski

The first miracle was $71m; the second miracle was a further $71m, and the third miracle was, astonishingly enough, also another $71m. Miraculous!

Daniel Poole

Is there a free link to Mark’s bible review or is it only available by paying for the exile archive?

Jim Vail

So John likes Bernie. Fool me once, fool me twice? This guy is merely a plant for the democratic party to keep people believing in this horrific system. Sanders said he was anti-war while he supported a pro-war Yemen bill. He wanted to tax billionaires while not saying a peep about this corporate giveaway stimulus bill. And now he tells you to support Creepy Joe. His goal was to get people to vote in this political system controlled by the 1 percent. And the Trumps, Sanders, Bidens, etc. all play their role to make the populace continue to believe. Too bad Mark did not challenge his side kick´s illusions shared by many desperate people here.

Ellen Harold

Another notable instance of Gideon's Army (for what it's worth): “We have assembled Gideon’s Army, small in number, powerful in conviction, ready for action. We have said with Gideon, ‘Let those who are fearful and trembling depart.’ For every fearful one who leave, there will be a thousand to take his place. A just cause is worth a hundred armies. We face the future unfettered, unfettered by any principle but the general welfare. We owe no allegiance to any group which does not serve the general welfare. By God’s grace, the people’s peace will usher in the century of the common man.” Henry A. Wallace, Speech, December 29, 1947, quoted in Hyde & Culver, American Dreamer: A Life of Henry A. Wallace (2001) Wallace took his campaign, which was racially integrated, through the segregated American South in 1948.

Factory Troll

Another one of these wackjob mercenary plots to invade a pacific island is the “Sandline Affair” (or so named by Wikipedia). Although it didn’t involve a coup, it was the government of Papua New Guinea offering a contract of 36 million dollar to help re-conquer the island of Bougainville… with 44 mercenaries (and a lot of slick gear). The Wiki page doesn’t specify how this plot wound up in an Australian newspaper before a single boat hit the water, but I think anyone listening to this episode could make a qualified guess. What is really interesting about this story, and not so humorous, is that there was an actual popular revolution on the island of Bougainville, where the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) managed to close the largest open pit copper mine in the world and kick out the PNG army, before enduring 7 years of full-scale naval blockade while beating back several re-invasion attempts by the PNG. Because this is such an obscure war, I don’t know how much faith we can put in the numbers, but it is estimated that more than 15,000 people died from 1990 to 1997, a horrific and insane number for an island of 200,000 (apparently there was a lot of tit-for-tat cleanse thy neighbor style of warfare, but this might also be an attempt explain away the abysmal consequences of a 7 year military blockade IMO). The whole attempt to re-conquer Bougainville effectively ended after the PNG government got caught redirecting entire budgets to pay for these Sandline mercenaries, and the gigantic Panguna copper mine, which was the primary cause for both the revolution and the desperate attempts to quash it, remains closed to this very day. Come to think of it, maybe that is why no one talks about this. I guess no one wants to admit that military insurrection can be the most effective environmentalist strategy. Probably, Australia and New Zealand has some skeletons in this closet too. On a rather grim side note. Many of the strongman targets of these hit-jobs mentioned in the episode, including of course Duvalier, went on to live happily ever after (which seems a bit of counter-intuitive, given that they were singled out as the lowest hanging fruit). Both Togo and Tonga have been ruled by the same family, without interruption since the 1970s.

Factory Troll

Norway is doing just fine trashing our own health care system at the moment, so maybe you will see us on Fox News very soon. Our right-wing government, which got re-elected a few years ago, is running around the country, closing down hospitals and destaffing health care facilities as fast as they can. Coronavirus is not denting the process of disemboweling (or “re-organizing”, as they say) the country’s central hospital either. It has somehow gotten in to people’s head that privatization is the only way to fix whatever quirks our system has at the moment (neo-liberalism has clearly replaced socialism as the unstoppable tide of history, as people see it, so the politicians don’t even have to make an argument about it; “of course we have to privatize health care services, its 2020. Oh, look over there! A Syrian refugee”). To protest the closing of local health services, in particular birth centers, some people organized something called the “bunad guerilla”, where people dress in traditional “bunad” clothing when demonstrating the government (all very civil Scandinavian stuff). My knee-jerk war nerd snob reaction was to object on behalf of actual guerillas, but thinking about it, these people are really getting screwed over, and unlike their American peers try to do something about it. Hopefully, they will achieve something more than good press.

Factory Troll

Bob Denard is another one who served like what, 10 months in a Paris jail? After all these years spent invading countries, and still he get to grow old and die in his bed as a free man. It is not like you expect there to be justice in this world, but still, these are crimes committed in broad daylight. Imagine if he styled himself as Jihadi Bob. BTW. Also the Seychelles and Maldives has also been subject to a number of these island mercenary plots. I suppose the dream of carving out your own island nation is something that goes way back.

Factory Troll

Just watched this documentary about the Bougainville war of independence. They are obviously sympathetic with the BRA, but really, you cannot blame them (its the same kind of war correspondence RWN has been calling on in Yemen). I have to say; this is more nuts than I imagined. Village militias making guns and hydroelectricity from abandoned barracks and mining equipment... and winning decisively. Makes me think there should be RWN episode on this war. The documentary is called “The Coconut Revolution” https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-coconut-revolution/

online Leftist Archive Project (LARP)

Yikes, sorry to hear that. We in the US like to think of Scandinavian countries as the social democratic promised land, so it's sad to hear about this happening.

radiowarnerd

Thanks for the summary on Bougainville. It's hard to get information on that.

radiowarnerd

Something very similar happened in Russia in the 1990s. Gym rats displaced the Vory because they were more disciplined, younger, healthier, less braindead. So there are situations where steroid culture of one form or another may work. Invasions are not one of those situations.

k 0

Would love to know more about this, can you recommend any sources?