The Venezuelan Coup Attempt Is One of The Dumbest Stories In A While

You might not have noticed since the world is hell and all, but a bunch of American mercenaries tried to kidnap Venezuelan president/dictator Nicolas Maduro. The operation was such a catastrophic and hilariously bungled failure from top to bottom that the Bay of Pigs looks like a rousing success in comparison. This story is easily one of the dumbest things to have happened during a time that seems to exclusively churn out dumb stories about faux-tough guys who shit their pants when they try to flex on you.

It all began with one man named Jordan Goudreau, who dreamed of opening his own private military company called Silvercorp USA to help find people who had been kidnapped, but also maybe to do a little kidnapping themselves if the mood strikes. Silvercorp (basically the generic store brand Blackwater) was commissioned to oust Maduro by opposition leader Juan Guaido, who is internationally recognized as Venezuela's rightful president. The deal ultimately fell through, and the whole operation was canceled ... and then Goudreau said fuck it and did it anyway, even after the CIA told them not to do it, but apparently, they didn't try hard enough.

Maduro loyalists had infiltrated the crew. Six of the mercs were killed, and at least two were captured. Though, Maduro didn't need to infiltrate the squad to know the details of the mini-invasion. All he had to do was follow Goudreau on Twitter, where he was live-tweeting the kidnapping of a world leader, and @'ing Donald Trump to get daddy's attention so he'd pet them on the head and tell them what good little mercs they are. Yes, they are! Yes, they are!

The operation had all the funding and will behind it to succeed, even if it didn't have nearly enough participants to work in a million years. Yet the clues to just how truly ill-equipped Goudreau was to overthrow a Latin American government could be found in the little, often overlooked details that let you know the people you're working with are actually very dumb and bad at things. Like how the terms and conditions of Silvercorp's website were copied and pasted directly from the website of the Masterclass series of videos where luminaries like director Martin Scorsese and author Joyce Carol Oates teach subscribers how to overthrow governments. Goudreau learned everything he knows about kidnapping a dictator from a Masterclass by the guy who created the cronut.

The thing about these people that get paid to kidnap world leaders is that they mostly just want to cosplay as tough-guy movie badasses. They like the aesthetics of jingoistic heroism more than they know how to be heroes, or even know what one is. So, it makes sense that these dorks would bring an airsoft gun with them on their government overthrow mission. One of them probably got the dates of the weekend with his airsoft gamer bros and his government usurper bros mixed up. These guys are stretching the concept of the Weekend Warrior to include dying in terribly planned unsanctioned coups instead of just, like, getting drunk on a kayak.

Goudreau says he has contacts within the Trump administration who were aware all of this was going on. The administration is claiming they know nothing about Goudreau. Now, this is a genuinely difficult question to answer, but ask yourself, who you do believe? The dipshit, invasion-happy merc who got caught trying to do a little coup, or Donald Trump, who continually claims to have never met people he's very clearly met several times, including Goudreau, who has provided Trump with a security detail at his rallies?

Luis can be found on Twitter and Facebook. Catch him on the "In Broad Daylight" podcast with Cracked alums Adam Tod Brown and Ian Fortey! Check out his regular contributions to Macaulay Culkin's BunnyEars.com and his "Meditation Minute" segments on the Bunny Ears podcast. Listen to the first episode on Youtube!