3 ms·

So is this being done on purpose? Just a coincidence? If former, why is USA so good at toppling governments? Or does this happen all the time done by all sorts

So is this being done on purpose? Just a coincidence? If former, why is USA so good at toppling governments? Or does this happen all the time done by all sorts of country? Hard to tell if it's selective bias or if USA is just good at this.

gumby 5y ago
The percentage of people trained who go on to stage coups is so tiny I think it’s hard to reach the conclusion the Intercept is making.
- uoaei 5y ago
  That's not the interesting metric, though. In fact it is destined for nothing but un-informativity. What is interesting is, among all military members who are trained by foreign governments, how many of the US-trained ones go on to stage coups vs those trained by other nations? Along these lines, there is a very disturbing pattern.
  - gumby 5y ago
    Other countries that have the same policy (most notably France, Britain, and, historically, Prussia) have the same kind of record, and it still seems like a pittance, percentagewise. The US has a lot of (eroding) institutional infrastructure to reduce the chances of it happening at home, and throughout the republic some have expressed an interest or tried, most notably during the US civil war when about a third of the West Point graduate generals who fought were on the Confederate side. The the coup plot in 1933 the very general the plotters wanted to recruit blocked it. https://www.justsecurity.org/44479/tangled-history-confederate-generals-west-point-army-robert-e-lee/ https://www.justsecurity.org/44479/tangled-history-confedera...
jessaustin 5y ago
The idea is to sell more weapons manufactured by USA firms. Conflict in general is good for that, but conflict in which one or more of the combatants was trained and/or put in power by USA is even better. It's possible that other nations do this, and certainly some of the colonial European powers did in the past, but no one does it on the scale that we do.
- uoaei 5y ago
  Of course also securing (typically extractive in this part of the world) business contracts, and doing so before other world powers (i.e., China) get there.
  - jessaustin 5y ago
    That Smedley Butler sort of arrangement was definitely the idea through the 1950s (and arguably was less disgusting than the racist murder that previously motivated the USA military on "the frontier" and in Philippines), but more recently the resource extraction firms are often simply outbid by the war firms. After all, Chevron has to spend most of its money getting oil out of the ground and into a gas pump. Raytheon, on the other hand, doesn't have to produce weapons that perform well by any measure, (...which may be why our military since 1946 hasn't been fit to shine the shoes of our military just before then?) so they have a lot more to dole out to politicians, media firms, and think tanks. It's not as though we got any valuable contracts from the mess we made of Libya.
nextstep 5y ago
The US has a very well-funded agency that specializes in coups. They’ve perfected this over almost 70 years of experience keeping the world safe for American business interests.
sudosysgen 5y ago
The US is the best at toppling governments because of extensive practice, and it's status as the military hegemon.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
pfisherman 5y ago
He was trained by the USA. The objective of the training program is not disclosed. A reasonable guess would be that the objective of the training program was combating Islamic extremism / terrorism, as this aligns with US interests in the region. Either way the conclusion that this he was directed by the US is not supported by the facts in the article.

gumby 5y ago

The percentage of people trained who go on to stage coups is so tiny I think it’s hard to reach the conclusion the Intercept is making.

uoaei 5y ago
That's not the interesting metric, though. In fact it is destined for nothing but un-informativity. What is interesting is, among all military members who are trained by foreign governments, how many of the US-trained ones go on to stage coups vs those trained by other nations? Along these lines, there is a very disturbing pattern.
- gumby 5y ago
  Other countries that have the same policy (most notably France, Britain, and, historically, Prussia) have the same kind of record, and it still seems like a pittance, percentagewise. The US has a lot of (eroding) institutional infrastructure to reduce the chances of it happening at home, and throughout the republic some have expressed an interest or tried, most notably during the US civil war when about a third of the West Point graduate generals who fought were on the Confederate side. The the coup plot in 1933 the very general the plotters wanted to recruit blocked it. https://www.justsecurity.org/44479/tangled-history-confederate-generals-west-point-army-robert-e-lee/ https://www.justsecurity.org/44479/tangled-history-confedera...

jessaustin 5y ago

The idea is to sell more weapons manufactured by USA firms. Conflict in general is good for that, but conflict in which one or more of the combatants was trained and/or put in power by USA is even better. It's possible that other nations do this, and certainly some of the colonial European powers did in the past, but no one does it on the scale that we do.

uoaei 5y ago
Of course also securing (typically extractive in this part of the world) business contracts, and doing so before other world powers (i.e., China) get there.
- jessaustin 5y ago
  That Smedley Butler sort of arrangement was definitely the idea through the 1950s (and arguably was less disgusting than the racist murder that previously motivated the USA military on "the frontier" and in Philippines), but more recently the resource extraction firms are often simply outbid by the war firms. After all, Chevron has to spend most of its money getting oil out of the ground and into a gas pump. Raytheon, on the other hand, doesn't have to produce weapons that perform well by any measure, (...which may be why our military since 1946 hasn't been fit to shine the shoes of our military just before then?) so they have a lot more to dole out to politicians, media firms, and think tanks. It's not as though we got any valuable contracts from the mess we made of Libya.

nextstep 5y ago

The US has a very well-funded agency that specializes in coups. They’ve perfected this over almost 70 years of experience keeping the world safe for American business interests.

sudosysgen 5y ago

The US is the best at toppling governments because of extensive practice, and it's status as the military hegemon.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

pfisherman 5y ago

He was trained by the USA. The objective of the training program is not disclosed. A reasonable guess would be that the objective of the training program was combating Islamic extremism / terrorism, as this aligns with US interests in the region. Either way the conclusion that this he was directed by the US is not supported by the facts in the article.