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The title is misleading. The first interpretations that came to my mind were that the soldier was American or part of come CIA-led coup plot, but neither of th

The title is misleading. The first interpretations that came to my mind were that the soldier was American or part of come CIA-led coup plot, but neither of those interpretations are true. It turns out this guy is just a Burkinabé soldier (yes I had to look that up), who received military training from the US as part of a project to increase the capabilities of Burkina Faso's military. That's kind of like calling Kim Jong-Un a Swiss-trained dictator: technically true but misleading. The root situation seems to be that some African countries have coups, and the plotters sometimes have intersected with US military training. You could probably write a similar article with similar innuendo targeted European universities or all kind of other things, with about equal validity.

sudosysgen 5y ago
That slighlty underselling it. First of all : "[...] trained by the CIA or something as part of a coup plot, but neither of those interpretations are true." There is nothing we know about him that is at all inconsistent with the profile of someone trained or goaded for a coup plot. They don't get directly named CIA training, they go to training facilities of the U.S. Army which coincidentally seem to produce a gigantic amount of notable figures in coups. Training by U.S. special forces is exactly the modus operandi of someone being prepared to orchestrate a coup, in fact, it's exactly what the School of the Americas nominally was. Secondly: "who received military training from the US as part of a project to increase the capabilities of Burkina Faso's military" is underselling it. He was part of an exceptional number of U.S. military training exercises, and seemed to received outsized attention as part of them. Beyond that, this is exactly how U.S. coup training works, it's always billed as projects to increase the capabilities of the domestic military. So is it 100% certain that he was being groomed for a coup by the US? No. The reason it's newsworthy is that he is just one out of multiple dozen people involved in coups that has received similar training regimens. It's one more case in a pattern, which makes it very newsworthy. Indeed, the article links this study: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022343317713557 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/002234331771355..., which indicates that there is a statistically significant relationship between these kinds of training exercises and coups. So the title doesn't seem misleading to me at all.
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > So is it 100% certain that he was being groomed for a coup by the US? No. The reason it's newsworthy is that he is just one out of multiple dozen people involved in coups that has received similar training regimens. It's one more case in a pattern, which makes it very newsworthy. Indeed, the article links this study: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/002234331771355 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/002234331771355..., which indicates that there is a statistically significant relationship between these kinds of training exercises and coups. So the title doesn't seem misleading to me at all. Is there strong evidence that he was "being groomed for a coup by the US", or anything to support that kind of conclusion beyond speculation and innuendo? I'd imagine effective military training may be helpful to a coup plotter's success, but so is literacy and all kinds of other things. Where's the "newsworthy" articles about that?
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    Yes, the strong evidence is an ongoing 70-year-old trend of US trained military leaders plotting coups. > I'd imagine effective military training may be helpful to a coup plotter's success I suggest you read the article that I and the link pointed to. It actually says the reverse. Students of US military training programs are more likely to attempt coups, but less likely to succeed at their attempt. Indeed, the probability of a coup attempt roughly doubles, while the probability of a successful coup is only increased by 50%. So clearly, your hypothesis is incorrect. The increased propensity of coups cannot be explained by increased competence leading to more success.
    - blendergeek 5y ago
      From the article: > Effects of military training on coup success > Calculating the first difference of predicted probabilities from the logit regression shows an increase in the prob- ability of a successful coup of about 0.8% (Figure 7). The absolute change is smaller than that for attempts (but successful coups are rarer than attempts). The per- centage change in the predicted probability is around 150%. _Successful coups are strongly associated with IMET training and spending._ (Emphasis mine) The fact that successful coup attempts do not go up as much as total coup attempts after US military training, does not alone to speak to whether US military training increases the success of coups. After all, people only attempt coups if they think there is some likelihood of success. IMET training could very well increase the _perception_ of likelihood of success more than it increases _actual_ likelihood of success. Given this, even if IMET training makes a given coup attempt more likely to succeed, if more risky coup attempts are made after IMET training, the overall success rate of coups could go down after IMET training. While my previous paragraph of texts explains that the data that you cite does not support your conclusions, I must also ask, where the data you cite comes from. I read the article that you link [0] and it says the opposite of what you say it says. Total military coups in the dataset are 110 for non-trained soldiers and 165 for trained soldiers (a 50% increase). However, _successful_ coups are 37 for non-trained soldiers and 72 for trained soldiers (a 100% increase). This information comes from Figure 2 and Figure 3 in the linked article. [0] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022343317713557 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/002234331771355...
kodah 5y ago
It's also well known that many of our enemies sneak into civilian and military education. A fair amount of the Taliban are Western educated and are trained in camps run by people who used to do legitimate work. There's an entire cartel in Mexico that consists of a subset of their army that we trained to fight cartels that became a cartel. This article also conveniently leaves out what the "popular protests" are about, which the last time I read on this topic was the Taliban bombarding their country and the President doing very little. So, are coups ever acceptable?
GamerUncle 5y ago
"sometimes have intersected" that is quite a generous a very very generous interpretation of the situation, if there would be ten guys like Kim then we would be asking questions, why should we not see this in this way. Specially since this has happened a lot of occasions before[1], in places like Chile and around the Americas too. Are we going to ignore what Operation Condor was ? Interestingly enough you could do something like this NOT with European universities but with Ivy league Universities and Mexican corrupt presidents. This should make us ask questions about American institutions instead of yelling. Muh Cuntspiracy!! Don't be a glowie friend, and ask questions about amercians institutions and their overlord interests. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor
- foogazi 5y ago
  > Interestingly enough you could do something like this NOT with European universities but with Ivy league Universities and Mexican corrupt presidents. Do it - you’ll find it’s more a factor of the times than anything else Out of 65 presidents 4 have Ivy league studies [1] De la Madrid 1982-1988 - Harvard - Lawyer Salinas 1988-1994 - Yale - Economist Zedillo 1994-2000 - Yale - Economist Calderon 2006-2012 - Harvard - Lawyer Were any of them corrupted by their Ivy league schools ? [1] https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anexo:Gobernantes_de_México_por_formación_y_ocupación https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anexo:Gobernantes_de_México_...

sudosysgen 5y ago

That slighlty underselling it. First of all : "[...] trained by the CIA or something as part of a coup plot, but neither of those interpretations are true." There is nothing we know about him that is at all inconsistent with the profile of someone trained or goaded for a coup plot. They don't get directly named CIA training, they go to training facilities of the U.S. Army which coincidentally seem to produce a gigantic amount of notable figures in coups. Training by U.S. special forces is exactly the modus operandi of someone being prepared to orchestrate a coup, in fact, it's exactly what the School of the Americas nominally was. Secondly: "who received military training from the US as part of a project to increase the capabilities of Burkina Faso's military" is underselling it. He was part of an exceptional number of U.S. military training exercises, and seemed to received outsized attention as part of them. Beyond that, this is exactly how U.S. coup training works, it's always billed as projects to increase the capabilities of the domestic military. So is it 100% certain that he was being groomed for a coup by the US? No. The reason it's newsworthy is that he is just one out of multiple dozen people involved in coups that has received similar training regimens. It's one more case in a pattern, which makes it very newsworthy. Indeed, the article links this study: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022343317713557 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/002234331771355..., which indicates that there is a statistically significant relationship between these kinds of training exercises and coups. So the title doesn't seem misleading to me at all.

tablespoon 5y ago
> So is it 100% certain that he was being groomed for a coup by the US? No. The reason it's newsworthy is that he is just one out of multiple dozen people involved in coups that has received similar training regimens. It's one more case in a pattern, which makes it very newsworthy. Indeed, the article links this study: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/002234331771355 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/002234331771355..., which indicates that there is a statistically significant relationship between these kinds of training exercises and coups. So the title doesn't seem misleading to me at all. Is there strong evidence that he was "being groomed for a coup by the US", or anything to support that kind of conclusion beyond speculation and innuendo? I'd imagine effective military training may be helpful to a coup plotter's success, but so is literacy and all kinds of other things. Where's the "newsworthy" articles about that?
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  Yes, the strong evidence is an ongoing 70-year-old trend of US trained military leaders plotting coups. > I'd imagine effective military training may be helpful to a coup plotter's success I suggest you read the article that I and the link pointed to. It actually says the reverse. Students of US military training programs are more likely to attempt coups, but less likely to succeed at their attempt. Indeed, the probability of a coup attempt roughly doubles, while the probability of a successful coup is only increased by 50%. So clearly, your hypothesis is incorrect. The increased propensity of coups cannot be explained by increased competence leading to more success.
  - blendergeek 5y ago
    From the article: > Effects of military training on coup success > Calculating the first difference of predicted probabilities from the logit regression shows an increase in the prob- ability of a successful coup of about 0.8% (Figure 7). The absolute change is smaller than that for attempts (but successful coups are rarer than attempts). The per- centage change in the predicted probability is around 150%. _Successful coups are strongly associated with IMET training and spending._ (Emphasis mine) The fact that successful coup attempts do not go up as much as total coup attempts after US military training, does not alone to speak to whether US military training increases the success of coups. After all, people only attempt coups if they think there is some likelihood of success. IMET training could very well increase the _perception_ of likelihood of success more than it increases _actual_ likelihood of success. Given this, even if IMET training makes a given coup attempt more likely to succeed, if more risky coup attempts are made after IMET training, the overall success rate of coups could go down after IMET training. While my previous paragraph of texts explains that the data that you cite does not support your conclusions, I must also ask, where the data you cite comes from. I read the article that you link [0] and it says the opposite of what you say it says. Total military coups in the dataset are 110 for non-trained soldiers and 165 for trained soldiers (a 50% increase). However, _successful_ coups are 37 for non-trained soldiers and 72 for trained soldiers (a 100% increase). This information comes from Figure 2 and Figure 3 in the linked article. [0] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022343317713557 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/002234331771355...

kodah 5y ago

It's also well known that many of our enemies sneak into civilian and military education. A fair amount of the Taliban are Western educated and are trained in camps run by people who used to do legitimate work. There's an entire cartel in Mexico that consists of a subset of their army that we trained to fight cartels that became a cartel. This article also conveniently leaves out what the "popular protests" are about, which the last time I read on this topic was the Taliban bombarding their country and the President doing very little. So, are coups ever acceptable?

GamerUncle 5y ago

"sometimes have intersected" that is quite a generous a very very generous interpretation of the situation, if there would be ten guys like Kim then we would be asking questions, why should we not see this in this way. Specially since this has happened a lot of occasions before[1], in places like Chile and around the Americas too. Are we going to ignore what Operation Condor was ? Interestingly enough you could do something like this NOT with European universities but with Ivy league Universities and Mexican corrupt presidents. This should make us ask questions about American institutions instead of yelling. Muh Cuntspiracy!! Don't be a glowie friend, and ask questions about amercians institutions and their overlord interests. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor

foogazi 5y ago
> Interestingly enough you could do something like this NOT with European universities but with Ivy league Universities and Mexican corrupt presidents. Do it - you’ll find it’s more a factor of the times than anything else Out of 65 presidents 4 have Ivy league studies [1] De la Madrid 1982-1988 - Harvard - Lawyer Salinas 1988-1994 - Yale - Economist Zedillo 1994-2000 - Yale - Economist Calderon 2006-2012 - Harvard - Lawyer Were any of them corrupted by their Ivy league schools ? [1] https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anexo:Gobernantes_de_México_por_formación_y_ocupación https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anexo:Gobernantes_de_México_...