Red Zone Caracas

     Anyone who's a connoisseur of cinematic cheese, especially the type immortally riffed by the geniuses at Mystery Science Theater 3000, would know about Red Zone Cuba, which had been almost universally hailed as one of the worst movies ever made. Lord knows, thanks to MST3K, we know that's saying a mouthful.
     Red Zone Cuba was directed by and starred a guy named Coleman Francis, someone who, like Danny Chadwick, barely survived in the periphery of the film business. He'd, mercifully, directed just three films and Red Zone Cuba in 1966 was the last one and the only one in which he'd starred. It was allegedly about the Bay of Pigs, an appropriate venue for the corpulent Coleman and, for some reason, featured John Carradine exclusively in a framing opening scene (he also sang the song, "Night Train to Mundo Fine."). I guess, like Chadwick, Carradine was behind on his child support and needed the money.
     Anyway, Red Zone Cuba follows the bumbling Griffin, Cook and Landis. With Francis playing Griffin, an escaped con, he recruits ex-cons Cook and Landis, one of them played by long-suffering Francis foil Tony Cardoza, and enlists the help of a cheerful light aircraft pilot who says, "I'm Cherokee Jack!" They're after a treasure buried in a tungsten mine and somehow, with a Three Stooges level of improbability, get mixed up in the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion.
     Francis huffs, grunts and smokes his way through the entire film only to get shot in the end from a helicopter like a wolf in a Sarah Palin wet dream. The movie achieved something of a cult status when it was resurrected in 1994 for some true world-class riffing by Mike Nelson and the bots.
     Fast forward 54 years in the future. I give you Red Zone Cuba 2

   
     They attempted to invade Venezuela near Caracas last Sunday in an amphibian operation that could not have been researched without unhealthy doses of Red Zone Cuba because the execution of this operation has got Coleman Francis' grubby fingerprints smeared all over it. They almost didn't even make it to the mainland because they nearly ran out of fuel. And they would have been better off if they hadn't reached shore considering that eight of the 10 mercenaries in their little plastic white boat were killed on the spot and two others were taken into custody.
     The failed coup was the brainchild of one Jordan Goudreau, a former Green Beret and Erik Prince wannabe. As Prince should also be, Goudreau is currently being investigated by the federal government for arms trafficking. I guess Goudreau and his mini Blackwater Silvercorp USA was angling for a contract from Donald Trump or maybe the $15,000,000 reward Trump's offered for Maduro's arrest. Well, sorry to tell you, Jordan, Trump only likes guys who weren't captured.

     Plus, there's this:

Goudreau’s comments suggests his work on behalf of the volunteer army may have violated laws that require any U.S. company supplying weapons or military equipment, as well as military training and advice, to foreign persons to seek State Department approval... “Goudreau’s public comments alone show he was exporting his lethal expertise into a foreign country," said Sean McFate, a former U.S. Army paratrooper

     The problem is, it seems Goudreau's "lethal expertise" only works when his own soldiers of misfortune get killed  And the Green Berets trained this guy, huh? Yeah, that just fills me with confidence that JSOC trains the best and brightest. And then there's this:

The law enforcement official said Goudreau's possible involvement in weapons smuggling stems from the March 23 seizure by police in Colombia of a stockpile of weapons being transported in a truck. Alcalá claimed ownership of the cache shortly before surrendering to face U.S. narcotics charges in the same case for which Maduro was indicted.

     Alcalá is a deserter Venezuelan Army General who apparently thought he was Venezuela's answer to Burt Lancaster's character in Twilight's Last Gleaming. But it seems Alcalá is just as dirty as the corrupt Maduro that's he's trying to overthrown and/or supplant.
     Seriously, this is the highest expression of right wing ineptitude. They get into bed with deserters who are no better than the corrupt officials they try to overthrow through regime change and all under the rubric of, "Socialism is evil!". Yeah, Venezuela's economy's in the toilet but not because they employ democratic socialism but because Maduro is a corrupt, inept asshole. The right wing of the United States pretends as if it has a hardon for overthrowing Venezuela and turning it in a Pinochet-style right wing nightmare. But, as in 2002 with Bush, which resulted in a coup that lasted for less than two days, when crunch time comes, the US's erection for regime change is just a flaccid penis that no right wing mercenary group can bring to ejaculation.