Pentagon doesn’t know if it trained Burkina Faso coup leader
Capt. Ibrahim Traore deposed the last guy who overthrew the government — Lt. Col. Sandaogo Damiba — who did extensive training with the Americans.
Nick Turse is the managing editor of TomDispatch and a fellow at the Type Media Center. He is the author most recently of Next Time They’ll Come to Count the Dead: War and Survival in South Sudan and of the bestselling Kill Anything That Moves. He is a contributing writer for The Intercept, reporting on national security and foreign policy. He has written for the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, The Nation, and Village Voice, among other publications. He has received a Ridenhour Prize for Investigative Reporting, a James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Capt. Ibrahim Traore deposed the last guy who overthrew the government — Lt. Col. Sandaogo Damiba — who did extensive training with the Americans.
America has conducted nearly 400 interventions since its founding, with more than a quarter in the last 30 years.
Washington’s $2 billion counterterrorism program was supposed to enhance security, but it’s had the opposite effect.
AFRICOM says it promotes human rights and rule of law but doesn’t know why trainees are overthrowing their own governments.