It’s more about “semi-plausible deniability” than having a good cover.

>Who would believe that some villains randomly got together to
>fight a starfish in a foreign country?

That wasn’t their mission though. They went rogue to do that and then there was somewhat of a scramble to come up with a story. Had they followed their mission the public likely would not have known their involvement.

>It’s not like they showed up to rob a bank. They had no
>motive to show up there other than as armed representatives of
>US imperialism/foreign policy.
>
>They got caught on camera too. Even though several of them
>were supposed to be in prison at the time they were in said
>foreign country.

But the US government will always just say “they broke out of prison!” and keep it moving. Waller/the US don’t really care how obvious it is that they’re fighting for US imperialism/foreign policy, just that they’re able to publicly deny it.

So, in short, the joke is that every mission it’s the loudest covert op possible because the US will deny everything anyways. If the movie/comic books we’re taking the “covert op” part seriously they wouldn’t have King Shark or Killer Croc there.