US officials' cruelty towards Venezuelans a national disgrace

Just hours before the failure of the Simon Bolivar Hydroelectric Plant in Caracas, plunging much of Venezuela into darkness, Florida Senator called for "stiring unrest" in Venezuela to achieve regime change there that "needs to happen", proclaiming "Venezuela is going to enter a period of suffering no nation in our hemisphere has confronted in modern history." Later that day Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted "Maduro's policies bring nothing but darkness. No food. No medicine. Now, no power. Next, no Maduro."

While we cannot substantiate Maduro's charges the US was behind the blackout, we do know that one US backed organization that promoted electrical grid takedowns as a way to foment regime change, trained Juan Gaido, our choice to replace Maduro, in the art of political action nine years ago. That group, Center for Applied Non-Violent Actions and Strategies (CANVAS), stated in a 2010 memo that potential collapse of Venezuela's electrical grid would be "a watershed event that would likely have the impact of galvanizing public unrest in a way that no opposition group could ever hope to generate".

We don't know if Gaido learned his lessons well enough to conspire with the US to do just that. But we do know that the goulash US response to the grid failure, combined with cutting off Venezuela's ability to sell its primary source of revenue, oil, disgraces everything America stands for.