Rubio's Gloating Betrays US Sabotage in Venezuela Power Blitz

[Judi Lynn]

OpEdNews Op Eds 3/16/2019 at 23:32:04
By Finian Cunningham

US imperialists are so desperate in their regime-change predations over Venezuela, they seem to have a problem controlling their drooling mouths.

The latest orgy of American gloating was triggered by the massive power outages to have hit Venezuela. No sooner had the South American country been blacked out from its power grid collapsing, senior US officials were crowing with perverse relish.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio who has become a point man for the Trump administration in its regime-change campaign in Venezuela was a little too celebratory. Within minutes of the nationwide power outage last Thursday, Rubio was having verbal orgasms about the "long-term economic damage... in the blink of an eye." But it was his disclosure concerning the precise damage in the power grid that has led the Venezuelan government to accuse the US of carrying out a sabotage.

Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez noted how Rubio, in his tweeted comments "three minutes" after the power outage, mentioned failure of "back-up generators" in Venezuela's main hydroelectric plant, known as the Guri Dam, located in Bolivar State. The dam supplies some 80 percent of the Venezuelan population of 31 million with its electricity consumption.

Rodriguez mockingly ascribed "mystic skills" to Rubio because the Florida Republican senator appeared to know the precise nature of the power failure even before the Venezuelan authorities had determined it.

More:
https://www.opednews.com/articles/Rubio-s-Gloating-Betrays-U-by-Finian-Cunningham-Betrayal_Incompetence_Obscenity_Politicians-190316-150.html

Editorials and other articles:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016228631

[msongs]

1. nolt lbn, its an oped nt

[Judi Lynn]

3. I beg your pardon? n/t

[Judi Lynn]

4. "nolt lbn, its an oped nt"

I beg your pardon?

[MRubio]

2. While I'd like to believe that Washington has the capability to shut down an entire country's....

.....electrical system via a cyberattack, I didn't see anything in the article that comes close to proving it did. It was certainly obvious to those of us who live here that whatever back-up plan the Maduro regime has to restore electrical service in a case like last week's event, like most everything else they touch, it failed miserably as we sat for days on end waiting for some kind of update as well as for basic power.

If it was a cyber attack on the computer system controlling the Guri Dam turbines, why not continue to shut the power off here over and over again? Or are we to believe that the regime swung into action and fixed that problem in the blink of an eye? If they did, why did they leave the system so vulnerable for so long?

The South American country has experienced recurring power cuts over recent years due to economic problems and Washington's sanctions. But the latest outage was widespread, at least 70 percent of the country and sustained for more than four days, rather than being rectified within hours. That scale of disruption suggests an unprecedented event, way beyond intermittent problems of maintenance.

I call bullshit on the bolded part. What sanctions has Washington had on Venezuela prior to Jan of this year that had any effect on the power gird? There have been multiple articles linked on this site by engineers who know the system far better than anyone here reading who have warned for years that the country risked a catastrophic shut down due to maintenance problems that have accrued over an extended time as well as a brain-drain of top engineers from Corpoelec, the state-owned electrical company.

The duration of the blackout in the capital Caracas and other major cities also indicates that the nature of the problem was difficult to reverse, which would be consistent with a cyber attack on the power grid. "It was a kill-shot," says American political analyst Randy Martin.

No, I'd think a kill shot would mean there was no way possible to bring the system back up..........not in 4 days, nor 4 weeks for that matter. And sure the problem was difficult to reverse. Have you seen the many videos taken on the night of the black out with huge electrical explosions and fires occurring in transformers and substations all over the country? I'm betting there isn't enough spare equipment or know-how in Corpoelec these days to fix any such problem in a matter of hours. Minor problems in this small town often take a day or more to fix. The western part of the country over the last few months, Maracaibo in particular, has gone without power, or limited power, for weeks on end. Cyber attacks there too? If not, why couldn't they fix that in a matter of hours?

I understand the author's concerns about the empire's desires to get its hands on Venezuela's wealth. Just like to see him present something a bit more solid than this article to prove a cyber attack was responsible for the latest in a long line of Venezuelan Cluster Fucks.