Oliver Stone: Snowden director claims US could have triggered Venezuela power cuts in Facebook conspiracy post

Filmmaker Oliver Stone has waded into the controversy over Venezuela, posting a clip from his movie Snowden that suggests the US has long had the ability to trigger breakdowns and malfunctions in the infrastructure of other countries.

In a post on Facebook, the 72-year-old director admitted he had no evidence the US was responsible for the recent power outages that left millions of Venezuelans without electricity for several days, something the country’s president, Nicolas Maduro, blamed on the “imperialist government of the United States”.

But he claims that Washington has previously been involved in attacking foreign computer systems to wreak havoc. In 2003, the Pentagon and US intelligence agencies made plans to freeze billions of dollars in the bank accounts of Saddam Hussein, and in 2010 the US and Israel are believed to have used a cyber attack to damage Iran’s nuclear programme.

“Remote cyber operations rarely require a significant ground presence, making the ideal deniable influence operation,” writes Stone.

He adds: “We can’t be sure that the US government was involved in this unprecedented outage, but we do know that the Trump administration is engaged in a reckless regime change strategy in Venezuela, seeking to foment a military coup or mass uprising through its creation of a parallel presidency while imposing devastating economic sanctions and threatening military intervention.”