By Debra Sweet

Most people not under the sway of the white supremacists in the White House think humanitarian aid to starving people is a good thing.  Yemen, for instance, where 12 million people in danger of starvation due to the U.S. sponsored Saudi war could be saved if aid could get through to them.

But, in the hands of imperialist countries, aid is a weapon for control.  The Trump/Pence regime, with Mike Pence as the bully on the ground, is using "humanitarian" food aid to gain control of Venezuela.  ALL THE WHILE, over the last two years, U.S. sanctions and theft of Venezuelan oil receipts are starving Venezuela.

John Otis on NPR says of the "aid" operation the U.S. staged last weekend:

The operation is also designed to foment regime change in Venezuela — which is why much of the international aid community wants nothing to do with it.

UN Humanitarian operations are supposed to be neutral. That's why the International Committee of the Red Cross, United Nations agencies and other relief organizations have refused to collaborate with the U.S. and its allies in the Venezuelan opposition who are trying to force President Nicolás Maduro from power.

'Humanitarian action needs to be independent of political, military or any other objectives,' Stéphane Dujarric, the U.N. spokesman, told a press briefing last week in New York. 'The needs of the people should lead in terms of when and how humanitarian assistance is used.'

Revcom.us says in Venezuela: Escalated War Threats and U.S. “Aid” as Weapon, that U.S. strategy "amounts to holding a whole nation hostage and driving millions into hunger, starvation, misery or death caused by the lack of life-saving medication to further U.S. imperialist objectives. This is nothing less than mass murder and a crime against humanity." Further:

Venezuela has long been dominated as a gas station for U.S. imperialism. This led to a lopsided society with a highly technical oil sector and a backwards economy with huge numbers of people unemployed and living in slums. Here starving people scavenge for food. (Photo: AP)

Former U.S. ambassador to Venezuela William Brownfield is pushing for even harsher U.S. sanctions on Venezuela, saying 'Perhaps the best solution would be to accelerate the collapse' of Venezuela. He acknowledges that this will kill innocent people, increase malnutrition, and bring 'fairly severe punishment' for 'millions and millions' of Venezuelans 'who are already having great difficulty finding enough to eat, getting themselves cured when they get sick, or finding clothes to put on their children before they go to off to school.' But according to Brownfield, 'the desired outcome [of installing a pro-U.S. regime] justifies this fairly severe punishment.'

Bloomberg News sums up the cynical U.S. strategy: 'U.S. sanctions on the oil industry, Venezuela’s only real source of hard currency, threaten further suffering in a nation wracked by hyperinflation and hunger. The sanctions are part of a two-pronged approach by Guaidó and his U.S. supporters—strip Maduro of cash to buy even the scraps of food he’s been distributing to citizens, then ride to the rescue with critical supplies of their own.'

William Rivers Pitt writes in Torture Fans and War Criminals Determine US Foreign Policy

Vice President Mike Pence, speaking on Monday to the Lima Group of Latin American governments in Bogotá, announced, 'There is no turning back. All options are on the table.' Speaking directly to the Venezuelan military, Pence went on to say, 'You will find no safe harbor, no easy exit, no way out. You will lose everything.'

Under "America First," there is NO chance that the Trump/Pence regime is acting in the interests of humanity.

But WE can.