Date: Sunday, 04 January 2026
https://ericzuesse.substack.com/p/jeffrey-sachs-the-us-is-now-nothing
https://theduran.com/jeffrey-sachs-the-u-s-is-now-nothing-but-a-lawless-rogue-dictatorship
Jeffrey Sachs: The U.S. is now nothing but a lawless, rogue, dictatorship.
3 January 2026, by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)
——
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhZuTOuwKGA
“Jeffrey Sachs: U.S. Attacks Venezuela & Kidnaps President Maduro”
Glenn Diesen, 3 January 2025
Transcript
0:00
Welcome back. We are joined by Professor Jeffrey Saxs to discuss the US attack on
0:05
Venezuela and uh the kidnapping of its president uh Maduro. So, thank you very
0:11
much for coming back on the program. Um, of course. Yes, dramatic events.
0:17
Yeah, it's quite uh dramatic and this of course was an actual unprovoked attack,
0:22
an illegal attack as well. Uh but the the the capture or arrest as the media
0:30
sometimes refer to it as the president of Venezuela has been also quite dramatic. How are you assessing the
0:37
situation and uh what are the objectives of the United States here?
0:44
Well, clearly this is a a blatantly illegal act. Uh but it's one in a long
0:52
line of blatantly illegal American actions. And just in the recent days,
0:59
Trump has been threatening uh a new country every day. He bombed Nigeria
1:05
last week. He said that the US would intervene in Iran if the government
1:14
acts against the protesters in a way that Trump doesn't like. He has invaded
1:20
Venezuela. Uh just uh recently he uh
1:26
created a special envoy for Greenland uh declaring that Greenland will be ours.
1:32
Uh so it's a threat against Europe, which of course Europe doesn't even acknowledge or recognize because it's so
1:41
passive uh relative to the United States. Uh we're we we are not in a
1:48
constitutional order uh in the United States. We are in uh a an order led by a
1:58
military state. Uh we do not obey the US Constitution. Uh everything is by
2:05
executive decree. When uh a congressman dared to mention the US Constitution
2:12
today, Trump said, "What is he whining about? Uh this is ridiculous." Uh well,
2:20
this is uh really uh at least what Trump has done is expose the fact that we're
2:26
at the end of constitutional rule in the United States. What happens when there's
2:32
a thuggish rule remains to be seen, but in my view, this makes the world
2:39
extraordinarily dangerous. Of course, we're hardly at the end of the story
2:44
about Venezuela itself. They have arrested a president. Uh but uh this is
2:52
not the end of uh anything. uh the whole
2:57
history of US regime change operations which number probably around 100 such
3:05
operations since the end of World War II um is a record of bloodshed, violence,
3:15
deliberate creation of instability, uh coups, assassinations,
3:21
civil war. So, we don't know what will come next, but we know that there's been
3:26
thuggery. It's also interesting, though it's
3:32
may maybe I don't have a definitive count of it, but I've not noticed any of the mainstream media in the United
3:39
States even raising a question about this. The
3:44
New York Times, the so-called uh paper of record did not one time in recent
3:53
weeks say, "Oh, it wouldn't be a good idea to brazenly attack that country."
3:59
Uh the editorial board was completely silent. As far as I can see, it remains silent. Uh our Congress is more
4:07
abundant. It's it doesn't exist uh in fact uh in in any operational sense. So
4:15
I find all of this very dramatic uh and extremely worrisome though I hasten to
4:24
repeat we're not at the end of the story by any means of what will transpire in
4:30
Venezuela itself. There is a a government in place. There is a
4:35
military. there is a mobilized part of society. There's lots of guns around.
4:42
Um, this is not a simple smooth takeover by the United States as much as Donald
4:50
Trump might believe.
4:56
…
13:45
Let me say a few things. First, uh all of the various explanations that have been given are blah blah blah blah
13:53
blah. Meaning that they are whatever joke or improvisation the
14:02
United States wants to use for the moment. Uh the US has been trying to
14:07
overthrow the government of Venezuela for 23 years. Uh they tried to coup
14:14
against the predecessor of Maduro, Ugo Chavez. Uh they have announced that
14:21
the US is the enemy uh that Venezuela is the enemy of the United States to put it
14:26
uh more clearly, because this has been a left-wing regime that uh believes that
14:33
Venezuela's resources belong to Venezuela and that Venezuela does not
14:39
have to follow the US dictates on who controls the oil and who receives the
14:45
rents and so on. And so this is a long story and it's very important to
14:52
understand. In 2017 in Trump's first year of office, he said to a dinner
15:03
table of Latin American leaders, "Why don't I just invade Venezuela?" Uh, two
15:10
of the leaders talked him down from that. I heard from two presidents that
15:16
were there independently about this dinner. That idea of Trump of invading
15:23
Venezuela is eight years in the making. The lead uh uh cheerleader of invading
15:31
Venezuela was Senator Marco Rubio and now uh
15:36
Secretary of State Marco Rubio. And there were celebrations in Florida today
15:43
of uh Venezuelan expats and uh others uh celebrating uh the US action.
15:51
…
22:58
The idea that democracy is peace is an Orwellian idea. Democracy by these leading
23:06
hegimons whether it's Athens or Britain or the United States has meant war
23:11
almost nonstop. Now Iran is a project
23:18
like Venezuela is a project like Syria is a project. The United States has been
23:24
intervening in Iran since 1953 when it toppled the first uh
23:33
when it toppled a democratic government uh of Mossadegh which had the audacity to
23:40
think that the oil under Iranian ground was actually Iranian. And when
23:49
Mossadegh declared that Iranian oil was Iranian and would be controlled by Iran,
23:55
MI6 and the CIA overthrew Mosedc and installed a police state. When the
24:02
police state fell in 1979, the United States armed Iraq to attack Iran and
24:12
hundreds of thousands of lives were lost. Since that time, the United States
24:17
has tried to uh destroy Iran in multiple ways. Economic sanctions uh repeatedly
24:26
of course that's why there are protests because the economy is uh in a collapse.
24:32
But the US is the agent of that sanctions regime. Hh when Iran
24:39
negotiated an arrangement to uh absolutely show uh that its nuclear
24:46
program was curbed, uh Trump said no uh we will crush the regime instead. This
24:54
is all at the behest of the Zionist lobby in the United States and Israel, uh
24:59
in in this case. So this is another project they they're probably chortling.
25:05
Well, look, we're very, very close right now. We should understand that the
25:10
protests in Iran are part of the script. Uh, I'm not saying people aren't
25:16
protesting. I'm saying the US has gone out of its way to crush the Iranian
25:21
economy and to crush the regime. And last week, Trump made all of this very,
25:28
very clear. So we I think can expect Israeli bombing soon, or maybe US and
25:36
Israeli bombing soon, uh or some other CIA operation. God only knows. But I was
25:44
saying that for the world, this is alarming. It's not something just to go
25:51
along with. I don't think even though as I said the UN really is defunct right
25:57
now, it should not be allowed to die. Uh it needs uh to be brought back to life.
26:06
And while the US will not do that, the rest of the world maybe the rest of the
26:12
world except the western alliance so-called you have
26:18
85% of the world uh that really should
26:24
not want this kind of thuggery. Of course, as an American, I don't want
26:29
this kind of thuggery, but nobody asked the American people anything anymore.
26:34
This is all a military state that we're in, that is extra constitutional.
26:44
…
A VIWEWER COMMENT AND RESPONSES TO IT:
@mahmoodrumjahn411
4 hours ago
America is finished!
This act has told the world that America needs to be conquered’
Reply
@dthomas99
Sanction and Boycott USA. Dump everything USA and USD. Bankrupt the war monger USA fast.
Reply
@jamesz80
But who’s going to do that?
Reply
@LostNotFound74
Reply
@standtallvets5386
No Country needs to be conquered, countries need to be cleaned up of all their BS and garbage.
Reply
@easy1253
@standtallvets5386 No. Hitler -- Nazi Germany -- needed to be conquered. For the same reason, today's America also does.
——
MY COMMENT: Sachs here states very well the same analysis that I presented earlier today in my “Why I Distrust Trump’s Takeover of Venezuela”.
—————
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.
