SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
jeffrey sachs
The Case Against American Intervention in Venezuela
There is no strategic, legal, or moral justification for surrounding Venezuela with the most lethal naval assets on Earth.
Dec 13, 2025
As the USS Gerald R. Ford—the largest aircraft carrier afloat—casts its shadow along the Venezuelan coast, the United States must confront an uncomfortable question: What national interest is being protected by threatening a country that poses no military, territorial, or existential danger to the American republic?
The answer, made clear by an array of respected American scholars, former officials, and ex-military insiders, has nothing to do with security. Instead, it arises from a familiar mixture of ideology, geopolitical control, and the old reflex of imperial overreach. This is not defense. This is theater—one part provocation, one part political opportunism, and no part necessity.
Among the clearest voices cutting through the rhetoric is professor John Mearsheimer, perhaps the most prominent American realist in international relations. He does not mince words: Venezuela is not a threat to the United States. Its military lacks both the capacity and the intention to project power beyond its borders. Suggesting otherwise is “laughable,” he notes, because the true irritant is ideological. Venezuela’s Bolivarian model—imperfect and embattled as it is—represents a deviation from Washington’s preferred political order, a deviation the US has repeatedly sought to crush in Latin America for decades. For Mearsheimer, even if one entertained the fantasy of using force to change the regime, the idea collapses immediately under logistical absurdity and moral bankruptcy. Invading a nation of 28 million people, and then attempting to occupy and “stabilize” it, would be catastrophic in cost, chaotic in outcome, and impossible to justify.
The national security pretext collapses further under the testimony of Sheriff David Hathaway, a former Drug Enforcement Administration supervisory agent with firsthand experience in Latin America. He dismisses the drug-trafficking narrative not just as false, but as deliberately false. Cocaine originates in Colombia and Peru, not Venezuela, and the US fentanyl crisis has nothing to do with Caracas. There is no vast Maduro-led drug conspiracy, Hathaway explains, only a political fiction designed to mimic past excuses for intervention. He is blunt in stating that Washington has repeatedly used narcotics accusations as camouflage for intrusion, sabotage, and coercion. This is not about drugs. It is about dominance.
To continue down the present path is to invite disaster: another needless conflict, another wave of human suffering, another blot on American history.
Even those once inside the system acknowledge this. Jordan Goodro, a former Green Beret involved in the ill-fated 2019 coup attempt against President Nicolas Maduro, offers a rare insider glimpse into the dysfunction and deception behind such operations. The effort to remove Venezuela’s government was pushed aggressively by the Trump administration and then sabotaged internally by divisions within the American intelligence establishment. Yet despite that spectacular failure, the narrative is being recycled again—complete with the same exaggerations and the same hollow slogans about protecting freedom. Goodro’s own admission is unambiguous: Venezuela poses no military threat to the United States. Repeating failed strategies does not make them more credible; it merely exposes the compulsions driving them.
If the military and narcotics arguments fail, the economic one becomes impossible to ignore. Professor Jeffrey Sachs, one of the world’s most respected economists, calls out the interventionist posture for what it is: a resource-driven gambit. The aim is not humanitarian aid, nor national security, nor democracy—it is control over one of the world’s largest oil reserves. Sachs warns that the moral veneer placed over this pursuit is dangerously thin. To blockade, bomb, or invade a sovereign country under such distortions is not simply misguided; it is, in his words, “the epitome of gangsterism.” The cost would be human suffering on a mass scale—suffering already amplified by years of sanctions—and the benefits would accrue not to the Venezuelan people, but to those seeking to reshape the hemisphere for profit.
While these foreign provocations unfold, an equally disturbing drama plays out at home. A number of Democratic lawmakers—many with backgrounds in the military or intelligence services—issued a sober warning to US service members: Illegal orders must not be obeyed. They reminded the armed forces that loyalty lies first with the Constitution. Instead of engaging that foundational principle, President Donald Trump responded by accusing them of sedition and musing that such dissent might warrant the death penalty. No president who respects the rule of law speaks this way. Such rhetoric is not an expression of strength; it is a hint of despotism.
The irony is that the Americans telling the truth about Venezuela are not radicals or fringe theorists. They are sober-minded public servants and scholars—people like Sachs, Mearsheimer, Hathaway, and Goodro—whose assessments reflect America at its best: skeptical of power, loyal to constitutional principles, and unwilling to manufacture enemies where none exist. Their voices stand in stark contrast to those who believe that power confers moral exemption. Trump’s saber-rattling does not embody American values—it betrays them.
There is no strategic, legal, or moral justification for surrounding Venezuela with the most lethal naval assets on Earth. The Gerald R. Ford is not defending American shores; it is intimidating a smaller nation whose only “crime” is political independence. The United States must withdraw its fleet. It must halt its reckless rhetoric. And President Trump—whether sitting in the Oval Office or aspiring to return to it—must apologize to the lawmakers defending constitutional duty and make unambiguously clear that illegal orders will not be tolerated.
To continue down the present path is to invite disaster: another needless conflict, another wave of human suffering, another blot on American history. The case against intervention is not complicated. It is not partisan. It is not abstract. It is moral—and it is overwhelming.
Keep ReadingShow Less
As Israeli Genocide Intensifies, Majority of Americans Support Palestinian Statehood
"Israel has lost the support of the world, including the American people," said policy analyst Jeffrey Sachs.
Aug 20, 2025
As the US backs Israel's plans to occupy Gaza and expand illegal settlements in the West Bank, a solid majority of Americans say the world should recognize a Palestinian state.
According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll published on Wednesday, 58% of Americans believe that every country in the United Nations should recognize a Palestinian state, compared with just 33% who said they should not and 9% who said they were unsure.
In recent weeks, as Israel's blockade of humanitarian aid has inflicted mass starvation across the enclave, many American allies—including Canada, the UK, and France—have broken with the US by indicating their intent to recognize the State of Palestine. In total, 147 of the UN's 193 member states—over 75%—now recognize Palestine as a sovereign nation.
Last week, the foreign ministers of 26 states signed onto a statement that the crisis in Gaza has reached "unimaginable levels" and called on Israel to allow unrestricted humanitarian aid into the strip. As of Tuesday, the Gaza Health Ministry reported that 266 people, including 122 children, had been starved to death as a result of the blockade.
In Gaza City, where Israel has begun a devastating campaign of bombing, shelling, and shooting civilians and demolishing their homes, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) reported Friday that malnutrition has reached 21.5%, "meaning nearly one in five young children is now malnourished."
Amnesty International says the rise in malnutrition is the result of a "deliberate campaign of starvation" by Israel aimed at "systematically destroying the health, well-being, and social fabric of Palestinian life." Israeli human rights groups, including B'Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, have described their nation's military actions as "genocide."
While the administration of US President Donald Trump, the Republican Party, and many Democrats continue to back Israel's actions to the hilt, they are increasingly out of step with the views of the American public.
In a July 29 Gallup poll, just 32% said they approved of Israel's military actions in Gaza, while 60% disapproved. The decline in support among Democrats is especially striking: Where 36% said they supported Israel's actions in October 2023, that number has plummeted to just 8%.
But unlike elsewhere in the world, this has not resulted in a sea change among politicians. Just 13 House Democrats signed onto a letter earlier this month calling on the Trump administration to recognize Palestinian statehood.
Israel has meanwhile moved forward with actions explicitly aimed at making a Palestinian state impossible.
On Wednesday, Israel gave the final approval for a massive new illegal settlement in the West Bank known as E1, which slices the Palestinian territory in two and cuts off Palestinian communities between Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley.
Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich has championed the proposal, saying it "buries the idea of a Palestinian state."
Trump and US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee have reportedly given approval to the plan, as part of a reversal in the decades-old US policy opposing Israel's settlements in the West Bank, which violate international law.
International business professor Avraham Shama argued in The Hill on Wednesday that Israel's "increasingly brutal" actions will only continue to galvanize the world toward the plight of the Palestinians.
"Soon, the Palestinian people will be recognized as a sovereign nation in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank by most countries. They now have the political and moral momentum toward achieving this goal," Shama said. "The case for Palestinian independence has been getting clearer and more urgent with every Israeli bombing of mostly innocent Gazans, and with every death from starvation caused by Israel's withholding of food."
Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, told Common Dreams that through its continued support for Israel, the US government is increasingly isolating itself.
"Israel has lost the support of the world, including the American people," Sachs said. "Israel's genocide has made it a pariah state, propped up by the White House over the objections of the American people."
"The only way to peace, and to rescue Israel from its murderous ways," he said, "is to implement the two-state solution immediately, as almost all of the world demands. It's now up to Trump to end US complicity in the genocide and to recognize Palestine."
Keep ReadingShow Less
From Genocide Joe to Omnicide Joe
Whether heralded or reviled, Biden’s supposed restraint during the Ukraine war has steadily faded, with more and more dangerous escalation in its place.
Nov 25, 2024
President Biden has never wavered from approving huge arms shipments to Israel during more than 13 months of mass murder and deliberate starvation of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Biden’s crucial role earned him the name “Genocide Joe.”
That nickname might seem shrill, but it’s valid. Although Biden will not be brought to justice for serving as a key accomplice to the horrific crimes against humanity that continue in Gaza, the label sticks—and candid historians will condemn him as a direct enabler of genocide.
Biden could also qualify for another nickname, which according to Google was never published before this article: “Omnicide Joe.”
In contrast to the Genocide Joe sobriquet, which events have already proven apt, Omnicide Joe is a bit anticipatory. That’s inevitable, because if the cascading effects of his foreign policy end up as key factors in nuclear annihilation, historians will not be around to assess his culpability for omnicide—defined as “the destruction of all life or all human life.”
That definition scarcely overstates what scientists tell us would result from an exchange of nuclear weapons. Researchers have discovered that “nuclear winter” would quickly set in across the globe, blotting out sunlight and wiping out agriculture, with a human survival rate of perhaps 1 or 2 percent.
While Russia’s invasion and horrible war in Ukraine should be condemned, Biden has compounded Putin’s crimes by giving much higher priority to Washington’s cold-war mania than to negotiation for peace—or to mitigation of escalating risks of nuclear war.
With everything—literally everything—at stake, you might think that averting thermonuclear war between the world’s two nuclear superpowers, Russia and the United States, would be high on a president’s to-do list. But that hardly has been the case with Joe Biden since he first pulled up a chair at the Oval Office desk.
In fact, Biden has done a lot during the first years of this decade to inflame the realistic fears of nuclear war. His immediate predecessor Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of two vital treaties -- Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces and Open Skies -- and Biden did nothing to reinstate them. Likewise, Trump killed the Iran nuclear deal negotiated during the Obama administration, and Biden let it stay dead.
Instead of fulfilling his 2020 campaign promise to adopt a U.S. policy of no-first-use of nuclear weapons, two years ago Biden signed off on the Nuclear Posture Review policy document that explicitly declares the opposite. Last year, under the euphemism of “modernization,” the U.S. government spent $51 billion -- more than every other nuclear-armed country combined -- updating and sustaining its nuclear arsenal, gaining profligate momentum in a process that’s set to continue for decades to come.
Before and after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022, Biden showed a distinct lack of interest in actual diplomacy to prevent the war or to end it. Three days before the invasion, writing in the Financial Times, Jeffrey Sachs pointed out: “Biden has said repeatedly that the U.S. is open to diplomacy with Russia, but on the issue that Moscow has most emphasized—NATO enlargement—there has been no American diplomacy at all. [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has repeatedly demanded that the U.S. forswear NATO’s enlargement into Ukraine, while Biden has repeatedly asserted that membership of the alliance is Ukraine’s choice.”
While Russia’s invasion and horrible war in Ukraine should be condemned, Biden has compounded Putin’s crimes by giving much higher priority to Washington’s cold-war mania than to negotiation for peace—or to mitigation of escalating risks of nuclear war.
From the outset, Biden scarcely acknowledged that the survival of humanity was put at higher risk by the Ukraine war. In his first State of the Union speech, a week after the invasion, Biden devoted much of his oratory to the Ukraine conflict without saying a word about the heightened danger that it might trigger the use of nuclear weapons.
During the next three months, the White House posted more than 60 presidential statements, documents and communiques about the war in Ukraine. They all shared with his State of the Union address a stunning characteristic -- the complete absence of any mention of nuclear weapons or nuclear war dangers—even though many experts gauged those dangers as being the worst they’d been since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
With everything—literally everything—at stake, you might think that averting thermonuclear war between the world’s two nuclear superpowers, Russia and the United States, would be high on a president’s to-do list.
With occasional muted references to not wanting a U.S. military clash with nuclear-armed Russia, during the last 33 months the Biden administration has said it did not want to cross its own red lines—and then has repeatedly proceeded to do so.
A week ago superhawk John Bolton, a former national security advisor to President Trump, summarized the process on CNN while bemoaning that Biden’s reckless escalation hasn’t been even more reckless: “It’s been one long public debate after another, going back to ‘Shall we supply ATACMS [ballistic missiles] to the Ukrainians at all?’ First it’s no, then there’s a debate, then there’s yes. ‘Should we supply the Ukrainians Abrams tanks?’ First it’s no, then there’s a long debate, then it’s yes. ‘Should we supply the Ukrainians with F-16s?’ First it’s no, then there’s a long debate, and it’s yes. Now, ‘Can we allow the Ukrainians to use ATACMS inside Russia?’ After a long debate, now it’s yes.”
Whether heralded or reviled, Biden’s supposed restraint during the Ukraine war has steadily faded, with more and more dangerous escalation in its place.
Biden’s recent green light for Ukraine to launch longer-range missiles into Russia is another jump toward nuclear warfare. As a Quincy Institute analyst wrote, “the stakes, and escalatory risks, have steadily crept up.” In an ominous direction, “this needlessly escalatory step has put Russia and NATO one step closer to a direct confrontation—the window to avert catastrophic miscalculation is now that much narrower.”
Like Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken as well as the Democratic and Republican phalanx of Ukraine war cheerleaders on Capitol Hill, Bolton doesn’t mention that recent polling shows strong support among Ukrainian people for negotiations to put a stop to the war. “An average of 52 percent of Ukrainians would like to see their country negotiate an end to the war as soon as possible,” Gallup reported last week, compared to only 38 percent who say “their country should keep fighting until victory.”
Biden and other war boosters have continued to scorn, as capitulation and accommodation to aggression, what so much of the Ukrainian population now says it wants—a negotiated settlement. Instead, top administration officials and laptop-warrior pundits in the press corps are eager to tout their own mettle by insisting that Ukrainians and Russians must keep killing and dying.
Elites in Washington continue to posture as courageous defenders of freedom with military escalation in Ukraine, where hundreds of thousands have already died. Meanwhile, dangers of nuclear war increase.
Last week, Putin “lowered the threshold for a nuclear strike in response to a broader range of conventional attacks,” Reuters reported, “and Moscow said Ukraine had struck deep inside Russia with U.S.-made ATACMS missiles…. Russia had been warning the West for months that if Washington allowed Ukraine to fire U.S., British and French missiles deep into Russia, Moscow would consider those NATO members to be directly involved in the war in Ukraine.”
For President Biden, the verdict of Genocide Joe is already in. But if, despite pleas for sanity, he turns out to fully deserve the name Omnicide Joe, none of us will be around to read about it.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular