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On Wednesday, the House will vote on Concurrent Resolution 61 to exercise the War Powers Act in response to President Trump’s extrajudicial killings of Venezuelan and other Latin Americans on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific.
95 such people, some of whom have been identified as fishermen, have been thusly executed before being accused of drug trafficking without evidence.
The killings have been the kinetic manifestation of the Pentagon’s military buildup in the southern Caribbean near Venezuela, a country the President has threatened to attack without rationale. In response, the lower and upper chambers of Congress have put together a pair of bills that would force the President to “remove US Armed Forces from hostilities with any presidentially designated terrorist organization in the Western Hemisphere unless a declaration of war or authorization to use military force for such purpose has been enacted”.
The right to make war was given to the Congress under the Constitution, and reinforced under the 1973 War Powers Act, and it is pursuant to that legislation that Rep. Gregory Meeks (D – NY) and a coalition of 40 cosponsors have introduced H. Con. Res. 61. The entirely-Democratic coalition will bring the bill to the floor for a vote on Wednesday following 1 hour of debate.
It will also include a vote and debate on H. Con. Res. 64, which is a second piece of legislation on the War Powers Act, sponsored by James McGovern (D – MA) but which has the support of several Republican Reps: Thomas Massie (KY), Don Bacon (NE), and Marjorie Taylor Green (GA).
The difference between the two is that 61 aims to stop the bombing of boats, while 64 aims to block the aggression against Venezuela entirely.
“The Trump Administration has not provided a credible rationale for its 21 unauthorized military strikes on vessels in the Western Hemisphere, which have resulted in the extrajudicial killings of dozens of individuals,” Meeks and other high-ranking Democrats in the House said in a statement when the legislation was introduced on November 18th.
On December 3rd, a bipartisan group of senators introduced a War Powers Act Resolution in the upper house of the same kind: to stop the oncoming potential for war in Venezuela, and the boat killings at sea. It was authored by Tim Kaine (D – VA), Rand Paul (R – KY), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D – NY), and Adam Schiff (D – CA).
“Although President Trump campaigned on no more wars, he and his Administration are unilaterally moving us closer to one with Venezuela—and they are doing so without providing critical information to the American people about the campaign’s overall strategy, its legal rationale, and the potential fallout from a prolonged conflict, which includes increased migration to our border,” said Kaine, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere.
“The American people do not want to be dragged into endless war with Venezuela without public debate or a vote,” said Paul. “We ought to defend what the Constitution demands: deliberation before war”.
Kaine, Paul, and Schiff previously introduced a bipartisan resolution to prevent the use of military force within or against Venezuela, but it did not receive enough Republican votes to pass.
High stakes
Trump’s Chief of Staff spoke recently with Vanity Fair about the extrajudicial killings and suggested that regime change is the clear goal of the Administration.
“He wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle. And people way smarter than me on that say that he will,” said Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.
It’s not a surprise, the Pentagon already briefed the Congress in October that it had no intelligence on who it was killing on board the some 25 boats bombed so far in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean.
“The President believes in harsh penalties for drug dealers, as he’s said many, many times…. These are not fishing boats, as some would like to allege… but he views those as lives saved, not people killed,” she said, referencing opioid overdose deaths.
Again, the Administration has never shown any of these boats to be carrying narcotics, and the Pentagon has already admitted it doesn’t know either.
President Trump has also admitted that Maduro and he have shared cordial talks, in which the Venezuelan head of state has “offered everything”. Yet despite that, not only has the President continued the killing of the sailors, but also told Newsweek that similar bombings would be beginning on land.
“It’s going to be starting on land pretty soon,” Trump said, without specifying further, after being asked whether he’s considering striking narcotics shipments on land.
“Jennifer Kavanagh, a senior fellow and the director of military analysis at the think tank Defense Priorities, told Newsweek earlier this week that the White House was conscious of the perception in the US, particularly among its base, that the campaign was not about tackling drugs but about regime change, which is unpopular,” Newsweek wrote.
For that, Kavanagh said any ground strikes would potentially be limited to cartel sites. However, the DoJ has already designated the Venezuelan state a narcotrafficking organization, and President Nicolas Maduro as its kingpin. It’s clearly the Administration’s angle of justification for what is obviously illegal aggression according to US and international law. If Venezuela is a narco-state, than state property would fall under the classification presented by Kavanagh, and therefore doubtful strikes would be limited to small camps in the jungle, or militarily unimportant buildings in major cities. WaL
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PICTURED ABOVE: Senator Tim Kaine (D – VA) author of the Senate War Powers Resolution to stop war with Venezuela. PC: Tim Pierce. CC 4.0.
