US Senator Marco Rubio has explained the US strikes on Venezuela to the Senate, according to Republican Senator Mike Lee. Rubio said the intervention was done “to protect and defend those executing the arrest warrant,” Lee wrote on social media.
When reports of explosions around Venezuela began on Saturday night, US time, the senator publicly questioned how such an attack against another country could be justified.
“This action likely falls within the President’s authority under Article II of the Constitution to protect American personnel from actual or imminent attack,” Lee later wrote after receiving a briefing from Rubio.
Drug terror?
The Senate Republican majority has voted down an initiative this fall that would require congressional approval for military intervention against Venezuela. The president's mandate to order war is controversial in the United States.
The Trump administration has justified its attacks on boats in the Caribbean Sea in recent months by saying they were targeting “narco-terrorists.” The Venezuelan government and President Nicolás Maduro have since been personally accused of acting in collusion with them. Maduro has also been the subject of an arrest warrant.
The United States has no crucial national interests in Venezuela that could justify a war with the South American country, Senator Brian Schatz, a Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wrote on social media overnight US time, before the government claimed responsibility for the attacks.
“Should have taught us”
"By now we should have learned not to stumble into another stupid adventure. And he doesn't even bother to tell the American public what the f--- is going on," the senator wrote, apparently referring to President Donald Trump.
The US Senate Defense Committee was also not informed of the military intervention in advance, according to sources who spoke to CNN.
Trump himself told Fox News about the detractors in Congress: "All they do is complain."
We stop drugs from coming into our country. They should be thanking us, not saying, "Oh my, that's against the law."
Correction: In an earlier version of the text, Senator Mike Lee was attributed the wrong party affiliation.
