Venezuela

Common Dreams - With President Donald Trump floating potential military action within Venezuela and authorizing operations by the Central Intelligence Agency after launching several deadly strikes on boats near the South American country, three lawmakers from both sides of the aisle on Friday said they would force a new vote on blocking the White House from carrying out an attack there.

Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) last week introduced a measure to rein in Trump’s bombing of boats in the Caribbean, which the White House has claimed are being used to traffic drugs into the US and present an imminent threat.

The measure failed, with one Democrat, Sen. John Fetterman (Pa.) joining most of the GOP in opposing it and two Republicans, Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), supporting it.

Kaine and Schiff on Friday were reportedly hoping that a new bipartisan measure, introduced with Paul, would garner more support from the Republicans.

They said they would force a vote on a war powers resolution to block the use of force by US troops “within or against” Venezuela unless it was “explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or specific authorization for use of military force.”

The 1973 War Powers Act requires Congress to consider and vote on resolutions regarding a president’s power to enter an armed conflict without congressional authorization.

“Congress has not authorized military force against Venezuela. And we must assert our authority to stop the United States from being dragged—intentionally or accidentally—into full-fledged war in South America,” said Schiff.

“Americans don’t want to send their sons and daughters into more wars—especially wars that carry a serious risk of significant destabilization and massive new waves of migration in our hemisphere.”

The lawmakers announced the resolution as it was reported that two survivors of the military’s most recent drone strike on a boat have been detained by US forces, with legal experts questioning whether they are prisoners or war or criminal suspects.