WASHINGTON, CMC – United States Senator Peter Welch has expressed alarm at President Donald J. Trump’s mobilisation of National Guard troops, warships, and fighter jets to the Caribbean.
The Democrat of Vermont is also urging Congress to enforce the War Powers Act before the United States embarks on another unauthorized war, lamenting that the Trump administration has not provided Congress with adequate information about its recent military strikes in the region.
He is also demanding transparency and accountability for attacks that have killed more than 100 people in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean.
“The question is: why are our warships, a carrier group, and support assets in the Caribbean? They are not there for drug interdiction. The reason they’re there is apparent, and it’s even acknowledged.
“President Trump wants Venezuelan President Nicolas) Maduro gone. He wants regime change. As the president massed our forces for a war, as he and his associates have explicitly stated is one in which their goal would be the elimination of the Maduro regime, the president continues to refuse to come to Congress and seek Congressional approval for a military action, as is required under the War Powers Act.
“All of us as elected members of the United States Senate have vested in us, under the Constitution Article I, the responsibility and exclusive authority to declare war,” Welch said, adding “let us all accept our duty and demand that the executive be transparent, be accountable, and comply with the provisions of the War Powers Act, and come to Congress for our approval of the military action that is clearly underway.”
In October, Welch voted in support of a War Powers Act Resolution led by California Democratic Senator Adam Schiff “to stop Trump’s unconstitutional attacks in the Caribbean Sea” and urged the Senate to question Trump’s legal authority to take the United States to war.
Welch said he also led “every Senate Judiciary Committee Democrat in demanding answers from the Department of Justice about the legality of military actions ordered by Trump” that have now killed over 100 in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean.
As he waged increased pressure on the Maduro government in Venezuela, Trump disclosed last Friday that the US military had struck an alleged coastal drug loading facility in Venezuela.
When questioned by reporters on Monday, after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump said, “There was a significant explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs.
Congressman Adam Smith, the leading Democrat on the US House of Representatives’ Armed Services Committee, noted on Tuesday that, with Trump’s latest action, he “clearly wants to drive Maduro from power.
“What is Trump prepared to do next?. How far is he willing to take this effort at regime change in Venezuela?”
In an Op-Ed piece in the Orlando Sentinel this week, James Martin, a US national security expert, wrote that the US military strikes in the Caribbean Sea are “not only patently illegal, but they are also shortsighted and counterproductive to American interests.
“While everyday Americans are working harder for less, Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth (US Defense Secretary) are lighting taxpayer money on fire for political theater, and they are wasting the time and talent of our men and women in uniform,” said the US Coast Guard veteran and candidate for Florida’s 21st Congressional District.
Martin said that the Trump administration’s rationale for these strikes “is that Venezuelan gangs are narco-terrorists that are plying Americans with fentanyl, so they should be treated as enemy combatants.”
He said Fentanyl “is trafficked mainly to the United States from Mexico by American citizens in the employ of Mexican cartels.
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