I published a piece earlier this weekend on President Trump’s undeclared war in the Caribbean, wondering aloud where Congress is: Venezuela has not attacked our country militarily, but the president claims unilateral authority to employ lethal force — deeming boats he says are ferrying drugs to the United States as if they were warships firing missiles at the United States. In addition, I note that the Constitution vests the power to declare war in Congress, not the president, and that the executive branch (starting with the first Trump administration) has heretofore regarded drug importations from Venezuela (including those said to be directed by the country’s dictator, Nicolás Maduro) as felonies under Congress’s narcotics laws, not acts of war warranting a military response.
On Friday evening, we got more — though still sketchy — information about the third lethal strike on a vessel in the Caribbean Sea. In my earlier piece, I recounted the president’s revelation earlier this week that there had been a third attack (aside from the two reported since September 2, which were said to have killed a total of 14 people). Because the information Trump dribbled out at the prior press availability was elliptical and the information he announced on social media last night is incomplete, I cannot say with confidence that the third attack divulged earlier is the same third attack now being reported.
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