WASHINGTON, United States (CMC) – Ranking member of the United States (US) Senate Armed Services Committee, Jack Reed, has strongly condemned the US military strikes in the Caribbean as US President Donald Trump on Monday disclosed that he had ordered a strike on a boat allegedly carrying drugs from Venezuela, killing three people on board.
“President Trump’s actions are an outrageous violation of the law and a dangerous assault on our Constitution,” said Reed, adding “no president can secretly wage war or carry out unjustified killings – that is authoritarianism, not democracy.
“These reckless, unauthorised operations not only put American lives at risk, they threaten to ignite a war with Venezuela that would drag our nation into a conflict we did not choose,” said Reed, one of just eight senators in US history to graduate from West Point Military Academy in New York.
“The American people deserve to know what is being done in their name and why. Congress must demand answers, force transparency, and hold this administration accountable before it plunges us into another needless war,” he said.
In announcing the second strike within a month on a vessel in the international waters, Trump intimated that the US military could expand its strikes on alleged drug cartels in the Caribbean.
“The strike occurred while these confirmed narco terrorists from Venezuela were in international waters transporting illegal narcotics headed to the US,” he posted on his social medium, Truth Social.
“These extremely violent drug trafficking cartels pose a threat to US National Security, Foreign Policy, and vital US Interests,” he added.
Late last month, Trump had ordered the US military to strike a boat in the Caribbean Sea, off Venezuela, killing 11, allegedly carrying drugs and on Monday, he told reporters from the Oval Office that he had strong evidence that the latest boat was carrying drugs.
“We have proof. All you have to do is look at the cargo that was splattered all over the ocean — big bags of cocaine and fentanyl all over the place,” Trump said, warning that the military strikes would expand to land, potentially triggering a land war with Venezuela.
“We’re telling the cartels right now we’re going to be stopping them, too. When they come by land, we’re going to be stopping them the same way we stopped the boats. But maybe by talking about it a little bit, it won’t happen. If it doesn’t happen, that’s good,” he said.
Reed noted that Trump gave two orders to the US military that he described as “astonishing, even by this administration’s standards.
“First, he ordered the Department of Defense to be renamed the ‘Department of War’ – a political theater exercise designed to sound tough while distracting from the real issues facing this nation,” he said.
“Second, he ordered a military strike on a speedboat operating in the Caribbean, reportedly killing eleven people on board.”
In response to the attack, Reed said Venezuela has placed its military on high alert, “and we are one miscalculation away from a shooting war that no one in this chamber has authorised.
“Rather than rebranding itself, the Pentagon should be providing to Congress and the American public answers: the intelligence that justified that strike, the legal authority the president relied upon, and an assurance that we are not drifting toward another undeclared war.
“I am deeply concerned about the president’s military actions in the Caribbean, which were taken without congressional authorisation, without clear legal justification, and without any evidence presented that it was necessary to protect the United States or its forces from an imminent threat.
“Now nearly a week after the operation and amid threats of additional actions, the administration is just beginning to brief Congress on these issues.”
Reed said that he wanted to be “very clear: we all share a commitment to protecting the American people from transnational criminal organisations.
“Cartels are violent and dangerous, and they cannot be allowed to traffic across our borders. But we cannot allow that homeland security mission to become a blank check for war. We cannot let one man’s impulsive decision-making entangle this nation in another conflict we neither need nor want.”
Reed said the initial US strike in the Caribbean was ‘no minor confrontation’.
“This was a deliberate, lethal use of American military power. There is no evidence – none – that this strike was conducted in self-defense. That matters, because under both domestic and international law, the US military simply does not have the authority to use lethal force against a civilian vessel unless acting in self-defense.
“The Trump administration has offered no proof that this vessel was engaged in an attack, or even that it was engaged in drug trafficking at the time,” Reed added.
Queens, New York Democratic Congressman Gregory W Meeks, the Ranking Member of the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, is also demanding answers from the Trump administration for the legal justification for the US Armed Forces’ strike on an alleged drug vessel in the Caribbean Sea.
“I am deeply concerned by the Trump administration’s shifting narratives, contradictory facts, and utter failure to provide a legal justification for this strike,” said Meeks, who represents New York’s 5th Congressional District in Queens.