Two Republicans Join Democrats In Voting To Block Trump Admin From Conducting Strikes In The Caribbean

Two Republican senators joined Democrats in voting against letting the Trump administration conduct strike against Vessels in the Caribbean without congressional approval: Rand Paul of Kentucky and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

Their support, however, was not enough to pass the initiative, a procedural step to bring up the legislation for a vote in the full senate: all other Republican senators rejected it, with the vote being 48-51.

Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, criticized the strikes, noting that "using the U.S. military to conduct unchecked strikes in the Caribbean risks destabilizing the region, provoking confrontation with neighboring governments and drawing our forces into yet another open-ended conflict without a clear mission or exit strategy...because of one man's impulsive decision-making."

Republican Senator Tom Cotton, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee and sits on the Armed Services panel, rejected the criticism, saying President Donald Trump is fulfilling a campaign promise: "President Trump stated very clearly and repeatedly during the campaign that he would attack these cartels if necessary. This is simply him keeping his word to the American people," he said.

Rand Paul has been a vocal critic of the strikes, even supporting the initiative. "We can't have a policy where we just blow up ships where we don't even know the people's names," Paul said in an interview with Bloomberg Television before the vote. "It can't be the policy for drug interdiction, either in the country or outside the country," he added.

Paul went on to say that previous Coast Guard interdictions didn't yield drugs about 25% of the time. "So they have made an error, but they don't kill them. But we've blown up four boats now, and if the percentages hold true, did one of those four boats not have drug dealers on it?" he wondered.

Paul recalled the 1973 War Powers resolution, noting that the Trump administration can't launch strikes without approval from Congress. The resolution requires the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of introducing troops into hostilities and limits their duration to 60 days unless Congress authorizes further action.

CNN reported this week that, however, the Department of Justice released a secret opinion justifying strikes against cartels and suspected drug traffickers.

Concretely, the opinion issued by the Office of Legal Counsel claims that President Donald Trump is allowed to authorize deadly force against the targets because they pose an imminent threat to Americans, the outlet noted. It also quoted legal experts who said the opinion is significant because it appears to justify an open-ended war against secret enemies. It also allows him to have them summarily killed without legal review, in contrast with past cases in which they got due process rights.