Apparently, a nation can be at war long before one is actually declared.
More details will be released today about the court case at the heart of a shocking U.S. military raid over the weekend, where President Nicolas Maduro was captured in Venezuela and removed by an elite special forces team, and brought to New York to stand trial on narcoterrorism charges.
U.S. President Donald Trump says they will “run Venezuela for a while” with oil revenues paying for expenses (itself shockingly honest), though Marco Rubio later walked that back a bit.
It sounds like you are telling the other members of the government in Venezuela to play ball, or you will do the same to them, or that you are going to establish a huge military presence and take over the country.
Putting everything else aside, what I fail to understand is how did this happen without a declaration of war?
You bombed dozens of boats and killed more than 100 people leaving Venezuela, struck a dock area with munitions, and invaded the country to kidnap their leader (who is admittedly a dictator who rigged or ignored the last election).
That sounds like war to me, and I would wager to many others, but only Congress has the ability to declare war, not the President.
A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but you can’t disguise a war by using more fragrant words and by not asking permission first.
I’m Paul Martin and that’s what I see looking Beyond the Headlines.
